There’s a new word on my family’s lips these days: “Zoho.”…as in, “Mom, are ya working on Zoho again?” or, “Sounds like Zoho was just what you needed honey…are you ready to watch our movie yet?” I’m happy to say that the addiction is not mine alone; all my biz-owning friends who I’ve shared with are emailing me straight away saying, “Ohmigosh – I have been looking for something like this forever!!” It’s happening to all of us: we’re getting Zoho-fied, one by one.

So what’s Zoho? It’s Address Booking (contact management) for your business. Well, that’s how it begins anyway…and then you discover everything else the ZohoCRM can do…and then you stumble upon all the other Zoho apps…and then you’re good and hooked. In less than a month of converting our team’s Outlook Contacts, Excel sales management system and a few Google docs bits and bobs to the ZohoCRM, I can measure the improvement in company systems in cold hard cash. In other words, we’ve just closed a bunch of new business that we had sort of forgotten was even in our pipeline!

Our team has been reviewing CRM options for a few months, and we’re pleased as punch with our choice. To save you a bit of time, here’s a look at the features we love and a few we’re hoping for:

Why we went with Zoho instead of others

• It’s web-based, i.e. accessible by our consultants and support staff scattered around Hong Kong as well as our VA in Canada.
• It’s free for 3 users. Additional users are only US$12/month.
• It’s not software. Your membership gives you all the benefits of ongoing development.
• It’s super flexible. How many custom fields does a girl need? Well, it’s a bit like shoes, isn’t it…
• It’s really hard to muck things up. You can undo just about anything…even your data imports!
• The tutorials and how-to Wikis are comprehensive and actually do what they’re meant to do (tell you how-to…)
• The support is incredible. Ask a question and get a friendly, spot-on answer from my new best friends Adam or Gopal within hours – usually within minutes. If they’re not sure what on earth you’re trying to ask (ahem), they’ll jump onto a desktop sharing session to have a look…using Zoho Meeting, of course!

My Zoho Wish List

• Click-through tracking on the Zoho mass emails (hard to beat Constant Contact for this feature)
• Mass email autoresponders and surveys (a la iContact)

I think my family is happy I have now ticked ‘Zoho set-up’ off my to-do list. Little do they know that I’m about to start playing with the marketing automation features! Maybe I won’t mention that just yet.

Filed under: Contacts, Tools