Zoho CRM – The Ultimate Analysis [Everything at a Glance]

When I researched Zoho CRM, I knew right from the beginning that I would have to write a longer article than usual.

I had to work with many information and features because the Zoho CRM is almost a fully-fledged enterprise software.

You probably came across it when looking for CRMs for real estate or other industries.

This is because it is a generic CRM that can be tailored to a wide array of different industries and use cases, and overall it is among the affordable ones.

In this article, you will find everything about Zoho CRM at a glance.

You would usually have to spend hours researching this information on the navigationally pretty deep website of Zoho and many other sources.

What Is Zoho CRM? – An Overview

Zoho CRM has been outgrowing just as a CRM for a long time. It’s now a powerful and extensive management, marketing, and sales software suite, including CRM functionality.

You could almost call it business management software or the smaller brother of an SAP system.

Basically, all the other marketing and sales features revolve around this core CRM component.

It is not a software exclusively tailored to real estate but is similar to Podio; highly customizable.

Since it offers many software components and features, I created a table where you can see all of them at a glance to give you a good overview.

This is also why the software is more suitable for mid-sized or larger (real estate) businesses.

You will understand when you see the overview table below and the different pricing plans later.

As you can see, it has different components, including an extensive array of features.

You may also have noted that some features are available across different software components.

For example, this happens when you need access to the sales forecasting feature within the sales force automation and performance management components.

Later in this article, after dealing with some of the common questions about its features and functionalities, I will get deeper into all the different components and features.

The video below will also give you a rough overview.

 

What Is the Zoho CRM API, and How to Use It?

The Zoho CRM API is the application programming interface created for developers who want to extend the software’s functionality.

You can use Zoho’s API with four approaches.

You can use the REST API, a Widget SDK (software development kit), a Web and Mobile SDK, and functions.

The REST API you can use to integrate any third-party application into Zoho.

If you want to build custom web interfaces, you can use the Widget SDK, and in case you need other web and mobile solutions, then use the Web and Mobile SDK.

Additionally, you can use functions to extend Zoho workflows with different programming languages such as JavaScript, Java, or Python.

Let’s take a real estate use case, for example. Suppose you want to integrate the Mojo Dialer into Zoho.

While the Zoho CRM already has many different third-party integrations available, Mojo isn’t one of them.

In that case, you would need to use the REST application programming interface to code this integration.

But luckily, you don’t have to do this anymore, at least in the case of Mojo, because you can integrate it now with the help of Zapier.

 

What Is Zoho CRM Workflow?

The two components from which you can access the Zoho CRM workflow feature are the salesforce automation and the journey orchestration or command center.

The feature itself helps automate operational and data entry tasks.

You can imagine this to be a bit like an operations manual in digital form. You can set rules for tasks that need to be done when a particular condition is met.

Let’s look at a real estate use case for a second.

You could set the rule that once a new lead enters that is interested in a certain property within a particular price range, then partner X should send an email after Y amount of time and follow up with a text message after X amount of days.

If the contact doesn’t respond, the lead should be added to an email nurturing campaign, etc.

So it can be a long list of different what-if scenarios that you cover with this workflow automation feature.

 

Can Zoho Send Text Messages?

Natively, Zoho can’t send text messages. However, you can send text messages when you integrate one of the various text message third-party applications.

The compatible third-party applications currently available for that are Twilio and Clickatell.

Twilio text messages are charged per segment and $0.0075 per message.

 

Does Zoho CRM Have an App, and Does It Work on iPhone?

Zoho CRM has several apps, both working on iPhone and Android devices.

It is not a single app with all the features at once, but there are different apps for different use cases that use segments of the large number of components and features available in Zoho CRM.

 

1) Mobile CRM

The first is the Mobile CRM, where you can manage tasks, contacts, and deals.
It helps you stay in touch with leads, your team, and customers.

Moreover, you can also schedule and track sales visits and share sales insights with your partners and/or your team.

For Apple devices, you can find it here, and for Android devices, you can download it here.

2) Analytics Mobile

This app gives the people in charge of sales (e.g., reps, managers, etc.) access to sales performance data and analytics.

So you will find all the KPIs here and can monitor sales objectives.

For Apple devices, you can download it here, and for Android here.

3) RouteIQ

The RouteIQ app takes all the lead data from the CRM to a map view.

