Category: Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, HubSpot, is popular among companies because it helps businesses have better interactions and relationships with customers and potential customers. The success of any business hinges on this aspect. 

If you’re looking to enhance your task management approach and customer service management, HubSpot could be a valuable choice for you and your team. It’s user-friendly, and the intuitive interface further makes it easy to use for your business. Plus, it is well-recognized for its excellent integration features.

This customer relationship management tool also includes project management features that empower you and your team to complete all your projects in an organized and efficient way. Discover the features, pros, and cons of HubSpot by reading this review on HubSpot.

Our Verdict

HubSpot at a Glance – Free to $5,000/month

Visit

HubSpot is a cloud-based CRM platform designed to assist companies in tracking and nurturing leads while analyzing business metrics. It caters to businesses of all types and sizes in various industries such as retail, real estate, marketing, sales, construction, and accounting.

With HubSpot, businesses can easily monitor outbound and inbound leads, manage sales pipelines with automation, and handle leads and contact management, email campaigning, and tracking. Its proper migration and population capabilities provide a single customer view, enabling businesses to capture and store various data points about prospects and customers, including their website behavior, personal information, and engagement history with the brand. The platform’s ability to integrate across various functionalities is one of its main strengths.

Utilizing a CRM system allows businesses to effortlessly monitor customer interactions across various channels such as email, social media, live chat, or phone calls. These interactions are then organized in a timeline based on each lead. Additionally, HubSpot CRM’s marketing tool offers lead generation and email marketing automation features, empowering businesses to create and manage email templates and track their efficacy.

Overall, HubSpot CRM is an excellent option for businesses seeking a customer relationship management and project management solution. After reading this HubSpot CRM software review, you can evaluate for yourself whether this product is a good fit for you and your team or not.

• The fundamental CRM software is available at no cost.
• Receive immediate updates on lead actions.
• Create customized email sequences for both potential and current clients.

• For small enterprises, the per-user plans may be costly.
• Each contact can only receive one email.

Who Is HubSpot Best For?

HubSpot is best suited for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a powerful and user-friendly customer relationship management plus project management system that can effectively manage their sales pipeline. It can automate your marketing endeavors and provide you with invaluable analytics and insights.

It’s also ideal for you if you are seeking to integrate your CRM software with your marketing automation and customer service tools.

Hubspot Pricing

There are four HubSpot plans available, each with different pricing and features. To identify the HubSpot project management plan that best suits your business requirements and financial capabilities, it is essential to compare the pricing and features of the four available plans.

HubSpot

Free plan

Starter

Professional

Enterprise

Price

Free (one team with unlimited users)

$30/month (2 users)

$1600/month (5 users)

$5,000/month (10 users)

Marketing

• Unlimited storage
• Email marketing
• Content marketing
• Lead generation
• Contact management

• Unlimited storage
• Email marketing
• Content marketing
• Lead generation
• Contact management
• Automation workflows
• Lead scoring
• Reporting
• 1,000 marketing contact

• Unlimited storage
• Email marketing
• Content marketing
• Lead generation
• Contact management
• Automation workflows
• Lead scoring
• Reporting
• Marketing automation
• Advanced reporting dashboard
• Paid marketing
• Social marketing
• Omni channel features
• A/B testing
• 2,000 marketing contact

• Unlimited storage
• Email marketing
• Content marketing
• Lead generation
• Contact management
• Automation workflows
• Predictive lead scoring
• Reporting
• Marketing automation
• Advanced reporting dashboard
• Paid marketing
• Social marketing
• Omni channel features
• A/B testing
• Custom event tracking
• Multi-touch revenue attribution
• 10,000 marketing contact

Sales

• 5 documents in storage
• API available

• 5,000 documents in storage
• API available

• 5,000 documents in storage
• API available
• Lead scoring

• 5,000 documents in storage
• API available
• Predictive lead scoring
• Custom reports

Service

N/A

• Email support
• Phone
• Live chat

• Email support
• Phone
• Live chat

• Email support
• Phone
• Live chat

CMS

• Blog import
• 24/7 security monitoring & threat detection
• Basic SEO recommendations & optimizations
• 1 shared inbox

