These days, delivering the amazing customer experiences your customers are looking for means investing in the right technology. You need the perfect contact centre tech to manage conversations across a range of platforms, analytics for customer journey insights, and of course, a CRM.
There are plenty of Customer Relationship Management tools to choose from, including high-tech solutions with in-built AI and deal management. Today, we’re going to be looking at two of the biggest contenders in the marketplace, Zoho CRM, and HubSpot.
Both of these solutions provide companies with the tools they need to start investing in better customer experiences. Here’s what you need to know if you’re choosing between the two.
Zoho CRM: Features
Zoho CRM is a convenient and easy-to-use CRM software, offering companies everything they need to accelerate sales and increase leads. With this technology, companies can automate their sales routines, update marketing campaigns, and create optimized workflows to reduce time wasted on repetitive tasks. There’s also lead management, deal management, and contact management too.
Zoho CRM promises companies an easy way to upgrade their customer experience strategies, so they can focus on building their business quickly. Features include:
- Salesforce automation: Deal management, lead management, contact management, and workflow automation for better performance
- Process management: Sales process building, processing rules, and journey orchestration
- Omni-channel communications: Customer journeys across email, social media, telephony, and customer self-service portals
- Canvas: Drag-and-drop editor for pages and automated campaigns
- Reporting: insights, analytics, predictive forecasts, and trend predictions
- Performance management: Forecasting, territory management, and gamification
- Predictive intelligence: Lead and deal predictions with Zia AI from Zoho. Voice analytics and macro suggestions for improving workflows
- Collaborations: Presentation tools, video and audio conferencing and chat
- Security: Profile role and team information control. Support for GDPR and HIPPA
- Customisation: Customize your dashboards with layouts, filters, and unique views.
- Developer platform: Widget SKDs, REST APIs and custom functionality
- Marketing automation: Customer segmentation, lead nurturing, Google Ads integration and event management tools
- Sales enablement: Partner portals, integration with G-Suite and Office 365, partner portals, and invoice or quote generation
The Zoho CRM environment is extremely comprehensive, with a wide range of features constantly updating to deliver more support. You can adjust your CRM according to your needs, change views and filters, set up marketing automation strategies, and collaborate with colleagues on deals.
HubSpot CRM: Features
HubSpot CRM is a component of HubSpot’s wider “Hub” solution, which includes tools specifically designed for sales, service, and marketing. The CRM part of the HubSpot ecosystem is actually free to use, so anyone can access basic features like visibility into the sales pipeline, deal tracking, and company insights. Of course, if you want more advanced features, you’ll need to look at getting a premium plan.
HubSpot’s free CRM service starts with a reporting dashboard, company insights, deal tracking, and pipeline management. You’ll also have email tracking and notifications, meeting scheduling, live chat, and prospect tracking. Premium options come with advanced features like:
- Forms and landing pages
- Email and in-app chat support
- Ad management
- CMS hub starter for site-building
- Chatbots and basic bots for automation
- Mobile automation
- Reporting dashboard
- Custom messenger integrations
- Form follow-up emails and email health reporting
- Ticketing, shared inboxes, and meeting scheduling
- Productivity reports including time-to-close and tickets-closed reports
- Canned snippets and email templates
- Ticket pipelines
- Drag-and-drop marketing editor
- Website themes and local website development
- 1:1 technical support
The exact features you get from HubSpot CRM will depend on which “Hubs” you want to invest in. The Starter CRM suite, for instance, comes with all of the features mentioned above, along with a range of extra tools, like operations hub data syncing and contact management. If you have specific requirements for things like sales support or marketing, you can invest in premium packages for those hubs individually.
Zoho vs HubSpot: Which is Better?
Zoho CRM and HubSpot take different approaches to customer relationship management. Zoho offers a very rich selection of tools in an all-in-one environment. As soon as you sign up for the service, you’ll have access to everything you need to empower your employees, gain insights into your customers, and create fantastic ads.
HubSpot gives users slightly more flexibility about the kind of features they access. You can start with a little bit of everything using the HubSpot CRM Starter Suite, which covers features in everything from sales to workflow automation. However, users can also buy specific services in certain “Hubs”, to help improve ROI in various areas of their business.
Zoho is slightly more straightforward than HubSpot for beginners in the CRM environment. Where HubSpot gives you the freedom to build your own CRM experience, Zoho’s solution is more neatly packaged, which might be ideal for companies without a lot of specific requirements. Alternatively, HubSpot has a little more of a learning curve associated with it, but you’ll also have more customization options.
The good news is both tools share a lot of the same functionality. With both Zoho and HubSpot, you can manage contacts, leads and deals in a range of different ways, segment your contacts, and enhance your workflows. You’ll also have access to various tools for marketing and promotion, so you can ensure your business stands out from the competition.
Zoho or HubSpot? You Decide
Zoho and HubSpot are currently two of the most popular tools for customer relationship management in the digital age. Both solutions will offer users a flexible and engaging way to connect with their target audience and improve customer satisfaction. However, you may find that Zoho is a little easier to get used to if you’re a beginner.
HubSpot’s CRM can be a lot more advanced than some of the other solutions on the market, but it can also be costly. It’s definitely worth checking out the free CRM features if you’re interested in using HubSpot.
