ZohoCRM is perfect for small companies since they do not have to invest a great deal of money upfront. They can tryout ZohoCRM free for 3 users as long as they want to and in the process, figure out what all they need to track and how they can gain by it. This approach of using the product live and seeing how it impacts business live gives a lot of flexibility to the small biz owners.

Since there is no upfront fee-commitment, it gives a whole lot more flexibility to the business.

It also gives one a proper perspective as to what the person is venturing into and what all are available in a biz-handling tool like ZohoCRM.

Once the basics are firm and growth happens, the users can start buying up more seats. Again, the advantage is that you are not tied to a mode-of-payment. You can pay annually. So if your business is going good and you want more folks to use it then just buy whatever seats are required. In bad times, if you have to let go of people, then you just delete their accounts and pay only for what you have. This flexibility gives businesses a wide range of options to handle their finances.

In fact, to get a business up may be difficult but to control it or shape it is just a click away!

Ross Dawson has a good article here :-
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Premium-Articles/EntrepreneurOnline/20080225-Web-20-ross-dawson-future.html

What is the difference between Hosted CRM and On-Premise CRM?

The difference is the something similar  to using a payphone vs using a  cellphone. You do not own the Payphone, someone else owns it, you pay to the phone company or the person manning the payphone booth based on how long you talk.
While with the cellphone, you own the cellphone. You could have paid for it one-time and have had a buyout and you are free to use it unlimitedly. You possess it physically on you or in your office.

You get the drift??

Hosted CRM is hosted by someone else. You use the system and pay per use generally eg. Zoho CRM is hosted CRM. ZohoCRM cannot be installed in your office or home. You have to signup to ZohoCRM online and use your login to access it and use it.

On-Premise = At your premises, at your home. On-Premise means you can have the software installed at your place of choice. You generally make a buyout of the software. These are generally called as Applications. This is what most of the world is used to. Install the software in your system and use it when you want to locally eg your operating system Windows XP.

Nowadays, you will hear mostly about Hosted, Web2.0, On-Demand CRM. That is because CRM software has been hosted somewhere and is being given to the users as an online-service. This has huge business impacts, namely :-

• No upfront costs resulting in flexible finance and biz options. You can collaborate with upto 3 users free!
• No Data Lockup ( You are not tied to the system for life!!)
• No need to use any hardware. Just connect through the internet using your login and password.
• No maintenance headaches (for you. Plenty for us ;-)! ). ZohoCRM staff takes care of that. You just have to login and play ball.
• Freedom of payment-methodology - you can pay monthly or yearly.
• No installation charges. 
• Just Sign Up Online and Rock!

Now ain't that cool??!

Who needs CRM?

Picture this scenario :-

Adam Baxter has setup a bakery shop. He is the only guy manning it.
He specializes in making bread.

He has started getting customers in his neighbourhood who come regularly and buy from his shop. Adam knows them all by face, after all it is a small neighbourhood.

News of Adam's Special Bread spreads and enquiries start pouring in. Adam diligently starts taking notes in his small paper-notebook. He has attended a few seminars and has taken notes too. He has also met some potential investors who would like to fund him to so that he can expand his business. He was asked to make some business plans and come and discuss with them sometime in the coming month.

Suddenly one day, his notebook is missing and he does not know what to do. In the midst of the panic, a  potential customer - now what was his name - is on the phone enquiring about the delivery that he had commited to for the coming day. And that is not all, there is also some big expansion plans that he had noted down in the notebook to discuss with the potential investors- now what were their names, they were 6 of them. All are lost. Where is the damn notebook???!!!

Also he has been invited to speak at a function to share his knowledge. Hell, this is a good platform to reach out to more potential customers! Oh God! Where is the notebook now!!!

Adam needs CRM.

The above is probably an oversimplification but typically CRM is needed where one needs to have a proper control on business. CRM is a value add.
CRM cannot replace your business, it boosts your business effectivity. You get more thing done with much less effort, thereby directing your effort in what needs your attention.
This does not mean they are a record-keeping replacement. CRM systems help you add intelligence into the system by providing workflows and certain system-generated rules which provide a sense of direction and purpose to your business.
These help streamline business and improve overall efficiency.
CRM systems can generate reports and show where your business stands as on a particular instant visually through Dashboards and Charts.
A 360' view of the market is always readily available putting the businessman in a better position to do business.

Let us build on this example. I welcome you all to add your own variation of example and answers to this.

Many small businesses still use a spreadsheet, a generic database, or a general-purpose application such as Microsoft Outlook to keep track of contacts and prospective customers. But over a period of time, this becomes too difficult to handle. It becomes a repository of information and nothing more. The power lies in being able to mine this data and make it into something useful.

Here is where a CRM tool adds value. Zoho CRM is one such tool. Zoho CRM helps you keep track of your contacts, any follow up contacts with them, the activities associated with them like followup calls, meetings, statuses of the same, related documents and collaterals, invoices, purchase orders, etc. One can remotely login and work too!

For those who have data in spreadsheets, they too can import their data into ZohoCRM.