• Blog import
• 24/7 security monitoring & threat detection
• Basic SEO recommendations & optimizations
• 1 shared inbox
• Standard web analytics dashboard

• Blog import
• 24/7 security monitoring & threat detection
• Advanced SEO recommendations & optimizations
• 100 shared inboxes
• Customizable website traffic analytics

• Blog import and export
• 24/7 security monitoring and detection
• Advanced SEO recommendations and optimizations
• 200 shared inboxes
• Customizable website traffic analytics
• Admin notifications management
• Site performance monitoring

Operations

• Data sync
• Default field mappings

• Company insights
• Data sync
• Default field mappings
• Custom user permissions

• Company insights
• Data sync
• Default field mappings
• Custom user permissions
• Team performance tracking
• Campaign performance tracking
• 3,100 custom reports
• 400 workflows

• Company insights
• Data sync
• Default field mapping
• Team performance tracking
• Campaign performance tracking
• Custom user permissions
• 3,500 custom reports
• 20 custom objects definitions
• 1,100 workflows
• 50 datasets

HubSpot Pricing Packages

HubSpot is a popular all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer service software that offers a variety of pricing plans to fit the needs and budgets of different businesses. 

To know the most suitable plan for your business, go through our explanation of their CRM packages.

HubSpot Free Plan – Free Forever

The HubSpot Free plan caters to the needs of small businesses and startups who are initiating their inbound marketing efforts, making it an ideal option. The plan offers basic features such as lead generation, contact management, email marketing, and a simple CRM system. 

This plan is perfect for companies looking to get a taste of HubSpot’s capabilities and see if it’s the right fit for them. It’s also a great option for businesses on a tight budget, as it’s entirely free.

HubSpot Starter Plan – $30/month (2 users)

The HubSpot Starter plan is designed for small businesses that have outgrown the Free plan and are looking for more advanced features. 

In addition to all the features of the Free plan, this plan provides supplementary tools such as automation workflows, lead scoring, and advanced reporting. It’s perfect for businesses that have started to generate a steady flow of leads and are looking to improve their sales and marketing processes.

HubSpot Professional Plan – $1,600/month (5 users)

The HubSpot Professional plan is best suited for mid-sized businesses that have established sales and marketing teams and need more advanced features to manage their customer journey. 

The plan offers all the features of the Starter plan plus additional tools such as A/B testing, marketing automation, and advanced reporting dashboards. It’s a great option for businesses that need to manage a large number of contacts and want to optimize their lead nurturing and sales processes.

HubSpot Enterprise Plan – $5,000/month (10 users)

The HubSpot Enterprise plan is the most advanced and comprehensive plan that HubSpot offers. It’s best suited for large businesses with complex sales and marketing needs. 

The plan offers all the features of the Professional plan plus additional tools such as predictive lead scoring, custom event tracking, and multi-touch revenue attribution. It’s perfect for businesses that need a highly customizable and scalable solution to manage their entire customer journey, from lead generation to customer retention.

HubSpot provides various pricing plans that are tailored to meet the requirements and financial resources of diverse businesses. By choosing the right plan, businesses can access the right features and tools to optimize their sales and marketing processes and achieve their growth goals.

HubSpot Features

Let’s take a closer look at all the major features that HubSpot has to offer. We will discuss marketing, sales, service, CMS, and operations.

Marketing

For businesses, HubSpot Marketing is a potent tool that enables them to design and oversee their marketing campaigns. It enables businesses to attract visitors to their websites, convert them into leads, and ultimately turn them into customers. 

With HubSpot Marketing, businesses can create targeted and personalized content that resonates with their audience and automate email campaigns to nurture leads and move them through the sales funnel.

You can also optimize landing pages and CTAs to increase conversion rates, use social media to reach and engage with potential customers, analyze the performance of their campaigns and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Using HubSpot Marketing helps you streamline the marketing efforts of your business, save time and resources, and achieve better ROI on your marketing spend.

