Zoho CRM vs. Salesforce

Zoho CRM vs Salesforce debate

In the Zoho CRM vs. Salesforce debate:  Zoho is your quiet, brainy older brother. Salesforce is a 300-pound gorilla. Salesforce is a great fit for many companies. Zoho CRM is a great fit for many companies, too. Yet more people know about Salesforce (I suppose that allocating half the budget on sales and marketing does that). Should Salesforce be the go-to option for managers who want a cloud CRM system because it’s big, it’s loud, and it’s hard to ignore?

Consider these comments from the last three conversations I’ve had with potential CRM customers:

• “Salesforce looks great, but it’s too expensive”
• “Salesforce.com is overkill, it’s just too complicated for us”
• “Salesforce gave me a price, but then it went way up”

As a Zoho Alliance Partner – and Zoho CRM user – I know Zoho to be affordable, easy to use, simple to set up, and surprisingly powerful. All of which fits the “solution profile” of many of the companies that contact us for help. Companies who thought their only SaaS CRM option was – those other guys. Here’s what the owners and managers I speak with are concerned about:

• Tracking internal and external communication
• Securing customer and prospect data
• Easy deployment to sales and customer service teams
• Getting everyone on the same page
• Ease of use and ease of access
• Automating repetitive functions
• Getting good management reports
• Deploying effective marketing campaigns
• Accessing their data on iPhones, Androids, and tablets
• Not paying an arm and a leg to accomplish it all.
• Not paying for bells and whistles they don’t need
• Not getting locked into a long-term contract

The more I get to know Zoho, the more sure I am that a small or medium sized business should take a good, hard look at it. Chances are quite high that it can do the job they need it to do – and at a quarter of the cost of the big, hairy ape.