If you need to meet potential customers, it will help you plan the best route and consider other appointments you may have.

You can also check in and out once you reach and leave a customer location. This will then be visible in the whole system for your team.

You can download it for Apple devices here and for Android here.

 

4) Mobile Card Scanner

This simple but helpful app can scan business cards and immediately import the scanned contact information into Zoho CRM.

You can download it for Apple devices here and for Android here.

 

What Is Canvas in Zoho CRM?

Canvas in Zoho CRM, also called “Canvas Design Studio,” allows you to customize the look, feel, and overall design of the Zoho CRM front end.

The design changes can be done with a drag-and-drop builder, and you can generate multiple design variants.

You can predefine, hide, and show areas or information based on different criteria.

You don’t need to create a design from scratch (still, you can if you want) because there is a template library that you can use and then customize to your needs.

 

What Is Zoho CRM Lead?

Zoho CRM lead is another term for the lead management feature within the Sales Force Automation component.

But there are also other lead features, such as the AI sales prediction for leads (Zia) in the Zia component and the lead nurturing feature in the Marketing automation component.

The lead management feature helps you capture leads, automate lead scoring, find leads that will convert, and nurture them (with the marketing automation component).

The AI sales prediction for leads with Zia (Zohos artificial intelligence component) helps determine whether it’s worth working hard to convert a lead or get a deal.

Zia can assign a score to every lead and/or deal by applying predictive artificial intelligence.

 

Does Zoho CRM Have a Business Card Scanner?

Zoho does have a business card scanner that is part of the marketing automation component.

It works pretty simply.

You just need to scan (meaning use your mobile device’s camera) and take a picture of the business card you’ve just received.

Contact information is then directly imported into Zoho CRM.

This is done with the above-mentioned mobile card scanner app.

 

Does Google Voice Work with Zoho CRM?

There is no direct integration between Google Voice and Zoho CRM.

But there is a direct integration of G Suite with a Google Voice addon you can get via the Zoho CRM marketplace.

You will need an additional license of G Suite to get access to Google Voice, though.

Remember that you can get Google Voice only within the United States.

If you don’t live in the U.S., you need a workaround with a U.S.-based Phone number and a VPN service.

 

Does Zoho CRM Have a Desktop App?

Zoho CRM doesn’t have a Windows, Mac, or Linux desktop app.

This is because their whole software architecture is cloud-based and therefore programmed to run on web servers using your computer as a client.

A desktop application would mean a whole additional development project and high additional costs.

Why?

Because the software would need to be coded to be compatible with the different operating systems (Linux, Windows, and OS for Apple).

They have a Zoho Mail Desktop client (for emails), which you can find here.

 

The Zoho CRM Marketplace – What it Integrates With

If you need to extend the functionality of Zoho CRM features, their marketplace is the place you should visit.

Here you can find over a thousand third-party apps you can integrate with Zoho CRM.

You can filter them by categories or directly search them using the internal search.

The categories available are:

• Sales
• Help desk
• Email and office
• People and culture
• Communication
• Finance
• Marketing
• Product management
• Analytics
• Custom solutions

Since I always look at the different tools with real estate marketing in mind, I wanted to know which of the almost 400 plus tools (my resource page) I already mentioned across various articles might be already integrated within Zoho CRM and the additional ones relevant to real estate use cases.

I found the following:

• Get Response
• Hubspot CRM
• BombBomb
• HippoVideo
• Survicate
• Poptin
• Pandadoc
• Trello
• Asana
• Slack
• Calendly
• Zapier
• Dropbox
• Docusign
• Evernote
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Linkedin
• Google Analytics
• Google Sheets
• Google Adwords
• Google Drive
• YouTube
• Active Campaign
• bulkSMS
• twilioSMS
• PhoneBurner
• Instapage
• Freshbooks
• Gmail
• Mailchimp
• Sendinblue
• Quickbooks
• Whatsapp
• Xero
• Zoom
• GoToWebinar
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft Office

You can find all the tools I’ve ever mentioned and/or analyzed across different articles in an overview table here.

And you can visit Zoho’s marketplace here.

 

What are the Advantages of Zoho CRM – Benefits & Features

In the overview table from above, you may have already gotten a glimpse of the vast array of features that Zoho CRM offers.

This section will discuss them in more detail and what advantages and benefits they can provide.

