Zoho CRM Reviews: 4.1/5 — Solid Choice

What was best for me, was the possibility to view the contacts and activities that my colleague enter and for him to view mine. Since our market where sometimes overlapping that was a good way to avoid going after the same people.

The main problem, for me, was that I couldn't import the contact that I had in other systems, meaning I had to either go with two different systems or re-enter all the data.

Zoho CMR was good to share contacts see who my colleague was in contact with and vice-versa

I liked that it was free, great chance to see what a CRM was all about. Fast sign up.

The fields were too hard to customize in my workspace, making it impossible to really adopt this CRM into my daily operations. It didn't make life easier, it became an extra step all the time.

I'm not. I stopped using this product because of it.

Potentially very flexible and with many add-ons to connect with other portals/services.

Importing data from excel/csv has been a nightmare. import was apparently successful but simple text fields remained blank. it was also not possible to import accounts and link them to the contacts by using the name. it should have been done manually. Interface quite sluggish. Very poor support on the phone. They did not call back as promised.

Workflow management, email marketing,

This isn't a personal liking, but I assume this is the platform we use because it's cheap. This is essentially a generic version of Salesforce, and honestly feels like it.

Dismal customer support infrastructure. Have had meetings cancelled and delayed because their conference call and screen sharing platforms did not work - how do you not test such things before getting on calls with clients? Agents are often rude and, quite frankly, slow. Everyone around the office knows having to call Zoho customer support is like a death sentence -- good luck!!!!

Honestly this is a cheap platform that gives you what you need a platform like this to do, but you get what you pay for. Again, TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SUPPORT.

Syncing with Gmail to easily add contacts

User interface. Even with customization, it felt laborious.

Organizing contacts, uploading company documents to one shared software, and following up on tasks.

Nothing comes to mind. It doesn't crash the computer.

Sales and tech support are terrible. Super thick Indian accent. Hard to understand and to be understood. Had to repeat myself a dozen times. Transferred to someone else who had similar abilities with the English language as well as not being able to answer a very basic question.

I want to be able to convert a Zoho potential into a Zoho project. Feel like this is the ONLY reason to use Zoho project.

Easy to load and converts to mini version on phone

not predictable or user friendly the program always has updates that make it more diffcult to use.

adding new year and archiving old years

A place besides excel to store info.

At the time, the layout was not ideal.

Not solving anything with them anymore.

I like the promise of Zoho and the suite of products designed to manage business from end to end.

No of Zoho’s products feel complete... each product feels like it’s in beta and just waiting to be completed.

Zoho provides a CRM which was better than the nothing we had prior. Something is almost always better than nothing.

The cost. That's literally it. It's rather cheap.

Honestly, there isn't a single that that Zoho CRM does to make it shine. Every other CRM I have used prior does everything Zoho does but better. The UI is slow, clunky, and not ergonomic. User roles and permissions are useless unless you are an Enterprise Edition user. Even then they are almost useless as well. The email templates are nice but clunky to use... And the built in templates don't render properly in some email clients. It is basically impossible to set up sensible record sharing rules.. Very basic functionality that is missing.

We are able to keep track of our customer records better than using paper or a Google Docs spreadsheet. Using the email templates we are able to send large quantities of emails quickly.

the features and software is fantastic, but this is a very serious issue and makes it worthless.

we employed an IT guy as our administrator, made him the admin user. we later had to sack him and then informed zoho and after a week of chasing and sending them proof of ownership, letter headed letters and even being the card holder that has paid for the service since day 1 they are refusing to give me access to my own account as admin until they have spoken with my ex employee?!?!?! it took them a week to even disable his login! god knows how much sensitive data has been stolen in that time!!! SERIOUS NEGLIGENCE !

0

Not much. Signing up was easy but then there were issues.

A man who spoke little English called me, never got my issues addressed... sent me numerous emails offering assistance, and then didn't return my replies.It was buggy from the start, didn't integrate as advertised, a reach chore.

ZERO. None. Moved on.

I like the fact that there were many options for scheduling, managing money etc.

That there were so many different buttons it made it difficult to use. Maybe if everything was more downsized.

None, we switched because of of the complications.

The fact that it was free at the time was great, but it was very raw and coming from Salesforce was a major downgrade

At the time the product was very slow and very basic, coming

Needed a free CRM at the time and that's why I chose Zoho CRM, it saved money but coming from Salesforce it was a completely stripped down product.

