Many don’t realize this, but Zoho, the company best known for its CRM and other office productivity applications, also offers a contact management option called Zoho ContactManager.
Does this make sense? It may very well. That’s because – and this may also come as a surprise – for many of our Zoho CRM clients, the Zoho ContactManager would be a better application for their business than a full-blown CRM product. Why? One word: overkill.
When it comes to their various apps and products, some of what’s offered through Zoho is more useful to individual business owners than others. If you need an easy way to provide database access to customers and vendors, you’ll want to read on for our Zoho portal tips.
Just last year, Zoho CRM introduced an exciting new Zoho feature, which allows users to give vendors and customers self-service access within Zoho CRM to all the information they need. If you’ve been using Zoho CRM already, you may find that this feature is fairly simple to set up and use.
Whether you’re looking to join Zoho or another CRM service, there is a lot to consider. At The Marks Group, we sell and implement five Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications and currently serve more than 600 companies who use these applications to increase their sales, improve customer service, and grow their profitability. A good CRM system, when implemented properly, will ensure that important tasks are never falling through the cracks, critical information is being shared by everyone in your organization wherever they are, and the value of your company is increasing.
Like the millions who already use this great product, it may be right for your company. If you’re seriously looking to join Zoho CRM, then let me share these five reasons why you should consider doing so, based on the more than 90 clients we serve who have already purchased it.
Like any powerful email server system, Zoho Mail enables administrators to manage just about every aspect of security and user information to ensure the mail system is secure, private and collaborative where dictated. To do this, you must first access the Control Panel of your Zoho Mail system, which you can find here.
Once you gain access, you’ll see the areas that you can customize to meet your company’s policies. Below is a description of what each of these functions do in Zoho Control Panel.
There are plenty of online word processing applications to use and I’m sure you’re probably familiar with the big names, like Microsoft Word in Office 365 or Google Docs. In fact, you’re probably using them right now. But think about it: Why?
If you’re already using Zoho One, you’ve got access to the Zoho Writer app. If your employees are creating typical business documents, then why not minimize headaches and help their productivity by getting rid of all those additional applications and having them use the Zoho Writer app? I can offer at least six uses of the application that would make sense right away.
Here at The Marks Group, our CRM system is…Zoho CRM, naturally. And of course, we use Zoho CRM Calendar. So give us credit for eating the dog food, so to speak.
I’ve been knee-deep in it for more than two years now and I’ve learned a lot. So I thought that I would take a few moments out and share five tactics with the Zoho CRM Calendar. This is not scripture. You may have different points of view. But for me, this works.
When you’re on the calendar, you’ll see that you have the ability to create an “event” or a “call.” When you’re in other areas of Zoho CRM, you’ll also see that you have the ability to also create “tasks.” I ignore calls. It’s just too confusing. For me and others in my company, all of our activities are either events or tasks. An event represents an appointment. An appointment is defined as when I have a scheduled meeting—onsite or online—with someone else. A task represents everything else: calls, to-do’s, emails to send, things to follow-up, and so on.
Did you just make an investment in Zoho One apps? You made a great choice. Now it’s time to consider how to best use those apps.
In the 25 years we’ve been implementing business applications we’ve been part of many, many successes. Unfortunately, we’ve also been part of quite a few failures. Sometimes, these failures have been our fault. Other times not. But the good news is that I’ve learned.
I’ve learned what people have done to succeed with their business applications—be it CRM, financial, collaboration, communication, or anything else that is included with a Zoho One apps subscription.
So, what have I learned? Four things, actually:
I meet a lot of business people who are frustrated with their technologies—particularly the software that they’re using. I get it. There are a lot of great applications out there, but many of them only do particular things.
Business owners and managers have asked me for years if there’s just one application that can do it all. Sadly, there still isn’t. But we’re getting closer. And the applications from Zoho are leading the way.
So maybe it’s time for you to consider Zoho software. These are five signs you should look for that may help you in that direction:
Honestly, if you’re just a freelancer or an individual user, the capabilities of a typical contact manager or email application, like Outlook or Gmail, will probably suffice for your needs. Sure, Zoho has a free version and of course you can quickly learn how to use it by watching our videos on Marks Group Live.
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In the years that we’ve been implementing Zoho, I’ve discovered something: people blow off Zoho training.
Yes, that’s right. It gets blown off. Sure, clients will talk a good game. They’ll tell me how important it is. They’ll say how “committed” they are. But it never really happens.
Why? It’s because training is usually left until the end. First you get the software installed and set up. Then you import data. Then you customize and integrate and configure and test and launch and…oh yeah…I guess now it’s time to train. Except when you get to that point, oftentimes, there’s no time left. Or money in the budget. So training gets significantly reduced. Or entirely ignored.
Are you thinking of learning Zoho tools on your own?
If you are, it’s fine. We have plenty of clients who take on their training independently and I respect that. In fact, the videos that we offer on Marks Group Live are there to supplement your in-house training, as well as to provide advice, tips and tricks for using the application. If you decide to self-train, you may be fine, but there are some big pitfalls that you should be aware of. For example:
I’m no sales process genius. My firm does not do sales process consulting. But we are experts with Zoho, and we’ve implemented Zoho and other CRM applications at hundreds of small and medium-sized companies around the country. So we’ve learned.
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