Pendula vs. Zoho CRM Plus

We used Pendula as part of our re-engagement program. This was valuable, as we were able to connect with 40,000 or more names. Knowing that either a significant telesales team effort--too expensive and not enough people--would be implausible. We designed an interactive SMS journey that allowed us to begin the process of taking the 40.000 and discovering those who were willing to shop with us again automatically. We also found that promotions and blasts worked really well, were very easy to set up and run, and then the automation on the back to create the Salesforce opportunity. We have also engaged with custom objects and were able to trigger events on internal activities and sales status, such as shipping notifications.

Starting with campaigns, once we send the campaign out, prospects who open it are moved into the sales funnel; the sales team then calls or emails the prospect. Our VOIP works in conjunction with Zoho CRM Plus, so phone calls are logged into the contact. And generates another call, letter, or appointment with the client on the Zoho calendar. Emails are sent through Gmail since Zoho CRM Plus does not work with Gmail. The client's email must be copied and pasted into Gmail. (responses are tracked in the Zoho CRM Plus). Once the sales team meets with the client and starts the process, it turns into an "opportunity" where all stages in the sale are tracked. We mail merge the contact info to the correct letter template, then download it into "Word," where the letter is proofed and corrected as necessary (Zoho merge does not allow you to work in "Word" 2019). When finalized, it is then uploaded back into Zoho CRM Plus under the Opportunity. The sale then continues through the process, and once signed off on, all the details of the job are logged into the Zoho CRM Plus. When the job is completed and closed out, Zoho CRM Plus automatically sends the client a thank you email. The client will then can biannual automatic emails reminding them to set up their bi-annual inspection.

• EOFY campaigns that drove limited time, limited release offers. We could segment our targets and engage those most likely to respond well.
• Limited release wine offers, again targeting the right buyers, and then designing a series of interactions with them. This enabled sales reps to speak to those most warm.
• Customer re-engagement. We have very many historical customers. We were able to reach 30,000 or so people and then lead them through several steps towards re-engagement.
• Targeting smaller customer segments was made easy due to the deep integration with Salesforce. We could create campaigns to account owners of contacts that met criteria--which provided a deeply personal experience.

• I use Zoho Social the most. There is a feature called "Bulk Scheduler". By uploading a spreadsheet with a number of posts I can schedule out up to 300 social posts to our Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google accounts at once. Then on the specified day and time, the posts go live. I typically only do a couple of weeks at a time so that I can keep the posts relevant to topics we are concerned with.
• Pemco sells surgical instruments to hospitals. The end users are the surgeons. Surgeons may have privileges at multiple hospitals. In order for us to accurately reflect the information about our doctors and hospitals, Zoho CRM Plus has a "many-to-many" feature. This allows doctors to be associated with multiple hospitals, and hospitals to have many doctors associated.
• I use the territory management feature to track sales by representatives. This is also a feature unique to Zoho CRM Plus. This helps us track commissions for the reps.

• Navigating a variety of journeys can get tricky. They have been steadily improving the interface here.
• Managing launch times and turning campaigns on and off can be cumbersome.
• Naming, tagging, and cross-journey reporting would be great.

• I think that Outlook integration with Zoho CRM is horrible. You have no control over where the emails get attached and IMAP does not always work as it should. One reason we are considering leaving the platform.
• Having all emails show up on an account vs having to go to each contact would be great. It used to do this but no longer with IMAP.

Incentivized

I personally started off as a CRM novice. But in a matter of 2 months, I was writing my own custom workflows, playing with modules and fields, and training my sales and operations teams to manage leads and accounts. Simply put, the system is intuitive after a brief introduction. The level of customization is staggering until you change your mindset. Zoho CRM Plus excels where you're able to attack your goals as problems already solved in the platform — you just need to locate the feature to make what you want to happen... happen! I equate it to the Adobe Creative Suite. You don't pick the fun filter before you lay out what exactly you want to draw. With that mindset intact, you can dial in the system to meet your and your team's needs based on your proposed SOLUTIONS, not just leaning heavily into a single feature to "force" some ROI.

Incentivized

Every account representative I have worked with has been extremely helpful and nice. You can tell the account reps and support staff truly care about the product and want to provide you with the resources that you need. The response time is also fast for support inquiries and that has been a massive help for us.

Incentivized

We found the user interface, the customer service, and the feature sets worked very well for us. Pricing was also affordable.

Zoho CRM is very customizable but compared to Salesforce it is a lot more buggy. Support is lacking but you get what you pay for. Overall we are happy but only because we are not paying a fortune!

• We were able to activate a large number of old customers
• We generated significant revenues and fast sales
• We have been able to run multichannel campaigns to great effect

• Cut down our CRM costs by 50% + without losing any functionality that we needed.
• Helped us increase our win percentages by helping us following our unique sales and marketing processes. (doubled sales bookings up until COVID and then still grew 10% in the COVID year)
• Helped us in managing our partnering programs.