Our Review Of Zoho CRM after 60 Days

Our Review Of Zoho CRM after 60 Days

The purpose of this is to just share with Zoho why I love their product, but ultimately why I could not choose Zoho CRM for our next CRM.

About two months ago we begun a CRM exploration process for our financial planning firm, based in Texas. We already use Zoho Creator and Zoho Analytics for some internal projects, so naturally Zoho CRM was a top consideration. I fell in love with the easy to user interface, and how easy it was customize everything. Creating workflows and automations could be done almost within minutes. I also really enjoy being able to use deluge for some things that unique and not "out of the box".  I was so ready to just go with Zoho. However, we quickly found big drawbacks from a strategic and technical standpoint.

What I really love about Zoho and Zoho CRM:
  1. Custom data objects
  2. Automations
  3. Customizable UI/UX
  4. UI is pretty easy to navigate.
  5. Built in email support
  6. I love the company's story and what they are doing for rural communities, even here in Texas.
  7. I love the idea of Zoho Schools -- What a great idea.
  8. We liked that tasks were separate from Meetings and Calls.
Why we didn't choose Zoho CRM
  1. Zoho needs to make itself known in the US. Zoho absolutely has the capability to be a true Salesforce rival, but I can hardly find anyone in our industry who is using Zoho. It's also difficult for other SaaS companies to build integrations with Zoho if they have never heard of Zoho or don't know the brand well enough. Zoho also needs more organic engagement on Reddit, Twitter, etc... the current engagement is virtually nothing for North American users.

  2. We are a professional services organization, and we meet with clients regarding their personal finances. It's critical we take good organized notes. Zoho CRM does not have any rich text notes capabilities, and this was practically a deal breaker for us. We absolutely have to have a way to take formatted notes. 

  3. The outlook integration is good, but left a lot to be desired. We couldn't add task from emails that weren't associated with a contact. The Zoho add-in interface didn't seem to be customizable either.

  4. The Zoho CRM + Outlook Calendar sync required the creation of a second Outlook Calendar and task list, causing users to duplicate events from the default Outlook Calendar to the Zoho Calendar manually. We actually have this issue with our current crm, so this is kind of also a big pain.

  5. Zoho CRM Activities Virtual Meeting Default can't be changed to Zoom.

  6. Meeting invitee suggesting a new time from their email client, did not reflect in Zoho CRM.

  7. Zoho just needs 1 calendar and 1 task engine. We found it too cumbersome for users to try and use Zoho CRM Calendar and Zoho Calendar together. 

  8. Zoho lacks a unified product vision. It seems that all the app teams operate independently, and while they are all called Zoho, they all work and look differently. 
    1. For example: Zoho CRM and Zoho One CRM menus look different.

  9. Zoho does not have product roadmaps. This was also a deal-breaker for us. As a company who might have relied on Zoho for our software infrastructure, without knowing what updates are coming, it's impossible to plan for them. Ultimately, this was the key indication that Zoho is not enterprise ready. Enterprises need to know what fixes and improvements are being developed ahead of time, and users need a say in those things.
  10. The software is buggy and some internal errors causing some concern about quality control.
    1. Always hit an internal error with Zoho CRM Command Center -- this was ultimately resolved but it took too long to coordinate a virtual meeting to discuss it and resolve. Could have been done much quicker.
    2. Uploading images to Zoho Campaign occasionally resulted in "Virus found in file" error, which was obviously wrong as we were not uploading viruses to Zoho.
I'm sure there were other things I could mention (good and bad), but this isn't meant to be a rant. I really love Zoho as a company, their employees have always been friendly, and ultimately I hope this is just used as productive feedback for other potential users and the developers. 

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