The CRM is very customizable, but that's about it.

It is so customizable that for a small company it is very hard to onboard. The app is also so complex that it is hard to learn, their customer support team doesn't do much to help with this either. You're pretty much left on your own to figure out how to customize and learn the software.

Keeping track of leads, potentials, and sales. A benefit of the software is that it helps track the status of incoming potentials.

There isn't much that I like about Zoho. I have more complaints than likes, but the simplicity of Zoho compared to other CRM systems is a positive. This CRM is capable of being setup by anybody that has some basic fundamentals of what a CRM is as well as basic knowledge on web-based software.

Their support is absolutely horrible. They offer a live chat when you are logged in. When you live chat, you always get the same people over and over again, which makes me think they don't have much of a team. I've been in chat conversations while the agent is chatting with other people and gets my conversation mixed up with another. The chat representatives are slow to respond, don't have much knowledge about the product and have no empowerment to make a change if something is wrong with their system. They sometimes fall asleep at their keyboard and don't respond to the chats. Their entire organization is full of employees that don't care. It is unbelievable at how unorganized the entire Zoho organization is. Nobody can do anything when there are issues. Their application has tons of bugs and when you clearly provide them with the proper information on how to replicate the bug they still spend hours in a remote session clicking on the same buttons over and over again. This is the definition of insanity.

The CRM software helps keep communication centralized in one place. If it is not in Zoho, then it didn't happen! Problems are being solved with Zoho, but not to the extent that I would want them to be. There are other CRM software out there that do a much better job, but may be out of the budget for small businesses.

The software isn't bad...when it works correctly!!!

We have been working with Zoho for the past two months, and this was the ONLY job of two interns that work 40 hours a week. The only problem we had with Zoho was that the data was incorrect. Every time we tried to update our data (as instructed by Jay from customer service), it would create duplicates. We started with 8,000 contacts and ended up with 24,000. We called SEVERAL times to get help in merging these contacts, and we got different answers from EVERY person we called. The people we talked to were very rude. They talked down to us, and never understood what we were trying to do. Eventually we had to wipe the entire database clean and start from scratch. Very disappointed in our experience

We are trying to help our salespeople be more efficient with the doctors they visit. It is a very user-friendly software, but our experience has just been way to painful to sick with them.

It does everything you would expect of a CRM.

The back end tech support is beyond disgusting! Firstly I had to wait until 11am ISD time for a developer to arrive. A multinational tech company without a developer onsite until 11am IDS? Righty O! Then I was told the fix they needed to do would take all night. In the mean time, my payroll system which is rooted in Zoho, won't run. During their time promised to update I am met with lie after lie from 'tech support'. There is never a manager available if you have an issue, they are either out, or on a call. Typical stone walling, treating the customers like mushrooms!

Like any CRM, it solves a lot of problems. However, when you have a REAL problem, with there back end, they stone wall you, leaving you to pick up the pieces. Meanwhile, like an idiot, you keep paying them USD$1,000 per month...

They have made improvements the last 3 years to gear it more towards sales.

The tasks, the follow-ups, the issues of reminders for tasks, closing out over-do tasks, admin rights and what can be viewed or not viewed.

That we should use Salesforce

not much but if I had to name something the home dashboards are kind of neat. Keep in mind this is coming from someone that is use to using Close.io (the best CRM on earth!)

Most of it. It's somewhat confusing and difficult to navigate. It''s more of a replica of salesforce if anything. You can 'build your own CRM' so as we continue to tweak it for our specific use I'm sure it'll become easier to navigate and more efficient than it is at present.

Seems to be creating more than it's solving. We use it as our it as our Sales CRM but we use it to manage accounts (which it's not too bad on the AM side)

I liked having the ability to convert my client leads into actual clients, and have them directly transferred to our Applicant Tracking System.

I had a tough time navigating within the CRM. The user interface did not present an easy way to create contacts and manage the communications.

The goal with using this CRM was to manage client and prospect leads.

Well, it's cheap, and that's about it. Sad that I couldn't say more that I liked. I think the hard part is that I know a lot of systems and have used/implemented, etc many of them and Zoho is just not high in the list for me at all.

