ZOHO’s Inventory Management

The Zoho CRM goes beyond what you would get with more traditional CRM. The difference here is the amount of tools and options available to the user. It seems that the Zoho CRM is all about ease and flexibility for the consumer. As a starting business owner, I feel that the last thing you would want to deal with is with an impossible-to-use-CRM.

PRODUCT-PAGE

The Zoho CRM is capable of handling both Pre-sale and Post-sale activities into one single application unlike the products of other vendors. This seamless integration is also present in many other options. The Zoho CRM gives you the option to manage your products with complete control. The product page layout is customized in any desired fashion to fit the needs of your business. These options include the following:

• Product-specific documents are integrated into the page layout.
• The ability to export your product information to more widely used programs such as Microsoft Excel and Open Office.
• Product links to Price Book, which, as the name implies, gives you the price information on all your products specific to each vendor.

SALES QUOTE SYSTEM

Additionally, the Zoho CRM has a fairly advanced Sales Quote system. The system will allow you to track sales quotes and select different prices based on the vendor. Printer friendliness is always an issue with CRM systems, but the Zoho allows for very streamlined and easy printing experience. From the Sales Quote page you can:

• Create an Invoice or Sales Order very easily.
• Automatically display the Terms of Condition and the Shipping and Handling information to avoid duplication.
• Customize the page layout which allows a company to give itself a unique appearance, is fully supported.

ORDER MANAGEMENT

Again, integration and feasibility is key. The Order Management page allows you to track your orders with great ease so you know what is shipped and what needs to be shipped. This page also allows you to:

• Manage up-to-date stock in an integrated fashion.
• Customize your page according to your company’s image and purpose.
• Use similar options that are also available on the Sales Quote page such as the single-click Invoice option.
• Keep the stock available to share-holders, for a more organized and streamlined process.
• To print with ease.

INVOICE MANAGEMENT

The purpose of the Zoho CRM is to give a workable, comprehensible, and enjoyable experience to small business consumers who are looking to get organized and integrate themselves fully in the business world. Finally, there is the Invoice Management page which allows you to make and distribute invoices with great ease. This page allows you to:

• Track your invoices in a very straightforward and clear way. No need to search among thousands of files to find one invoice.
• Customize your invoices in any fashion, from the way it’s printed to the watermark you use.
• Include Billing and Shipment information and the Terms of Condition

In conclusion, the Zoho CRM seems like a very good option for people looking to start a business or to small business owners wishing to organize themselves. Each page of the Zoho CRM has features designed to create an easy experience for the consumer and promote the well-being of the business.

In addition to Inventory Management, ZOHO also provides a variety of reports and configurable dashboards.

Zoho CRM Software For Your Small Business

As a business owner and operator, you probably know how critical it is to have proper communication and interaction with your customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is of the utmost importance when it comes to running a successful business operation. This not only involves the personal side of dealing with your customers, but also the technical side, which is sometimes the most difficult to keep organized and up to date.

In addition to many other features, the Zoho Office Suite, a web-based office management package, has a feature that deals with CRM. This section of Zoho’s office suite now allows you to integrate e-mail conversations with your customers right into your CRM software, instead of having to run the two independent of each other. You are able to integrate your Zoho CRM software with any of your e-mail accounts, whether it is Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, or any other POP-based e-mail service.

One of the coolest features in the Zoho CRM software is a plug-in that works directly with Microsoft Outlook, making it possible to synchronize all of your customer contacts, calendars, and e-mails with the CRM program. Not only that, but you are able to share customer e-mails with your colleagues, and see a thread view of your e-mail conversations, all without leaving Zoho. Rather than having to use the CC feature in e-mail, you will be able to track your conversations with your customers within your CRM software. If there are only particular e-mails that you would like to share, you may do so, or keep certain messages private.

The following are many of the benefits that you will experience when using Zoho CRM with the Microsoft Outlook plug-in:

1. Sales Force Automation

• *Leads
• *Accounts
• *Contacts
• *Opportunities
• *Sales pipeline
• *Tasks
• *Calendar
• *Reminders

2. Marketing Automation

• Campaigns
• E-mail marketing
• E-mail opt-out
• Auto-responders

3. Customer Support and Service

• Cases
• Solutions
• Business hours
• Case escalation rules

4. Product Customization

• Drag and drop page layouts
• Standard industry fields
• Custom fields
• Search layouts

5. Reports and Dashboards

• Pre-defined reports
• Dashboards
• Schedule
• Reports
• Customization of reports and dashboards

6. Web Forms

• Capture leads
• Contacts
• Cases
• Spam control
• Multiple forms
• Personalized-mail notifications

You can check out Zoho’s Office Suite for yourself, and see how it will improve the quality, efficiency, and productivity of your business, by checking out their website at: http://www.zoho.com/.

In addition to email integration, ZOHO also allows for Inventory Management for your small business.

ZOHO’s Role-based Security

Zoho CRM offers Role Based Security, an enterprise grade solution to set up and manage access rights and security for users of CRM data. Zoho CRM Role Based Security uses Profiles, Roles, Data Sharing Rules, Field-level security, and Groups to help determine the level of access for each user.

Key Features

• Profiles: Allows the administrator to assign access rights to CRM modules, data administration tools, CRM records, and fields within each module.
• Roles & Data Sharing Rules: Allows the administrator to set up multi-level access rights, based on a user’s role in the organization, or required level of access.
• Groups: Allows the administrator to assign access rights to teams working on projects or workers with similar access requirements.

