1. Key features

All-in-one solution

The first question many people ask is why choose Zoho CRM Plus. This platform is designed to integrate all essential Zoho services into a single system. Currently, users who subscribe to Zoho CRM Plus can simultaneously use eight well-known applications from the Zoho ecosystem, including:

• Zoho CRM: The core application in Zoho CRM Plus, helping businesses manage the entire sales process as well as customer, product, and partner information. Businesses can design sales stages, create intelligent automation processes, and optimize business operations. While Zoho CRM is already a powerful tool, integrating it into Zoho CRM Plus enhances its capabilities, offering a comprehensive ecosystem with more diverse functions.
• Zoho Desk: A customer service management tool that helps organize and process customer support tickets more efficiently. Tickets are categorized, assigned, and tracked for response times, allowing businesses to develop better strategies for future customer support.
• Zoho Campaigns: A renowned email and SMS marketing platform that helps businesses create the most effective marketing campaigns. When integrated into Zoho CRM Plus, Zoho Campaigns synchronizes all ecosystem data, allowing businesses to manage and segment customers more precisely and optimize marketing campaigns.
• Zoho Survey: An online survey tool that allows businesses to easily collect feedback/data from customers or partners. This data can be transferred to other applications integrated into Zoho CRM Plus, such as Zoho CRM or Zoho Analytics, enabling easier management, faster data analysis, and service or product improvements.
• Zoho SalesIQ: Tracks website/landing page visitors and analyzes their behavior, such as their preferred clicks, most-read content, and more. SalesIQ also provides chatbot features, smart live chat support, and email responses to address customer inquiries. With the built-in Zia virtual assistant, it automates responses based on customer behavior history, enhancing customer experience.
• Zoho Projects: A tool for creating and managing sales and marketing projects to optimize teamwork. It synchronizes customer data with other applications in Zoho CRM Plus, allowing businesses to monitor project progress closely, improve workflows, and enhance services.
• Zoho Social: Supports managing social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to improve social media marketing effectiveness. Social media data is automatically synchronized with Zoho CRM Plus applications, helping businesses track interaction history and provide quick and suitable solutions for each customer segment.
• Zoho Analytics: A powerful data analysis tool that enables businesses to generate detailed and visual reports based on real-time data from other platforms within Zoho CRM Plus. For example, businesses can analyze purchase history from Zoho CRM or social media interactions from Zoho Social. This helps in making strategic decisions to optimize sales and customer service operations.

The "all-in-one" nature of Zoho CRM Plus enhances team collaboration, bridging the gap between sales and marketing teams to provide better customer support. Thus, Zoho CRM Plus is not just a tool but a comprehensive solution that helps businesses optimize every aspect of customer engagement and care.

Enhanced customer experience

Zoho CRM Plus enhances customer experience through multi-channel support, including email, live chat, social media, and websites, allowing businesses to interact with customers quickly and efficiently anytime, anywhere.

By automating sales, marketing, and customer service processes, Zoho CRM Plus reduces time consumption and ensures consistency, delivering a seamless experience. Its powerful customer behavior analysis tools also help businesses predict customer needs and improve future outreach strategies.

Additionally, Zoho Desk ensures fast and efficient customer support, increasing satisfaction and long-term customer retention.

Extensive customization capabilities

Regardless of your industry or business operations, Zoho CRM Plus can meet your needs, from customer management and process automation to user experience optimization.

Zoho's tech team is ready to help businesses customize the platform flexibly. Users can also rearrange and modify modules within each application using a convenient drag-and-drop interface.

For large-scale customization, Zoho CRM Plus supports custom APIs for advanced feature extensions and mobile SDKs to help businesses build web applications tailored to their specific needs.

Third-party integration support

Zoho CRM Plus is already powerful with its built-in tools. However, users can still integrate it with other business applications to increase efficiency and streamline operations.

Zoho CRM Plus offers a library of over 450 extensions, including Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, MailChimp, QuickBooks, Shopify, and more. Connecting Zoho CRM Plus with third-party tools optimizes business workflows, creating a seamless and efficient working ecosystem.

Smart AI assistant Zia

Just as Salesforce has Einstein and Freshworks has Freddie, Zoho CRM Plus features the Zia virtual assistant. Zia analyzes data, makes intelligent predictions, and supports sales, marketing, and customer service operations efficiently.

