FAQs: Sales Force Automation (General)

FAQs: Sales Force Automation (General)

1. How do you define a customer, potential contact, lead/contact or an unknown person?

Social media updates from your leads and contacts are filtered in the Social tab so that you can easily follow updates from people that matter to you. There are four categories - Customers, Potential Contacts, Leads/Contacts, and Unknown people.

Following are the conditions that determine who goes into which category:
  1. Customers: Contacts with whom you have closed all potentials, with at least one potential being "Closed Won".
  2. Potential Contacts: Contacts with whom you have at least one open potential.
  3. Leads/Contacts: Leads are all the people in your Leads module.
  4. "Contacts" here could be those with whom you have no potentials yet or you have potentials that are Closed Lost.
  5. Unknown: These are people who are not in your CRM database. If you want to add them as a lead or contact, you can do so by pointing the mouse over an update by them and clicking the +Add button.

2. How are Leads, Accounts, Contacts, and Deals associated in a sales process?

Lead refers to the information of an individual or representative of an organization, collected from various lead sources like trade shows, seminars, advertisements and other marketing campaigns. In Zoho CRM, you can manually enter leadsimport them or capture lead information using web forms.

At a certain point of time, the lead may show interest in your products or services and there could be a chance of further negotiations with the lead. At this stage, you can 
convert the lead into Account, Contact and Deal. While converting a lead, all the lead details will be transferred to Account, Contact and Deal. See Also Lead Conversion Table

Account refers to a company or a department within the company with which you plan or have business dealings.On lead conversion, the lead's Company Name will be converted to Account Name.

Contact refers to the people in an organization (Account) with whom you communicate in pursuit of a business opportunity. There can be many contacts associated to a single account.

Deal refers to the business deals with organizations or people that generate real revenue for your organization. While converting a lead, you have an option to not create a deal upon conversion.

3. What is the difference between leads and contacts?

Leads are the raw details you gather about individuals or representatives of organizations who may be interested in your business. They are usually collected from various sources like the internet, trade shows, seminars, advertisements and other marketing campaigns.

Whereas contacts are the people in an organization with whom your company has business communications, in pursuit of business opportunities. Let's understand this with an example.

Patricia is a realtor. She attends a real estate expo, where she networks with a lot of people. About 10 people she meets are either looking for a house or office space. Now she sees these people as sales opportunities. She can't say that they are going to become her customers, but she thinks there is a chance, however small. In marketing lingo, these 10 people are now her "leads". So adds their details as Leads in her Zoho CRM account.

The following week, she calls up all these 10 leads, out of which 4 are actually quite interested in what she has to offer them. Now by following up on these leads, she has successfully "converted" the leads into "contacts". These 4 people are no longer random leads. So in Zoho CRM also, Patricia converts these leads into contacts. If a person is in the Contacts module, it means that they are your potential customers.

4. How to export all my contacts from Zoho CRM to Constant Contact?

Using the Sync App for Zoho CRM to Constant Contact, you can automatically sync customer data (email address, name, opt-outs) between Constant Contact and your Zoho CRM system.

Following are some links for more information:

http://marketplace.constantcontact.com/Listing/applications/cazoomi/PML-2864
https://blogs.zoho.com/crm/zoho-crm-sync-for-constant-contact.html

5. What is the difference between Last Activity Time and Last Modified Time?

Last Activity Time refers to the time when changes are made to a record, whether it is adding a note, closing a task, sending emails or just editing the fields. 

Last Modified Time will only capture changes made to the fields and does not include changes made to the Notes, Tasks or Email sections.


6. How do I send mass emails to only those contacts who are my customers?

Not everyone listed in your Contacts module may become your customer. If you have to send emails only to a few contacts, you can do so by filtering out the contacts based on specific criteria. To send emails only to customers follow these steps:
  1. Click Contacts > Mass Email.
  2. Under the Email Templates tab, select the Email template you would like to send.
  3. Under the Select Records tab, select one of the following options to filter records based on a criteria.
    Custom View criteria - If you want to send mails to contacts under a particular list view, you can select it from this list view drop-down. All the matching contacts are listed.

    Manual criteria- Specify a criteria to filter out contacts that match the given criteria and click Search. For example: Account Type is Customer.


    Note: You may wonder how your Contacts module has a field called "Account Type". All contacts are associated with Accounts. In the Accounts module, Zoho CRM offers you a standard field called "Account Type" when you are feeding in Accounts details. So this field shows up in the criteria drop-down to filter contacts here. If you have made use of this field, you can follow this method to search for "customers".