Zoho’s features are divided into 15 main software components:

• Salesforce automation
• Canvas design studio
• Process management
• Journey orchestration/command center
• Omnichannel
• Analytics
• Sales enablement
• Performance management
• ZIA (artificial intelligence)
• Customization
• Marketing automation
• Team collaboration
• Mobile apps
• Security
• Developer platform

Each component provides a wide array of different features that often overlap with the other components, which is necessary to exchange data.

To make this article not longer than it probably should be, I will describe the different features as shortly as possible and in a more bullet-point kind of way.

1) Sales Force Automation Features

Lead Management: generate leads from websites, social media, chats, and offline events. Additionally, you can score the leads and distribute them to suitable team members.

Deal Management: pipeline visualization options to glance at deals in progress.

Account Management: all accounts at a glance, account segmentation based on recency, frequency, and value.

Contact Management: real-time customer notifications, an overview of all customer conversations, and customer tickets.

Workflow Automation: sales routine automation, workflow performance analysis via artificial intelligence, and multiple rules for a single workflow.

Macros: a combination of multiple actions or tasks in a single macro (e.g., send an email, update contact, and create tasks in one click).

Assignment rules: automatic lead routing to a suitable partner or sales rep based on predefined rules.

Partner portals: access for partners to sales and contact information regarding leads to enable collaboration.

Sales forecasting: AI-powered and data-driven sales forecasting based on past deals.

Sales analytics: deal insights, lead analytics, email analytics, customizable reports, and dashboards, including charts, KPIs, targets, and funnels.

 

2) Canvas Design Studio

This component is fairly straightforward and helps you customize the look and feel of the whole dashboard.

It includes features such as a template library, a drag-and-drop builder to adapt the design to your needs, and rules restricting what elements you can see in your business.

 

3) Process Management

The sales process builder helps you visually design your different sales processes, measure and improve them and configure actions for every stage.

The processing rules feature can filter leads based on predefined criteria such as location, score, and source and then assign them to team members.

The last feature, the review process, allows you to have someone from your team vet information before adding it to the CRM.

This user can also add the reason for a rejection or add comments.

 

4) Journey Orchestration/Command Center

You can coordinate the brand messaging within the journey orchestration or command center component, visualize the customer journey and find out where a particular lead is on their journey.

It also features built-in workflow checks and performance analytics and can integrate with third-party applications.

 

5) Omnichannel

The omnichannel component does what the name already indicates, providing you with various communication channels to “attack” a lead from different angles.

You can integrate your email inbox and calls, connect social media accounts, use live chats on your website and web forms, do web conferencing, and get real-time notifications.

 

6) Analytics

The analytics component provides you with the following features:

• Multidimensional reports (to find underlying trends)
• Different visualization templates and charts
• Exporting to CSV, Excel, or PDF
• Real-time reporting
• AI-powered anomaly detector for sales performance
• Correlation and comparison analysis between different metrics across different components
• KPI monitoring
• Funnel analysis to find bottlenecks
• Sales analysis for different zones

 

7) Sales Enablement

The sales enablement component includes the following features:

• Quote and order generation
• Expense, subscription, and inventory information
• Documents library for sales scripts, product feature lists, comparison sheets, etc.
• Portal to manage partner, vendor, and customer relationships
• A sales data entry wizard to streamline data entry for team members based on rules
• Sales team calendar that syncs with Google Calendar, Office 365, and Apple calendars
• Integration with G-Suite and Office 365
• Salesinbox automatically prioritizes according to potential high-revenue deals
• Zoho Meeting integration
• Mobile app
• Real-time notifications regarding customer interactions
• Announcements to team members via feeds
• Artificial intelligence-powered via Zia to get information about expected revenue, etc.

 

8) Performance Management

The smaller performance management component consists of seven features, which are:

• Sales forecasting is powered by Zia (artificial intelligence) based on territories or hierarchies.
• Customer grouping and segmentation based on products, regions, or other predefined criteria
• Multiple currencies
• Again AI-powered forecasting may likely lead to a deal. This is based on every interaction you have with prospects.
• Analytics access with 40 different customizable report templates and Google Ads integration
• Website visitor tracking to improve and tailor website live chat feature performance
• Sales metrics broadcasting for team member motivation and gamification of sales

 

9) ZIA (Artificial Intelligence)

This component has already been mentioned several times in the components mentioned earlier and features.

And it is the component that is accessible from most of the other components.