For example, Zia can predict whether a customer is genuinely interested in a product based on their behavior. This enables sales teams to focus their efforts strategically to persuade customers while saving time and effort.

Zia can also analyze customer sentiment based on support requests and inquiries, suggesting appropriate solutions. Unfortunately, Zia does not yet support Vietnamese, but if it did, it would be an even more attractive option for Vietnamese businesses.

Powerful mobile application

Zoho CRM Plus does not require users to work solely on a desktop. The platform offers dedicated mobile apps for services like Projects, CRM, SalesIQ, Social, and Reports, enabling users to work from anywhere.

All essential tasks, such as searching for customers, approving schedules, managing tasks, and responding to messages, can be performed on mobile devices. Zoho CRM Plus apps are well-rated for their user interface and speed, giving them a competitive edge over rivals.

2. Drawbacks

To maximize Zoho CRM Plus’s potential, businesses must utilize all eight tools. Otherwise, resources may be wasted, and the platform's full capabilities in managing sales, marketing, and customer service may not be realized.

Mastering these applications is not easy, and initial system setup and optimization can be complex. Due to its integration of multiple platforms, Zoho CRM Plus is not beginner-friendly. Users without technical expertise may struggle to learn and customize the platform efficiently.

Therefore, businesses should carefully consider their investment in time and resources, including employee training, before adopting Zoho CRM Plus.

Some users also report that Zoho CRM Plus’s third-party integrations are not as seamless as advertised. For instance, Outlook users have complained about synchronization issues, requiring manual data copying, and occasional data loss within Zoho. Similarly, Zoom users have mentioned unstable connections and a lack of direct integration features within Zoho CRM Plus.

This may be because Zoho already provides alternative tools such as Zoho Mail for email and Zoho Meeting for online meetings. As a result, Zoho does not prioritize deep integration with external platforms, instead promoting its in-house solutions.

3. Pricing

Zoho CRM Plus starts at $69 per user per month. With this plan, businesses receive:

• 10 GB of user data storage
• 5 GB of file storage
• Tracking for 200,000 website visits per month
• 10 customer support channels
• Unlimited projects and reports
• Unlimited emails (for contact lists under 100,000)
• Additional features for each tool

For higher needs, users can negotiate pricing directly with Zoho.

For comparison, individual Zoho applications cost:

• Zoho CRM: Starts at $14 per user per month for the Standard plan and $52 per user per month for the Ultimate plan.
• Zoho Campaigns: Starts at $10 per user per month for the Standard plan and $40 per user per month for the Ultimate plan.

If purchased separately, all tools would cost around $398 per user per month. However, Zoho CRM Plus offers these tools at a lower price while still providing access to all eight powerful applications.

Annual billing reduces the cost to $57 per user per month, saving businesses approximately 18% over time. Thus, Zoho CRM Plus is considered a comprehensive and cost-effective solution in the long run.

Additionally, Zoho CRM Plus offers a 30-day free trial, allowing businesses to evaluate its effectiveness before committing to a purchase.

4. Suitable users

With its outstanding features, Zoho CRM Plus is an ideal choice for medium and large enterprises or organizations with a large customer base that need a centralized platform to manage customer information, transaction history, and enhance interactions.

For businesses looking to improve coordination between sales, marketing, and customer service teams, Zoho CRM Plus is also a solution worth considering.

Especially for businesses that want to enhance customer experience by leveraging multi-channel services and process automation, Zoho CRM Plus is highly suitable.

With its ability to track and engage customers across multiple channels such as email, social media, live chat, and websites, this platform optimizes workflow and creates a synchronized ecosystem, making it particularly useful for industries such as retail, finance, real estate, and technology.

5. Conclusion

It is no coincidence that Zoho has won the trust of over 60 million users worldwide. With its many outstanding advantages, it has become a comprehensive solution for sales management, marketing, and customer support that every business should consider.

However, businesses should note that an initial investment of time and resources is necessary to master the tools within Zoho CRM Plus. Fully utilizing these tools will help businesses unlock the platform’s full potential, improve work efficiency, and enhance the customer experience.