Zoho CRM Evaluation: Assessing Compliance with CRM Theory

This report evaluates Zoho CRM for its compliance with established CRM theory, focusing on its features and components such as leads, analytics, contacts, deals, accounts, automation, and campaigns. It explores how Zoho CRM integrates various business systems, facilitates communication, and supports marketing and sales campaigns. The report also assesses the software's ability to improve customer relationship development, lead generation, sales management, and complaint handling, highlighting its potential benefits for small businesses. Concluding that Zoho CRM is a cost-effective solution for managing business processes, the report recommends its use for enhancing customer servicing, management, and marketing.

Running head: AN EVALUATION OF ZOHO CRM
An Evaluation of Zoho CRM – does it comply with CRM theory?
This report evaluatesZoho CRM, as example standard CRM software,
for compliance with accepted CRM theory.
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Aim.............................................................................................................................................2
Objectives...................................................................................................................................2
ZOHO CRM Components and Features....................................................................................3
CRM Theory and Its Relation with ZOHO CRM......................................................................5
Conclusions................................................................................................................................6
Recommendations......................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8
Appendix A – My Lead records converted to Accounts and Contacts......................................9
Appendix B – (Home dashboard screenshot)...........................................................................11
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Introduction
Customer Relationship Management CRM systems puts together customer data across
different channels or points of contact between the customer and the company which could
include the company's website, telephone, live chat, direct mail, marketing materials and
social media. CRM systems can also give customer-facing staff detailed information on
customers' personal information, purchase history, buying preferences and concerns CRM
system extends support for making improvements in key organizational processes such as
customer relationship development, lead/prospect generation, sales management, and
complaint management (Lehmkuhl & Jung , 2013). The implementation of CRM at
organizations present series of challenges ("In the Age of the Smart Machine | Shoshana
Zuboff", 2018)
Previous researchers have stated that CRM factors add value to firms directly and
these techniques provide better results when they are joined with processes and resources of
firm (Companies, Perna, Baraldi& UK, 2014)
Aim
The aim of the paper is to evaluate the efficiency of implementing Zoho CRM for
managing business processes of small businesses engaged in the selling of sports equipment.
Objectives
 to evaluate the benefits of implementing the zoho CRM process for small business
 to specify about the links between IT software such as Zoho software and the sales
marketing processes of the company
 To relate the Zoho software with the application of the theory
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ZOHO CRM Components and Features
Leads
One of the most important features of the customer servicing used by Zoho is the
concept of leads. It helps the managers of the firm to assess the number of customers
interested in using the services based on the number of times they have shown interest in the
different services and products of the company (Shabdar, 2017). By assessing the data based
on leads, the sales team of the firm is able to calculate and pitch in new ideas for attracting a
larger number of customers and marketing the products that have the highest demand.
Analytics and Reports
ZOHO also provides the option of analysing data and using it in an understandable
and fruitful way. It helps businesses to store data under one application and let the data be
used in an intercommunicative process so that a complete view of the business is obtained
and the data is utilised to the fullest capacity possible. (Refer to Appendix B: Figure 1)
Contacts
The leads generated are used as contacts or potential clients for the generation of sale.
This aspect is of the most help to businesses as it is applicable at all stages of the business
starting from stimulating interest in the clients for new products and services to continuation
of that interest on a long term basis. Multichannel support provided by Zoho is a medium that
allows the different customers to meet via different medium like chats, emails, social media,
calls and even in person at times depending upon the choice and circumstances. It helps
businesses to identify how different clients communicate among themselves and use the
trends to improve their business and operations. In order to engage with customers, the
contacts option allows businesses to perform email analysis and tracking of visitors. This
feature also allows to study inter customer relationships. (Refer to Appendix B: Figure 3)
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Deals
With the use of such efficient contacts, Zoho allows for businesses to strike effective
and profitable deals and helps in the processing of deals related to selling of products from
organisations to customers or from businesses to other organisations. Each and every step of
the deal including prospecting, analysis and value proposition is made easier with
implementation of ZOHO. (Refer to Appendix B: Figure 2)
Accounts
ZOHO also helps in maintaining accounts of different businesses wherein key
information is stored and maintained and is utilised at important times by the company.
(Refer to Appendix B: Figure 4)
Automation
ZOHO helps in providing automation of tasks which in turn helps the sales teams of
different companies to distribute equal attention to different customers and prioritise them as
needed. Further, this also helps in reducing time related to repetition of techniques involved
in stimulating interest in similar types of customers. This has propelled conversation rates by
53% and annualised growth rate by 21.3%. In other words, it helps sales teams to concentrate
more on selling the products and services rather than on data entry.
Campaigns
Campaigning is one of the most important components in any business. It comprises
of the use of objectives, targets, costs, communication channels depending upon the goals of
the organisation. The leads mentioned earlier are used to determine the communication
channels and hence the costs and targets. It is mentioned in various studies that CRM when
used for marketing and other formal purposes help in maintaining effective relations with
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customers (Shabdar, 2017). All the stages of customer relationship are then handled in easier
ways including cross-selling, customer management and relationship evaluation.