  4. Select the records form the list and click Send.
Emails will be sent to the selected records. If you have not made use of the "Account Type" field, you can specify any criteria that filters out your customers.

My visits seem to be duplicated, as the same user appears in both Customers and Leads/Contacts streams. Why is that?

When some leads visit your website, they appear in the Leads/Contacts stream. If they buy from you, they become your customers. After becoming customers, when the same users visit your site again, they appear on the Customers stream. So the visits are not duplicates but entries made according to the user’s status in Zoho CRM. That way, it is possible for the same user to appear in all the streams at different points of time.

    Zoho CRM Training Programs

    Learn how to use the best tools for sales force automation and better customer engagement from Zoho's implementation specialists.

    Zoho CRM Training
      Redefine the way you work
      with Zoho Workplace

        Zoho DataPrep Personalized Demo

        If you'd like a personalized walk-through of our data preparation tool, please request a demo and we'll be happy to show you how to get the best out of Zoho DataPrep.

        Zoho CRM Training

          Create, share, and deliver

          beautiful slides from anywhere.

          Get Started Now


            Zoho Sign now offers specialized one-on-one training for both administrators and developers.

            BOOK A SESSION











                                        You are currently viewing the help pages of Qntrl’s earlier version. Click here to view our latest version—Qntrl 3.0's help articles.




                                            Manage your brands on social media

                                              Zoho Desk Resources

                                              • Desk Community Learning Series


                                              • Digest


                                              • Functions


                                              • Meetups


                                              • Kbase


                                              • Resources


                                              • Glossary


                                              • Desk Marketplace


                                              • MVP Corner


                                              • Word of the Day


                                                Zoho Marketing Automation

                                                  Zoho Sheet Resources

                                                   

                                                      Zoho Forms Resources


                                                        Secure your business
                                                        communication with Zoho Mail


                                                        Mail on the move with
                                                        Zoho Mail mobile application

                                                          Stay on top of your schedule
                                                          at all times


                                                          Carry your calendar with you
                                                          Anytime, anywhere




                                                                Zoho Sign Resources

                                                                  Sign, Paperless!

                                                                  Sign and send business documents on the go!

                                                                  Get Started Now




                                                                          Zoho TeamInbox Resources



                                                                                  Zoho DataPrep Resources



                                                                                    Zoho DataPrep Demo

                                                                                    Get a personalized demo or POC

                                                                                    REGISTER NOW


                                                                                      Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                      Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                      Get Started Now









                                                                                                          • Related Articles

                                                                                                          • Sales Force Automation (SFA) in Zoho CRM

                                                                                                            Your sales team has an overflowing plate of tasks: following up with leads, closing deals, providing accurate reports and forecasts, learning more about your product or service, and the list goes on. Staying on top of these tasks can be tough. As ...
                                                                                                          • FAQs: Cadences

                                                                                                            What are Cadences? Cadences are a new tool in customer relationship management that changes the way businesses talk to their customers. It helps businesses make their marketing and sales plans better by being very precise and personal. This tool lets ...
                                                                                                          • FAQs: Assignment

                                                                                                            What is an assignment rule and why do I need it? The growth of your business is proportional to how well your sales team is handling the leads inflow and how effective they are in handling the customers and associated deals. Assigning the leads and ...
                                                                                                          • FAQs: SalesInbox

                                                                                                            What is SalesInbox? SalesInbox in Zoho CRM is a feature specifically designed to prioritize and organize emails based on the CRM data that is most relevant to salespeople. It automatically sorts incoming emails into relevant CRM categories, such as ...
                                                                                                          • FAQs : Macros

                                                                                                            What are macros? Macros are a set of actions that can be executed for a group of records in a module. These sets of actions include sending emails, creating tasks, and updating a field in the records with a specified value. You may have a set of ...
                                                                                                            Wherever you are is as good as
                                                                                                            your workplace

                                                                                                              Resources

                                                                                                              Videos

                                                                                                              Watch comprehensive videos on features and other important topics that will help you master Zoho CRM.



                                                                                                              eBooks

                                                                                                              Download free eBooks and access a range of topics to get deeper insight on successfully using Zoho CRM.



                                                                                                              Webinars

                                                                                                              Sign up for our webinars and learn the Zoho CRM basics, from customization to sales force automation and more.



                                                                                                              CRM Tips

                                                                                                              Make the most of Zoho CRM with these useful tips.



                                                                                                                Zoho Show Resources