About a year ago I was searching for a CRM system that had to meet a specific criteria including: cloud based (on-line), flexible - so I could customize the input screen, inexpensive, multi-user, and integrated with a word processor for mail merge capability. I reviewed every CRM system I could find on-line and came away confused. The relative costs were all over the board, from minimal monthly costs to thousands of dollars a month. The list included SalesForce, NetSuite, Sage, Zoho, etc. I paid little attention to Zoho since it was less than $30 a month - after all, how good could it be. However, when all was said and done, I was not willing to the pay hundreds of dollars a month required for the likes of SalesForce or NetSuite. So, I decided to take a look at Zoho.com. My first reaction was, this couldn't be very good since the entry price was actually $0. But since the price was right, I figured why not - maybe I could figure out a way to lower my expectations and work with it.
The first test of Zoho was to see how I could customize the database / entry screen. This was the first time I was "amazed" by it's capability. It took me all of a few hours to completely customize the entry screens to exactly what I wanted. In addition, changing them later was just as easy. The next challenge was to create an Internet html form where I could enter the data from and see how I could transfer the information automatically to Zoho... again, a piece of cake.
Now, I was on a roll and the BIG test was to integrate Zoho with a marketing company that I was using, who could provide an "html post", where "in theory" they could hot transfer the leads to Zoho... again, no problem. I further customized the transfer by creating rules where the leads would be routed to specific people based upon the State that the prospect resided in... another easy resolution. In addition, once my user was assigned a lead, they were notified by email and simply clicked on the link to display the entire lead.
The next challenge was to create forms that I could merge with the data we had captured. The result was that I was able to integrate the data with Microsoft Word and print the customized letters instantly. Again - very easy.
When I activated the account and added the plug-in for the mail merge capability the total cost was only $15 a month per user. Yes, that is not a mistake... only $15 a month per user.
There are many more features of the Zoho system that I have used and continue to be amazed by it's capability. For anyone looking for a fully charged and flexible CRM, I strongly suggest you take a very good look at www.zoho.com.
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