Zoho's interface is old and outdated. They haven't done enough to update to new interfaces and easier functionality. The different pieces you might need are not well put together into a seamless interface. It is more like Google apps with one part of it being a CRM - except google apps is more useful. If you need simple, cheap, and easy, there are many other solutions out there that are better now. Zoho has been around a long time and hasn't done much to stay ahead of its main competitors (and no, Salesforce should not be considered a competitor).

CRm - actual customer relationship management. Unfortunately, there is a lot of management, and customer, not a lot of relationship into how it is designed. This is more just another sales management tool (different than relationship). Some people, especially small businesses seem to get along fine with Zoho, but I never got the benefits I wanted from it - mainly because it was a bit clunky to me and it didn't fit my approach to CRM.

It allowed us to work with a small list without a lot of overhead

Not a big fan of cloud apps. Seemed very counter intuitive. We wanted to do something really simple and it was definitely overkill

We imported a list of contacts and called them a few times.

Customizability is the only positive I can think of. Do not use this software unless you need a free CRM; you will lose data, have ongoing problems with email (and phone, if you make the mistake of trying to integrate a phone system), and will not receive any modicum of customer service when you ask about said problems.

Almost everything. I highly recommend looking elsewhere if you care about: not losing your data, critical phone and email systems functioning properly on a regular basis, or customer service. ZohoCRM has unfortunately been the worst SaaS experience in my career, and we are software developers. We lost data, never had a working phone system, were lied to for weeks by Zoho support about the phone system, and Zoho simply stopped replying to customer service inquiries. I would recommend anyone considering ZohoCRM to look at their forums, and the number of unfixed bugs that are years old, unanswered questions, etc.

Sales CRM

Detailed note taking ability across the platform.

Archaic and long form system that makes searches difficult.

Great for customer history amidst crowded market dominated by a single player.

Price was good. Like the chrome extensions.

Hard to configure, difficult to understand, help is minimal, both online. Support is pitiful and they don't understand the questions.. Little upgrading.

Tracking leads I find.

The good part is ease of using the product. You can start using this product quickly. I am comparing this with SalesForce. SalesForce is little complicated in learning.

Their software is full of bugs. Automated emails are sent thrice to every customers. My 150 customers received first follow up three times in a single day. When I complained them to look into this, they asked to schedule a phone call with support team and earliest appointment available was after 24 hours. Issue was critical because all emails were going thrice. But we waited with patient. After 24 hours (on friday), they took screenshot and sent them to developers. They asked me to delete auto-responder (and delete all leads) and said that developers will look into this issue on Monday ... bullshit ... Sometime automated follow up stops working. You have to update their developer that follow up cron job is not working. Completely unreliable software. They don't have solution for the bugs. You have to wait 4 to 5 days, for just to get support.

We were trying to generate more customer leads. This product is not at all reliable.

it looks cool BUT ITS ALL BS if the techs can f up your account without even your consent or permission, unheard of here

staff is non responsive until you blast them on twitter, all i needed done was the tech who pranced into my account to cancel it, to undo what he did, instead he wants me to pay a third time in one weekend for the service he deleted by accident. here was his response

Thank you for writing to us, I apologize for the inconvenience caused. A per your email request, we have downgraded your Zoho CRM plus account and we will not be able to upgrade it from our end, since all your card and billing details would have been erased automatically. I would suggest you to login into https://crmplus.zoho.com and purchase the subscription by entering the card details. We will refund the amount that was charged initially when you signed up for Zoho CRM Plus subscription. Looking forward to assist you.