You can interact with ZIA via chat or call ZIA to assist you with several tasks and the overall lead or customer database. As already mentioned, it can…

…predict sales performance via calculating lead scores
…identify sales anomalies
…automate usage patterns of team members
…track mentions of competitors in all communications
…autocomplete CRM contact data
…recommend cross- and up sales
…suggest record assignments to team members
…suggest improved workflows
…find the best time to contact leads
…and identify desirable and undesirable images that are uploaded.

 

10) Customization

This component ties into the Canva Studio and allows you to design different layouts using different elements, such as buttons, links, and customizable and conditional fields.

You can create pages, lists, and business card views.

Condition checks can be implemented to ensure that the right data is entered.
Furthermore, it includes these additional customization elements:

• Views and filters
• Update tracking for records
• Subforms
• Record linking across modules
• Multi-page layouts
• Translations
• Multi-currency integration
• Advanced business logic customization
• Copying capacity of settings

 

11) Marketing Automation

The first feature of the marketing automation component is customer segmentation.

You can segment customers according to requirements, region, lead source, and responsiveness.

Based on this segmentation, you can send different marketing campaigns.

Additional features are lead nurturing, web forms including a drag-and-drop builder to capture leads, the business cards scanner, and campaign ROI tracking (including measuring Google Ad campaigns).

Another feature that combines offline events with CRM is the event management feature.

It helps you measure the results of events in terms of ROI.

The remaining features are email marketing campaigns, survey campaigns, and overall marketing performance analysis.

 

12) Team Collaboration

I already partially covered the team collaboration functionality in the abovementioned features.

To collaborate with your team, you have features such as feeds, chat, notes that can be left on activities and sales records, team member tagging, assigning of group team members, and project management.

 

13) Mobile Apps

I already mentioned the features of this component earlier when I discussed the different mobile apps.

Three different mobile apps are available from both Apple’s app store and the Google Play store for Android devices.

It’s the Mobile CRM, Analytics Mobile, Route IQ Mobile, and the Mobile Card Scanner.

 

14) Security

The security component includes features such as:

• Data encryption via servers using AES-256
• GDPR support
• HIPAA compliance
• Vaults for important information
• Audit logs
• IP restrictions
• Two-factor authentication
• Regular data backups

 

15) Developer Platform

Within the developer platform, you can find different tools and features that allow a developer or yourself (depending on your skills) to extend the functionality of Zoho CRM via the following:

• A REST API
• Widgets
• Deluge functions
• Client scripts
• A developer edition
• A sandbox
• A mobile and web SDK

 

Zoho CRM Email – Integration, Tracking, and Templates

The Zoho CRM allows you to integrate any email client via the protocols IMAP and POP3.

You can also integrate web-based email systems such as Yahoo, Gmail, Zoho Mail, and Outlook.

You can integrate third-party providers such as Mailchimp, Campaigns, ActiveCampaign, SendInBlue, and ConstantContact for email marketing platforms.

The Zoho CRM Email also has tracking capacities that let you know once your emails are delivered, opened, and read.

Based on these trackable recipient behaviors, you can also apply search filters to determine which lead did what with your emails.

With the templates feature, you can either freely design a new email template or use and customize an existing one from the email template library and add images, text, columns, and tables.

What I found interesting in the context of conversion is that it also tracked how different email templates perform and bring in the best open rates.

Additional features of Zoho CRM email are:

• Email scheduling
• Automatic follow-up email based on predefined workflows
• Auto-responders
• Email personalization via fonts, signatures, etc.
• Email sharing policy to make emails available to different users
• Individual email reports including key performance indicators about which emails brought in leads or closed deals
• Message organization according to the CRM pipeline via the SalesInbox
• Email parsing to automate extracting key data or information from emails (e.g., address, name, company name, etc.)

 

Does Zapier Integrate with Zoho CRM, and How Is It Used?

Zapier does integrate with Zoho CRM. Besides the many third-party software providers it already can integrate natively, a Zapier integration helps extend the functionality of Zoho CRM further.

Since Zoho CRM is almost an entire business software suite similar to smaller SAP systems, it is by definition rather generic and not tailored to the use case of a particular industry, such as real estate.

But with the many native extensions and a Zapier integration, you can adapt it pretty well to individual business needs.

In the case of real estate, you may want to integrate real estate data and contact scraping tools such as BatchLeads.

