First of all, let me say I love the ZoHo CRM program, use it constantly, and am trying to help others get onto the system. Additionally, I have had some good experience with the support staff, so I don't want to seem negative.
However, there are some features missing in ZoHo that really, really, really should be in, and the only thing I can figure out is that the folks at ZoHo need to use the program like their users use it - not just develop features "just to have them". Basically, these features revolve around the Customer part of Customer Relationship management, and anyone familiar with a CRM system, or migrating from another system (many come from ACT!), are used to these features, and expect them to be in.
I love migrating people to ZoHo, but then get discouraged when they ask for basic features, and I cannot figure out why they are not implemented.
Here are a few things I've come across in just the last 24 hours:
1. Custom field limits - limited to 130, which seem like alot, until you realize half of those are dates/numbers and not text. So, you're down to 60 additional text fields, which really is not that much - as I've hit this limit twice this week.
2. Events to Google Calendar #1 - the Contact name does not get populated to the Google Calendar (or the ZoHo Calendar for that matter), which is critical to see who the appointment is with.
3. Events to Google Calendar #2 - if you reschedule an Event in ZCRM, the Save & Export to Google Calendar button is no longer there, nor does the Event get updated in the Google Calendar.
4. On the mobile version of CRM (I am using an iPhone) - viewing the first screen, which has a list of Tasks, there is not contact name listed along with the task. If you use Workflow, which I do, then there will be many tasks with the same subject, and you cannot tell which task is with which contact. Since this is all HTML based, an easy fix.
5. Again, on the mobile version, when you go to a person's Tasks (i.e. the "links" at the bottom of a contact record), you get a list, and there is a checkbox next to each task. However, the only menu items are New and Delete. New is useful, but not applicable to the checkbox, why is Clear not an option? It would be nice to not have to go into the Task, then go to Edit, then scroll to the Status field, then pick "Completed", then Save. Checking a box and hitting Clear should be there, especially since Delete is, it cannot be that hard.
As there are many options in the CRM market, and more coming out it seems weekly, I'd like to find one that does things correctly, and keeps updating to meet their customer's needs. I'd hope that the developers at ZoHo can keep this in mind as well.
Richard Brust
http://www.rbrdatasolutions.com