CRM Theory and Its Relation with ZOHO CRM
CRM theory states that the integration of different systems is very important so that
different platforms and activities can be integrated into one platform (Nguyen & Waring,
2013). These include systems, processes and technologies used to bring customers together
and initiate conversation amongst them. ZOHO focuses on the use of such platforms to
educate and acknowledge customers about the existence of new offers or about the already
existing products and services and helps to generate extra and additional sales and leads. All
queries in the beginning of the sale are filtered out and solved with the automation of
responses which helps in saving a lot of time (Olmsted & Santhanakrishnan, 2016). It also
helps in segregating mails on the basis of priority and solving tasks along the life cycle of a
particular sale. As mentioned earlier, ZOHO helps in building and maintaining the trust of
customers so that after the first stimulation and engagement, they are able to continuously
purchase from the same firm and get their customised demands fulfilled. In the context of
integration it is important to note that ZOHO provides direct linkage with Google apps and
provides an array and synergy of essentials that help in simultaneous handling of accounts
and products at the same time (Shabdar, 2017).
Many studies assert that CRM is a process that involves the identification of the
names of the customers and the related problems or complaints or feedbacks or even a track
record of purchases at certain times (Bahrami, Ghorbani & Arabzad, 2012). This is proven to
be beneficial to both the clients as well as the companies. It helps in studying the behaviour
of different customers so that the value adding customers and customers who do not value the
company or its services can be identified. Zoho has features which help to track both
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customer preferences and guide them through the features of helpdesk and self generating
messages and mails. As mentioned earlier, the same information can be used in a coordinated
way for campaigns and promotion events of the firms. Large amounts of investment has been
done by the management team and huge number of initiatives have been taken up by the
technology and marketing teams to promote advertising at campaigns in unique ways and
also promote customisation of products (Mitchell & Meggison, 2014). All such activities and
initiatives together promote better customer satisfaction and long run relationships.
Formulation of reports through ZOHO CRM is one of the most important and unique
features that help in maintaining records of the incomes of different clients and the value and
the types of purchases performed by them. This is turn helps in determining the customer
base and applying methods to increase the cohort of customers. It also helps in the
manufacturing of products of different types depending upon the demographics of the clients.
It also initiates and guides the centralised communication of customers that helps in driving
profits higher. It also help start ups and small businesses to train its employees and implement
methods, by means of which easy profits can be obtained. It also helps in identifying targets
that are inactive for a long time in the history and working on them.
Conclusions
Thus, to conclude it can be said that CRM systems are aimed at easing and facilitating
the processes involved with sales, marketing and analysis of many business systems. ZOHO
is one such CRM system that helps to put together and combine various types of data and
their implications by integrating leads with deals and sales. It also uses the behaviour, income
and communication of clients to develop processes that help in the generation of revenues
and profits. It eases a lot of processes for different businesses depending upon the products or
services that they produce or provide. In other words, it helps in the integration of data related
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to communication, frequency of usage, communication as well as salaries and purchases of
customers to formulate effective business strategies.
It also helps a great deal in the marketing and advertising of business campaigns such
that the target crowd and its demands are catered to in the best way possible and with
minimisation of time consumption. It also helps to bring data together from various
applications under one system so that the data can interact and make business decisions
easier. It alos helps small firms and start ups to effectively develop ways in which data and
responses can be used to generate easy and viable profits with minimisation of costs.
ZOHO is one of the most cost effective solutions to a large array of business demands
and problems. It helps in the establishment of long lasting customer relationships and helps
reduce time for the sales team. It helps in improving the quality of customer servicing and
widening the cohort of customers that it caters to with the manufacturing of products that
cater to the varying needs of [people based on their demographics. It has all the features that
help in the retention of customers and also stimulating sales for customers that were inactive
for a long period of time.
Recommendations
As ZOHO is one of the most efficient and cost effective tools for customer servicing
and management, it should be increasingly used by all small businesses and star ups that wish
to climb up the ladder of corporate growth and differentiate themselves in terms of servicing,
management and marketing.
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References
Bahrami, M., Ghorbani, M., & Arabzad, S. M. (2012). Information technology (IT) as an
improvement tool for customer relationship management (CRM). Procedia-Social
and Behavioral Sciences, 41, 59-64.
H. Nguyen, T., & S. Waring, T. (2013). The adoption of customer relationship management
(CRM) technology in SMEs: An empirical study. Journal of Small Business and
Enterprise Development, 20(4), 824-848.
Lehmkuhl, T., & Jung, R. (2013). Towards social CRM-scoping the concept and guiding
research.
Mitchell, R. B., & Meggison, P. F. (2014). Strategies for integrating cloud computing
concepts. Journal of Applied Research for Business Instruction, 12(2), 1.
Olmsted, A., & Santhanakrishnan, G. (2016). Cloud Data Denormalization of Anonymous
Transactions. Cloud Computing.
Perna, A., & Baraldi, E. (2014). CRM Systems in industrial companies: Intra-and inter-
organizational effects. Springer.
Shabdar, A. (2017). Integrating CRM with Zoho Ecosystem. In Mastering Zoho CRM (pp.
159-176). Apress, Berkeley, CA
Shabdar, A. (2017). Mastering Zoho CRM: Manage your Team, Pipeline, and Clients
Effectively.
Shabdar, A., 2017. Running Your Business on Zoho CRM. In Mastering Zoho CRM (pp. 61-
130). Apress, Berkeley, CA.
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Zuboff, S. (2010). In the age of the smart machine.
Appendix A – My Lead records converted to Accounts and Contacts
Lead Name Company Name
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Appendix B – (Home dashboard screenshot)
Figure 1: ZOHO screen showing reports
Figure 2: ZOHO screen showing deals
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