Zoho CRM before unethical upgrade paths were put into play around 2011

I am the Principal Advisor for a Business Consulting firm that specializes in helping start-up and small businesses achieve better returns through business process automation. During these past 7 years, my associates and I have always recommended Zoho CRM to HUNDREDS of business and have worked on customizing at least 15 Zoho CRM packages for our clients. We also have been using Zoho CRM ourselves since 2007, so we are expertly proficient with Zoho CRM and are VERY familiar with the life cycle development of the software as it's been changed over the years. When Zoho first launched in 2005, it touted itself as the "free" full featured CRM and included most of the core CRM functionality available at the time in it's free offering. Zoho touted it's CRM package as the free alternative to Salesforce.com, and literally boasted about how inexpensive (FREE) and complete the Zoho CRM was. However over the past 5 years (particularly when Zoho changed it's name to Zoho CORP in 2009), we've watched Zoho parse out core system functionalities into differing "Levels" of subscriptions in their attempt to create a compelling upgrade path that would lead to revenue. Since all of the major changes to their pricing and subscription model had been announced and documented appropriately in the past, we were never HAPPY about being pigeon-holed into subscription "upgrades" (who would be?), but every business needs to work towards profitability and with changes being communicated appropriately, we've always said "Fair Enough"... Until Today. We had a recent start-up company join us as a client, and like many others, they had a need for a CRM. After checking the latest ZOHO CRM release notes, sales documents, and basic help pages online, we didn't notice anything that would change our standard recommendation. The client accepted our proposal and commissioned us to launch and customize the ZOHO CRM package for them, like we have done for tens of other companies in the past. We exercised the Zoho CRM 15 day Trial period for the client (which now is set to the "Professional" level apparently and began importing data for the client. We also began setting up custom fields for the client as needed. Today, as the trial period had expired, we advised this same client to pick up 2 user licenses at the "Standard" level prepaid for $288/year. The client notified us that the licenses were purchased and we were clear to wrap up their customization. We fired up the ZOHO CRM interface this morning to finish the final custom field setup, and to our horror, we encountered an unexpected system alert when trying to create a custom field saying "Sorry, you cannot create more custom fields in your edition". IMAGE 1 Now, usually when this happens, it's because ZOHO Corp had once again systematically reconfigured their subscription level offerings to compel people to convert to a higher paid subscription levels, and after a little digging, we would find the supporting documentation affirming their nickle-and dime tactics. However this time, there was NO documentation of any limitations on the number of Custom Fields you can have at ANY level. In fact, quite the contrary. As you can see in the following screenshot taken from the PDF download located at Here: Compare Zoho CRM Editions page, you will see that there is simply a check box next to the STANDARD, PROFESSIONAL, ENTERPRISE, and CRM PLUS subscriptions (Not FREE edition - although Custom Fields used to be free). IMAGE 2 We, like any other reasonable consumer expected that, If Custom Fields are included in a subscription, there would be no limits on them. After contacting a Zoho Customer Support Chat Agent named Pranesh Gopalakrishnan, we learned that, not only is there a limit of Custom Fields, but there are differing quantities of Custom Fields that Zoho Corp will allow you to have in the current CRM offering PER EDITION and PER MODULE?!? Yes, apparently now, you only get 10 custom fields/module in the STANDARD edition, 150 custom fields/module in the PROFESSIONAL edition, and 300 custom fields/module in the ENTERPRISE edition. So now, after spending 25+ hours importing our Client data into Zoho CRM, customizing the package for them, and having them pay the quoted price of $288, we cannot deliver the customized CRM package that we promised. While chatting, explained the situation to Mr. Gopalakrishnan our Client's situation. Pranesh explained that the only way to expand custom fields was for our Client to purchase another 2 user licenses at the PROFESSIONAL edition level for $480 MORE?!? At this point, we had two choices; 1. Explain the oversight to our client and ask for, or cover the additional $480 for the two user licenses or 2. Revoke our long standing ZOHO CRM recommendation we have provided our clients for the past 5 years, researching another CRM package to replace ZOHO CRM, and then spend countless hours learning the new system, customizing it for our client's needs and exporting, and entering all of the data again that we had in this Client's Standard ZOHO CRM edition. .....OR maybe a 3rd option. Hope that Zoho CORP was willing to exercise some responsibility and good faith to cover their oversight and enable additional custom fields for this client at their current STANDARD subscription level. I asked Pranesh to chat with a Supervisor. After waiting a few minutes, a lady named "Robin" took over the chat and once again explained the situation over text. I let Robin know that, prior to signing this client up, we reviewed the sales / help documents here: https://www.zoho.com/crm/comparison.html, and here: https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/customization/field-level-customization.html, with