Zoho CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is one of the best kept secrets for small businesses. I talk to many businesses that have heard of CRM solutions like Sugar CRM or Salesforce but Zoho is growing quickly with quality products priced well below the market (or many times free). Zoho’s name originates off of a play off the term SOHO (Small Office Home Office) and that is the market they serve best.
The challenge with clients has been how to manage leads at a company that has 50 or less employees. There are many solutions available but most of them are cost prohibitive or offer services that are far too complicated for the average small business. What Zoho CRM offers is a clean layout with an easy to use interface. It’s intuitive and it’s not overly complicated. That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s not powerful and feature rich. The basic layout of Zoho CRM is that you have leads that come in, those leads get converted to potentials when they’re qualified, and those potentials get converted to customers. Once they’re a customer, you can have a company account for the company and contacts listed for each account. The account/contacts relationship is great for existing clients and contacts.
Easy Lead Management for Business
If that sounds a little complicated for you, let’s step back. The main value added piece in Zoho CRM for your business is the lead management. You get a lead in and you manage tasks, notes, and contact information for that lead. If you do nothing else, this will greatly enhance your lead and sales process.
My favorite part about Zoho CRM is the automation. We have created a custom component that will allow any leads or forms on your website to automatically add the lead into Zoho. You will still receive an email from the contact form but all you have to do is login to Zoho to manage that lead, add notes, and create tasks for follow-up. It’s easy and it’s all centralized. Just think about the following:
- You don’t have to keep all of your lead emails in your inbox
- You can get rid of the sticky notes and pages detailing lead notes
- You can access your lead information from any computer
- You can assign leads to other salespeople
- You will have a centralized location to keep your contact data
Pretty compelling reasons to try it out. It’s free for up to 3 users and only $12/user after that! Very reasonable.
Jared Pomranky
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