Sales

The HubSpot Sales tool empowers businesses to streamline their sales processes, facilitating sales teams with the necessary resources to foster stronger customer relationships and secure more successful deals. 

By using HubSpot Sales, businesses can automate their outreach efforts and follow-up activities and track email opens and clicks to get real-time insights into prospect engagement.

You can also use meeting scheduling tools to streamline your business’ sales process, manage your sales pipeline and forecast revenue more accurately, analyze your sales data to identify areas for improvement, and optimize your strategy.

HubSpot Sales is an avenue for businesses to increase their sales productivity, close more deals, and improve their customer relationships.

Service

HubSpot Service is a tool that helps businesses provide exceptional customer support and build long-term relationships with their customers. It enables businesses to manage customer inquiries, resolve issues, and gather feedback to improve their service. 

With HubSpot Service, businesses can manage customer inquiries and support tickets in one place, provide real-time support via live chat or chatbots, and create a knowledge base with answers to frequently asked questions.

You can also gather customer feedback to improve service quality, analyze customer data to identify areas for improvement, and optimize your business strategy.

HubSpot Service enables you to provide better customer service, increase customer satisfaction, and build stronger customer relationships for your business.

CMS

The HubSpot CMS is a valuable resource for businesses seeking to create and oversee their website content. Equipped with various tools, it empowers businesses to construct an engaging website that attracts visitors and facilitates conversions.

With HubSpot CMS, your business can enjoy easy creation and publishing of content with drag-and-drop editing and website optimization for search engines with SEO tools.

You can also use responsive design to ensure that your business website looks great on all devices, analyze your website’s performance and make data-driven improvements, and integrate your website with other HubSpot tools to create a seamless user experience.

Using HubSpot CMS enables you to create a professional-looking website, optimize it for search engines, and increase your website’s performance.

Operations

HubSpot Operations is a powerful tool designed to enhance the operational efficiency of businesses. By providing a comprehensive set of automation tools, data management resources, and analytical capabilities, it equips businesses with everything they need to streamline their operations, extract valuable insights, and optimize their processes.

By using HubSpot Operations, businesses can automate routine tasks and workflows to save time and resources, manage their data more effectively to ensure accuracy and consistency and gain insights into their operations with powerful analytics tools.

Also, Hubspot operations make it easy to optimize your processes and make data-driven improvements and ensure compliance with data protection regulations such as GDPR.

Plus, using HubSpot Operations is an effective way for businesses to streamline their operations, improve their efficiency, and make better decisions based on data.

Benefits of Hubspot CRM

Hubspot CRM offers several benefits for you and your business including:

Streamlined Sales Process

HubSpot CRM provides a single platform for managing your sales process, from lead generation and qualification to deal closing and customer retention. With a user-friendly interface, it simplifies your sales team’s tasks, allowing them to focus on the most critical tasks.

Centralized Customer Information

With HubSpot CRM, all customer information is centralized in one place, making it easy to access customer profiles, track interactions, and analyze customer behavior. This enables sales reps to tailor their conversations with prospects, enhancing the customer experience and increasing the likelihood of closing deals.

Automated Tasks

HubSpot CRM automates time-consuming tasks like data entry, follow-up emails, and lead tracking, enabling your sales team to be more efficient and effective. By utilizing workflows and templates, your team can allocate their time towards high-value tasks, like developing relationships with potential customers and finalizing deals.

Customizable Dashboards and Reports

Additionally, HubSpot CRM provides customizable dashboards and reports that offer up-to-date insight into sales activity, pipeline health, and team performance. This information can be leveraged to pinpoint areas of improvement, fine-tune sales strategies, and predict future revenue.

Integration with Other HubSpot Tools

HubSpot CRM integrates seamlessly with other HubSpot tools, including marketing automation, customer service, and content management. This enables your sales team to collaborate with other teams and leverage data from across the organization to drive growth and improve the customer experience.