When you log in to Zoho CRM, the Home Page displays the list of recent activity assigned to you so you know exactly what your Action Items for the day are.
It also lists the summary view of the system. You can even define what particular view of the system you would like to see in the Home Page when you login. These are called as Widgets in the ZohoCRM terminology.

Zoho CRM also provides an Outlook Plugin. So those who use Outlook Mail client, simply need to download the Plugin and signup to the server.

Using the Outlook Plugin, while residing in your Outlook Mail Client, one can do the following :-

• bidirectional contact sync - You can add your Outlook contacts to Zoho CRM and vice-versa
• task sync - You can add your Outlook tasks to Zoho CRM and vice-versa
• activities sync - You can add your Outlook activities/meetings to Zoho CRM and vice-versa

Also, you can add emails related to a contact in ZohoCRM from the  Outlook Mail Client to Zoho CRM.

The idea is to ensure that all data is centrally located and is easily accessible remotely. This greatly increases efficiency of an organization as data is centrally shared.

Zoho CRM also has a quick create option for Leads, Contacts, Accounts, etc. This reduces the time the Sales guy spends using the system. The idea is to make it easy to use for the Sales guy so that he enters/obtains the relevant info that he wants and gets to the field asap.

For the Upper Management, since the data is centrally organized, it helps in getting a 360' view of the business in any instant in time. Here is where the Dashboard feature comes to the fore. This is a great value add and performance multiplier. A one-shot view of the entire business at the press of a button!

Go ahead and register. It is free for 3 Users!

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management

In the beginning, companies never used to track their customers. The intent was to gain maximum territory with less or no stress on consolidating the customers.
This lead to a lot of competition among the companies to reach out to the same customer.
The customer too did not maintain any loyalty with any company for the simple reason that he did not get any from the other side.

It was an open field so lot many companies  entered  the market, therefore, the profitability per company dropped drastically.

Slowly realization dawned that one must keep customers happy and keeping someone happy was not a one-off affair.
But this had an even more basic question to be addressed - Who were the customers?

So they started building a list of the customers who purchased their products. Each company wanted their customer to stay with them so they started being nice to the customer hoping that the customer comes for a repeat purchase. Over a period of time, the customer too started being friendly with the business and started vouching for them and spreading the word for them. This in turn brought more business to the company. The happiness level raised a few notches.

The companies realised that it is far more beneficial for them to have a happy customer since they got more customers as a result of their preaching. So they started finding out ways and means to find ' How to keep my customer happy?'. In order to do this, they started tracking
what all does a customer buy and when all does these sales happen. Over a period of time, they built a database of the customer behaviour which could tell them the buying patterns of the customer and this would in turn make them better prepared to make the customer happy since the customer's needs could be met on time. So the next time the customer needed something from the company, the company was ready with it. This increased the happiness level a few notches more.

After sometime,the companies started to think how could they push newer products/services to their existing customer base? They started looking at their database and tried to figure out which product mix would give maximum benefit to the customer and in turn to the company.
This gave the customer access to a much wider list of things that he could buy and that too which could add value to whatever he has already purchased. By having the company come out with the relevant products, the customer did not have to look too far and could buy things instantly thereby getting instant gratification.

The same logic was applied to the potential customers too.


In this way, CRM helps companies understand, as well as anticipate, the needs of current and potential customers.


What CRM is not?

• CRM is NOT about Technology
• CRM is NOT about people
• CRM is NOT about storing/hoarding data

Pre-requisites for getting a CRM

• A customer-centric strategy!
• A customer-centric strategy!
• A customer-centric strategy!

CRM exists for the sole purpose of serving the customer hence a customer-centric strategy has to be thought of before embarking upon the thought of getting a CRM.

The entire organization has to be customer-centric. Then, all the areas from which customer-related data can be obtained must be sought and then a match with a relevant CRM system has to be made.

After a proper CRM system is found, one must still instill the discipline to have the proper data put at the right time into the CRM system which therefore can be accessed by the right person at the right time.

A CRM system with suspect data can take down a company faster than the blink of an eye!

One has to  be very careful as to what data one puts into the CRM system and when. Old  proper data is as good as junk old data. The data has to be up-to-date and relevant. Here the discipline that we had talked about earlier comes to the fore.


Benefits of having a CRM system

1. Lower costs to attract and retain customers;
2. Greater customer loyalty;
3. Greater cross-sell and up-sell success
4. Improved sales forecasting
5. A 360' view of business
6. Access to relevant and proper data helping in higher sales

After logging in to Zoho CRM service for the first time, please complete the following:

•     Change password
•     Set up company profile, company logo and currency
•     Personalize language, date format, and time zone
•     Personalize name format
•     Customize modules as per your business process
•     Rename Tabs as per your business process
•     Customize Fields in CRM modules (example: Leads module)
•     Set up roles & profiles as per your organization hierarchy
•     Add users to your CRM account
•     Import sample data in to CRM modules(example: Leads module)

Once you have completed the above configurations, your CRM account will be ready for real-time deployment.

For more information, please refer to zohocrm.wiki.zoho.com

For personalized assistance you may contact our Customer Support at: support@zohocrm.com or Call at: +1 888 900 9646.


