Zoho CRM Editor's Review

Zoho CRM is a Customer Relationship Management software, which provides Web based solutions for managing organization-wide sales, marketing, customer support, and customer orders.

After finishing installation, you can create a new user account to run PostgreSQL database server, even if you are not a member of the local administrators group. The interface is very well designed and structured, offering quick access to all the application's features and skins (6 skins available). On the left hand side of the screen, you have a sidebar that contains the Search utility, Recent Items, World Clock, Calendar, and the Calculator.

The application consists of six core business functions like Sales Force Automation, Marketing Automation, Customer Support&Service, Inventory Management, Analytics, and Add-ons, which are divided into several subsections. Sales Force Automation includes Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Potentials, Sales Forecasts, Quotes, Sales Orders, and Invoices. Marketing Automation contains Campaigns, Lead Generation, and Mass Mailing Lists. Customer Support&Service includes Cases and Solutions. Inventory Management consists of Products, Price Books, Vendors, and Purchase Orders. Analytics holds Reports, Dashboards. Finally, Add-ons has the Outlook Plugin, Web-to-Lead forms, and the Web-to-Case forms.

Pluses: Among lots of useful and interesting features, there are the dully customizable Reports & Dashboards with more than 25 reports and intuitive Flash-based Bar, Stack, Pie, and Funnel charts. The customizable CRM solution as per vertical industry including renaming of tabs, adding custom fields, modifying module page layouts, and modifying related list views (360 degree view). Another feature gives the possibility to synchronize contacts and emails between MS Outlook and Zoho CRM. Another feature triggers workflow rules based on predefined workflow criteria and sends alert messages through email/create tasks to the intended users. The default workflow rules include Lead Assignment and Big Deal Alert.

Drawbacks / flaws:

In conclusion: Easy to install and manage, cost effective, or even free if you are creating up to three accounts, Zoho CRM is a an advanced and feature rich Customer Relations Management program. It is recommended for sales, marketing, customer support, inventory teams, business managers and executives, as well as system administrators and system integrators.

version reviewed: 5.0