NO MENTION of limits on custom fields. After some awkward silence, Robin produces ONE link to an obscure help file buried in their help system that would elude even the most diligent seekers in a sales cycle: https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/erutaef321.html I explained to Supervisor Robin that we feel trapped into upgrading our Client to a higher, significantly more expensive subscription level that they otherwise would not need if they had access to custom fields AS ADVERTISED. I also explained that IMHO, most people would find it VERY misleading to have ANY limits on Custom Fields without advertising the change in advance on ZOHO CRM's online sales literature. I concluded that, after all of the business that we had sent to ZOHO CRM over the years, we would expect them to at least comp an upgrade for our client from STANDARD to PROFESSIONAL, and correct their misleading sales documentation in order to prevent trapping more people into upgrades with unethical advertising and questionable free trial practices. In essence, I explained that in this case, we're not willing to pay any more for what we should already have (according to the online Zoho CRM Edition comparison), and have had in the past. Supervisor Robin, said that she would arrange for a quick callback from the respective Account Manager. I waited HOURS and NO CALL. Hours later, I finally receive and email from Ricky Thakrar, Regional Sales Manager | North and South America. I'm thinking, "Now we're getting somewhere". In his email to me, Mr. Thakrar says "You are correct it does not say on the main pricing page the specific number of custom fields per edition as it is a feature comparison page. It only says this information in the detailed technical comparison page on our user guide which shows features and limits." Mr. Thakrar then goes on to say (without apology or missing a beat), "In order to get 150 custom fields, you will need to upgrade to the Professional edition". WHAT!!?? Our Client really only needs 5 more! Upset at wasting the whole day trying to resolve this, and pursing the situation now just on a matter of principal, I tracked down the phone number to Mr. Thakrar's office (877-834-4428, Option #1) and asked to speak to Mr. Thakrar regarding an email I just received from him. After being on hold for approx.4 minutes, the gentleman who initially answered comes back on the phone, and nervously (lying??) explains that it appears Mr. Thakrar is on another scheduled call with another client and is unable to take my call. The gent goes on to ask if I would be willing to talk to a Regional Account Manager. I asked if that person had the authority to override / upgrade a subscription level to accommodate my Client's custom fields issue, and the gentleman says "Yes". I agree to be forwarded to Cliffton Kent, Regional Account Manager. I once again explain the situation to Mr. Kent, who tells me that he recognizes that their central comparison chart is misleading to the consumers, and that should be corrected. He also understands what an inconvenience it would be to find out about the Custom Field limitations after the fact of entering data for 2 weeks in a Free Trial set to the PROFESSIONAL Edition, and later paying for a lesser subscription without knowledge of the limitation. Mr. Kent said that he does not, nor does ANYBODY else at Zoho Corp have the ability to comp a free upgrade to our Client so that they can have access to the advertised functionality. Mr. Kent does say that he will take the matter up with "management" and "go to bat" for my client. Mr. Kent then emails me a bit later saying "We did discuss your concern with our management. Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to upgrade the Zoho CRM account from Standard to Professional (for free). Sorry to disappoint you." As a now former team of Zoho CRM Evangelists for the past 7 years, words cannot express our disappointment in this decision If we accomplish nothing else, we hope that you will help spread the word as far and as wide about this latent limitation, or as we see it, Zoho CRM upgrade trap that has been crafted and honed by the ZOHO CORP. As it stands, we are going to work overtime into the night and through tomorrow to try to find an ethically sold and supported product. Unless ZOHO reverses their present course, WE CANNOT AND WILL NOT CONTINUE TO SUPPORT ZOHO CORP'S FALSE ADVERTISING AN UNETHICAL PRACTICES IN PIGEON-HOLING NEW CUSTOMERS INTO OVERPRICED ZOHO CRM PACKAGES. We would rather suffer through this situation, than be further subjected to ZOHO's legal extortion tactics. So, now you know ;-) Hopefully, Zoho will understand that space is cheap, and that unlimited Custom Fields IS a core CRM function (as it was in past ZOHO CRM versions). Maybe someone at will see the error of their ways and will work to include unlimited Custom Fields as part of a STANDARD subscription license. Until then, I will try to follow-up with a post detailing the new CRM we will be recommending in the future. Rick B.

No benefits that are unique to ZOHO CRM compared to other CRM's at equal of lessor pricing.

Fairly simple to use and has an ok amount of features to do what most people require.

Well, most things actually. There's a lot of features (maybe too many actually) but none of them are very well implemented. The UI is pretty old school. It's hard to find and do the things you need. We encountered data loss on a daily basis so sales people had to enter the same information multiple times. Not recommending this to anyone.

We started out with Zoho because it was cheap but soon realized that we need to move to another solution to actually have some benefits from using a CRM compared to just a spreadsheet.