Methodology for Hubspot Review

To provide you with an accurate and informative review of Hubspot, we analyzed and compared various aspects of the platform. Here are the key factors we considered:

Marketing

We examined the different marketing features offered by Hubspot, including email marketing, social media marketing, landing pages, and SEO tools. We assessed the ease of integration between Hubspot and other marketing tools to streamline marketing efforts.

Plus, we in-depth analyzed the reporting and analytics capabilities of Hubspot, including the ability to track website traffic, leads, and conversions.

Sales

We evaluated the functionality of Hubspot’s CRM, including contact management, pipeline management, and deal tracking. The various sales tools offered by Hubspot, such as email templates, automation, and analytics were examined as well.

Service

Our assessment involved analyzing the accessibility and quality level of Hubspot’s customer support options, which include live chat, email, and phone assistance.. We also evaluated if Hubspot had a knowledge base, guides, or FAQs.

CMS

The different content management system (CMS) features offered by Hubspot, including website design, blog creation, and content optimization tools were examined. We analyzed the reporting and analytics capabilities of Hubspot’s CMS, including the ability to track website traffic, engagement, and conversion rates.

Operations

We evaluated the workflow management capabilities of Hubspot, including workflows, mappings, and data sets. Also, we analyzed the reporting capabilities of Hubspot, including the ability to track team performance, campaign performance, and ROI.

Hubspot Reviews

Overall, Hubspot has positive customer reviews from G2 (voted best global software company) and TrustRadius (ranking third in the marketing automation software category). 

G2 reviewers commend it for its customer relationship management, inbound marketing, and sales pipeline features, although they acknowledge its complexity in the steep learning curve in terms of new users.

TrustRadius reviewers approve of its board’s in-depth analysis and sales tracking capacity while pointing out its cost and rigid contracts.

Hubspot Alternatives

If you are searching for customer relationship management software that has lower pricing than HubSpot, here are other alternatives you might want to consider.

Pipedrive – Paid pricing starts at $14.90/month/user

Visit

Pipedrive is designed primarily for sales teams, but it can be a powerful solution for small-to-medium-sized businesses. Despite the numerous customization options and dashboard features, Pipedrive’s interface is easy to navigate and suitable for all levels. Pipedrive and Hubspot have similar reporting capabilities, are well-designed, and offer decent multi-channel support.

In contrast to Hubspot’s Free CRM plan, Pipedrive does not offer a free option that encompasses marketing capabilities, such as forms and landing pages. Additionally, it lacks email features like Hubspot’s Conversations inbox, which allows agents to view, manage, and reply to incoming conversations in one place.

However, Pipedrive’s paid plans are considerably more affordable than Hubspot’s, and they offer the flexibility to pay for a single user, which is not an option with Hubspot. Pipedrive’s plans start at $19.90/month/user and increase incrementally as your business grows. You can also enjoy discounts if you choose to pay annually.

Zoho – Paid pricing starts at $20/month/user

Visit

Zoho CRM Review

Zoho is a comprehensive marketing solution, similar to HubSpot, offering services like email hosting, website creation, and customer relationship management (CRM) software. It also provides additional software for accounting, customer service, and project management.

If you’re seeking an alternative to HubSpot, Zoho CRM is worth considering as it offers a free plan for up to three users. While Zoho’s interface is user-friendly, it’s not as modern as HubSpot’s. Additionally, Zoho lacks live chat support, which HubSpot provides with exceptional speed. 

However, Zoho provides three distinct views (kanban, canvas, and tubular) for managing contacts, leads, accounts, and deals, whereas HubSpot only provides two. Zoho’s pricing model is flexible, allowing you to pay for what you need and offering reasonably priced paid plans.

Zoho CRM has a distinctive aspect in its “activities” section that allows users to categorize their tasks by activity types like upcoming meetings, open tasks, and all calls. This feature includes numerous filters, making it easy to find what you need quickly. Zoho also offers extensive report generation and detailed visual analytics, with customizable dashboards.

Zoho CRM caters to enterprises and small businesses alike, with no setup fees and a pay-as-you-go pricing model, making it a great alternative to HubSpot.