By the way, I analyzed this software in this article.

But Zoho CRM doesn’t integrate BatchLeads natively. However, to make Zoho CRM valuable to a real estate use case, you can use Zapier to integrate this software.

So to use Zoho CRM efficiently as a solo real estate agent or a smaller brokerage, you may first need to identify the software you already use.

After that, you want to check whether it is either already natively integrated or if you can integrate it with the help of Zapier.

There are more than 4000 applications that Zapier can integrate with Zoho CRM.

There are many more, but to check the integrations, use my long list of more than 400 tools.

I found sixteen that can be integrated that are connected to real estate:

• Click2Mail
• iHomeFinder
• PandaDoc
• Direct Mail
• DealMachine
• Compass
• PropertyRadar
• magicplan
• hauzd
• StreetText
• LeadPops
• Zillow
• RealScout
• Realeflow
• Real Geeks
• Top Producer

 

Is Zoho CRM Free or Paid? A Pricing Overview

Depending on the components and features you need, Zoho can be free or paid.

Generally speaking, if you need the basic CRM functionality and don’t have more than three users, you can go with the free version and be happy.

But once you want to introduce more functionality, such as artificial intelligence, automation, customization, and team collaboration, or if you need it for more than three users, the free version won’t cut it anymore.

Compared to other CRMs, the paid plans are still fairly affordable.

They start at $18 for the standard plan and end at $55 per month for the “Ultimate” plan.

I prepared a detailed pricing overview table below, with all the corresponding features you get depending on your plan.

 

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Zoho CRM? The Pros and Cons

I can’t remember the last time I was worried that my article would explode because I had to work with so much information.

This situation will also be reflected in the con section of the pro and con overview table below.

There is one thing for sure as a conclusion. The Zoho CRM is likely “overkill” for solo agents or small brokerages.

Because when you only need a basic CRM, you will have to deal with many other features and a steep learning curve.

 

Zoho CRM Reviews

Slowly but surely, coming to the end of this article, I would like to present three positive and three negative user reviews I found across different user review platforms.

 

3 Positive Reviews

“I like how easy Zoho CRM is tailored to my business. It does not require a lot of coding or developer knowledge to make minor changes to the user interface and I like that a lot.” (source)

“Very powerful CRM with a lot of automation features. Allows our business to run with fewer employees and be much more efficient.” (source)

“Social, email, and CRM functionality are all housed in one place. The email campaign section makes it easy to warm leads up before sending them to the CRM module. Easy to set tasks for the sales team and then report on what has or has not been followed up.” (source)

 

3 Negative Reviews

“The free version of Zoho CRM has very minimal features, and if one wants to use its full potential, then have to go for the paid version.
Sometimes Zoho CRM is very slow in loading, which needs to be improved.” (source)

“If you’re a small team and don’t need a robust CRM with lots of flexibility and integrations, Zoho will do the trick. But once you’re trying to integrate accounting software, helpdesk ticketing systems, BI tools, etc. with more than 30 users while keeping the data clean and organized, then Zoho becomes unruly in my experience.” (source)

“I’ve used other CRMs, and I noticed that using both Zoho and another (Salesforce) it is very common to happen upon duplicate prospects in the system. It seems like the way an account is entered is not as intuitive in detecting that the account already exists. I’ve used others that will suggest any contact, address, phone number, name, or business that already exist in the company’s pipeline literally as you’re typing them. With Zoho, it’s more like you look up each data field first on your own to be sure the account doesn’t exist before entering it.” (source)

 

Zoho CRM Alternatives – Who Are the Competitors?

Zoho CRM alternatives and competitors are all generic marketing suites that include CRM and CRMs in general.

You can find different alternatives in my list of 400 plus tools here and in my articles about real estate CRMs here and here.

I will mention the relevant alternatives and competitors in the list below to save you some time.

• Zbuyer
• Podio
• Zillow Premier
• Agent CRM
• Freshsales
• AgileCRM
• Less Annoying CRM
• Insightly
• Capsule CRM
• BoomTown
• Cloze
• Moxiworks
• RealtyJuggler
• Tribus
• Top Producer CRM
• apto
• Really Simple Systems
• HubSpot CRM
• GetResponse
• CompanyHub
• Nutshell
• Apptivo
• Pipedrive
• Salesforce Salescloud
• Structurely

 

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This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.

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