Hope that was helpful!

Once you do a purchase in Zoho CRM, irrespective of the number of active users that you have in your account, Zoho CRM will charge for your purchase until you explicitly tell the system to stop making recurring payments. So if you are using a paid account with Zoho CRM, in order to cancel the service, you need to instruct the system to stop making further payments from your credit card account:

1. Click Manage Subscriptions button in the users list page.
2. You will get a plan page, where click on the Manage your plan button.
3. In the resulting page, select the downgrade option check box and select the number of users to be removed ( for whom the billing should not occur the next time).
4. Click the Update Account Button.

PS: Once you do a downgrade, the licence will be cancelled immediately. So please downgrade to free version at your convenient date before the end of the expiry date.

ZohoCRM has been categorized as a Leader by DestinationCRM magazine in the 2008 CRM Awards.

The details of the award can be found here
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crmmedia/crm0908/index.php#/0

Archie

Inside CRM carries a very good blog post on why CRM is very important during a recession period here . I will try and simplify and summarize it here.

1. Deeper understanding of one's customer base
This will make the sales and marketing depts more certain of being able to address the needs of the customer instead of just pushing to the customer. No one likes to be pushed around and more so when financial difficulties strike. The customer ideally would always like to get something that will solve his problem. 90% of the time, sales are made on the 10% that the CUSTOMER does NOT want. So good time to get back to basics.

2. Valuation of customers
Some customers are gods, and the rest are not so. These 'gods' have to be treated with care and often have the ability to influence a lot many folks because they have used whatever has been sold to them (mostly!) and have endured/experienced the service given. Since they come back and buy, one can safely imagine that they are happy with the service ;-) and would be happy to share the news around.  This makes it even more important to be ready with the red carpet when they come around. This information is typically stored as a stat entry. Time to get the dust off the CRM system-data and search/ferret out these gods! And then, see what you can give them.

3. Filter the Leads
Most of the time, lead filtration is not done and data are just about dumped into the CRM system. In recession, getting a lead in itself is a task. So time one got down on the knees and wade through each so-called lead that comes into the system. Is the lead worth classifying a lead, is it gossip, is it someone's room-mate who accidentally happened to smile at me and give the card, etc? Take those junk out.

4. Keep the base happy
Having a customer base is good. knowing what they do/buy/etc is also good. But what do they get for being good to you??? Spend sometime thinking on this and try and go back to basics. Time to populate the CRM with data that will help enhance one's knowledge of how the person behaves/wants. Come up with a scheme to tell them they are royal for being loyal and that one is willing to bend over and help them else, well, this is recession time and someone will undercut you. Remember, a penny saved is a penny gained, right?

5. Be smarter - well, you knew this so no need to harp on it.
A man is known by his abilities in times of crisis. In a recession time, think through your strategy. Do not panic. Take time to think of what you stand for and what would you expect your customer to see you as. They may not be the same!
You are human too so it is far easier to sit and analyze what they would need.
It is the Cerebral things that matter. The brawns certainly do matter but less so in recession time.

Let me know what you felt about this.

Archie

This is not going to be a one off blog. This is something that I would welcome your inputs too so that we can come up with a good practice list of a kind. Loose, conversational.

Try and avoid using the CRM system as an information hoarder. Anyone can do that.
The intent of using a CRM system is to store Quality Data in it. So focus on getting the right data in by validating firstly, the entry point of the data to the system - Leads/Contacts/Prospects whichever you like to use as the starting point.

Focus more on customer engagement. It is not sufficient to have a world-class CRM system backing you. Remember, the CRM system is only as good as the data you give. So Trash In results in Trash Out and no one is the more wiser.
These are tough times so focus on the data that you have that you have garnered by engaging with the customer. The customer needs a human touch 99% of the times. I am not giving you stories - I have done this in real life. There is nothing more that will help win/lose the deal in less time than you blink.

Engaging the customer is about talking to him about his needs AFTER he makes his needs clear. Tell him honestly if you can or cannot give what he needs. Also mention to him what needs to be done to get the desired results and where does your product/service stand wrt that need. He will help you to get the deal from him and this will result in getting a long time, loyal customer.

Store these info that you have gleaned from him. Yes, this may require investing a couple of more days with him but is worth it since you have invested time in him and he in you. So the chances that he would prefer to remember and deal with you next time is much more higher. An already existing customer is the best reference you can have and also the best to do business with since your hunting-cost is 0.

Once a month or whatever scale you use, generate reports. Spend time on what kind of reports you need. These needs will evolve so be forgiving in that sense.
But at the same time, be very specific on what you need to see. Make the report and schedule it.  Do not just fire and forget. Analyze the report. Go back to the drawing board aka Board Room/Sales Strategy/ Marketing Execution/etc, see where things ought to improve and improve it. Repeat it.....


PS : If the report cannot be done or is not supported, please do escalate to support at zohocrm dot com. We will look into it immediately. Yes, I am not committing anything since unless we have a look at the need, we will not be able to give an assessment of what/when we can actually give you the result. But I promise, we will hear the case without any pre-conceived notions. We too are human and can make mistakes, remember?

Archie