• Profiles: Profiles allow for assigning rights to large groups, such as Sales, Marketing, Inventory, Support, or any division within an organization. Grouping units together allows for sectioning of access at a high level. As an example, Marketing may need access to CRM modules, but Inventory does not. Using Profiles, each group can have those permissions granted or denied without having to change each individual’s permissions.
• Roles: Using job roles allows administrators to further specify permissions. A manager in marketing would need greater access than an intern. A market researcher would need more access than an intern, but less than a manager. Using Roles, administrators can create more layers of permissions that define access for each position in the organization.
• Groups: Teams often include workers from several departments, and with differing job titles. Using Group level allows administrators to grant permissions to access necessary data without interfering with Role or Profile permissions. Assigning members to a team, and granting Group permissions allows for flexibility and improved communication and data-flow for the teams.

Zoho CRM Role Based Security gives organizations a powerful tool for data security and management. Using this powerful tool, an organization can revolutionize their data use while increasing their data security. From establishing access limits across departments to sharing data to enable high-performance teams, Zoho CRM Role Based Security brings a powerful set of tools to your organization and at a price any organization can afford.

Not only does ZOHO have security features but you are also able to Integrate Email with ZOHO!

Using ZOHO’s Sales Force Automation for Small Business CRM

For a business seeking the right CRM software, Zoho‘s online offering provides extraordinary ease of use and functionality. One of the software’s features, Zoho CRM’s powerful Sales Force Automation tool, focuses on seven key steps or modules. These individual modules integrate flawlessly to provide a streamlined process of lead generation, information acquisition, sale conversion, customer retention, and loyalty programs.

Lead Management, the first of the modules, gives any size business the ability to generate quality, targeted leads faster and more efficiently. Managing sales lead raw data is a critical process of successful enterprises. Zoho CRM’s Sales Force Automation accomplishes this by utilizing:

• Unqualified lead information generated through various means, both “in-house” business portals and outside sources.
• Data captured from multiple web-based lead generation methods including form filling, web forms, quick create, and developer API entered directly into Zoho’s Sales Force Management module.
• Prospect data from other sources such as marketing initiatives, trade shows, networking, referrals, branding, or cold calls, all easily and seamlessly entered into the Zoho online CRM tool.
• Lead allocation and distribution methods that drastically improve on time-consuming manual means. Zoho’s SFA Lead Management tool incorporates specific criteria selection such as geographic location or activity, facilitating lead distribution to the right sales specialist.
• Built-in data qualification that separates contact-ready leads from general inquiries, resulting in engaged and interested prospects primed for the next stage in the process.
• Data conversion that completes the process and transforms the lead into a contact, actual sales opportunity or customer account.

Using Zoho CRM’s online SFA Automated Lead Management software transforms what is often a disorganized and human-error-prone system, into a smoothly functional process that works in both B2B and B2C applications.

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Businesses researching Customer Relationship Management software options should look closely at Zoho CRM’s many outstanding features. The online CRM’s Sales Force Automation tool provides seven integrated modules that let any business, whatever its size, easily implement advanced strategies for monitoring, analyzing and improving every aspect of the sales life cycle.

The second of the seven SFA modules, Sales Opportunity Management, breaks down the complete sales cycle into stages, effectively tracking and applying probability analysis to each stage; Zoho CRM’s Sales Opportunity Management tool puts a business firmly in control of their sales and marketing with the ability to:

• Utilize dashboard and reporting assessment features targeted specifically to the sales funnel.
• Sort and weed out likely failures and recognize genuine sales opportunities.
• Track potential sales through their complete life cycle.
• Identify and target prospects with the greatest completion potential and revenue expectations, increasing closings and income.
• Import data from within Zoho CRM, or from other external sources with Zoho CRM API and the Import Wizard.
• Interconnect potential sales with associated data in other modules, effectively giving full circle visibility from various viewpoints.
• Monitor the competition for each potential sale, a key feature during tough market conditions.
• Monitor and analyze where each sale is in the process, and what the potential is for closing the deal, using the Zoho SFA’s customization drag and drop wizard.
• Analyze the entire process to address issues, eliminate flaws and improve the scenarios for future deals.
• Keep involved parties updated and on track on deals reaching fruition through Zoho’s “Big Deal Alert”.
• Streamline the sales automation process using workflow rules.
• Easily export data to spreadsheet programs for analysis and streamlining of the sales pipeline.
• Easily generate quotes, orders and invoices in print-ready format.

Zoho CRM’s powerful Sales Force Automation software provides insight and control of the entire process with the click of a mouse. Using the Sales Opportunity Management module in combination with other Zoho features lets a business focus on increasing sales, and not get bogged down in record keeping and analysis.

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Zoho Customer Relationship Management suite of applications gives a business an affordable, award-winning, solution. One of the indispensable tools included is Zoho’s online Sales Force Automation software. The seven component modules of this customizable SFA software provide integrated and targeted methods to enhance the entire sales process, from raw data to loyalty program implementation.

Customer Account Management is one of Zoho’s SFA modules. Keeping track of individual customer accounts is essential to provide the best service and realize the current and future potential of each account. This is easily accomplished in the B2C scenario. Zoho CRM’s Customer Account Management software is especially beneficial with a B2B sales focus; it helps eliminate confusion and wasted effort by:

• Organizing every account contact and their various details in-depth with one central database.
• Utilizing the “history” feature that can incorporate account specific details such as activities, products, and pertinent notations.
• Managing the hierarchy of contact relationships within the account, especially important when accounts represent large organizations with multiple contacts.
• Facilitating the exportation of account details for analysis in spreadsheet format to identify customer-buying patterns.
• Tracking customer history to realize potential up-selling or cross-selling opportunities.
• Identifying and tracking hidden potential for increased sales and revenue.

Using the Customer Account Management module of Zoho’s Sales Force Automation feature empowers every size of business. Zoho provides the tools needed to easily and effectively stay on top of where the business is at any given point, while examining its history, and looking forward to its future potential.

Next up for ZOHO is a segment on Role Based Security for your small business