Salesforce – Paid pricing starts at $25/month/user

Visit

Salesforce is an intricate CRM with unparalleled advanced tools, but it comes at a steep cost and requires a long learning curve. On the other hand, HubSpot is more user-friendly and cost-effective, but its features are not as extensive as Salesforce.

HubSpot provides a free plan for basic CRM needs, which is not available in Salesforce. Salesforce provides a 30-day complimentary trial to assist users in becoming familiar with their platform, whereas HubSpot presents a 14-day free trial for its paid plans. The two platforms offer crucial CRM features, including sales prediction, email marketing, and managing contacts and leads.

Salesforce excels in customization, analytics, and advanced features, while HubSpot surpasses Salesforce in user-friendliness and cost-effective plans.

Bottom Line on Hubspot Review

Overall, HubSpot is a CRM software with impressive customer relationship management features, although it has a few limitations as well. You can consider HubSpot as a viable option for your business if you want to enhance your marketing efforts and improve the relationship between your customers and your business.

As businesses continue to grow, managing customer relationships becomes a daunting task. At this stage of the business, customer relationship management (CRM) software comes in. There are several CRM options on the market, but one that stands out is Zoho CRM. In this review, we’ll take a closer look at Zoho CRM’s pricing, features, and overall functionality. We’ll discuss the software’s benefits and drawbacks, as well as its suitability for various business sizes and types. 

Zoho CRM is popular among small and large enterprises, because it guarantees efficient management of clients and business operations. In this review, you’ll get a good understanding of why Zoho CRM is the right solution for your business’s CRM needs. This is because we carried out an in-depth review of Zoho CRM, and what it has to offer. 

Our Verdict on Zoho CRM

Visit

Zoho CRM provides an amazing customer experience to its clients in the management of their business operations. Zoho CRM helps clients to have an in-depth relationship with customers that ensures the customers are happy, happy to return and remain loyal to your brand. Zoho provides clients with a wide range of features that brings about the best productivity and work satisfaction for businesses that use Zoho for customer relationship management. 

With Zoho, CRM firms are able to harness the full power of omnichannel presence, KPIs, segmentation, predictive intelligence, and several other features that deliver a great experience for growth to businesses and individuals. Zoho CRM platform offers excellent customer support to its thousands of clients globally, making it one of the best CRM software in the industry. 

Zoho CRM offers you the opportunity to integrate hundreds of third-party app solutions, to create a holistic robust working space for your team. The integration feature of Zoho helps you to collaborate and interact with your team’s workspace. Zoho CRM allows you to track activity times and productivity between your employees, it also helps you to automate processes as much as possible. The automation of processes using the features provided by Zoho ensures that work is completed more efficiently and with greater speed. 

Zoho CRM dashboard helps you to have an overview of the processes going on in your firm at a glance. Through the dashboard, you can also get insightful data on the real-time performance of your workers and your organisation in real-time. Several other features are offered by Zoho CRM, some of them include: Lead management, Forecasting, Marketing automation, Customization options, Mobile access, Integration, etc. 

Zoho CRM offers five membership plans for clients depending on the needs of their business operations. The different categories of membership available on Zoho include the Free plan, Standard plan: $18/user/month, Professional plan: $30/user/month, Enterprise plan: $45/user/month, Ultimate plan: $55/user/month.

• You are allowed to use timesheets to log billable and non-billable work hours, this ensures accurate invoicing.  
• Task automation feature the automated task assigner is available, this feature helps to speed up work and save time  
• Availability of Gantt charts for process optimisation 
• Cross and multi-platform integration is support  

• There is a limitation of customization options 
• There is a lack of iOS-compatible app
• Limitation in the number of integration 

Zoho CRM Pricing Table

The different membership plans available on Zoho CRM offer a wide range of features. We will consider some of these features and the extent of the feature functionality on every membership category on Zoho CRM. To determine the Zoho plan that is best suited for your business requirement, it is crucial to compare the features and pricing of five available plans on Zoho. 

Zoho CRM Pricing Packages

To determine the Zoho CRM plan suitable for your business, go through this summary explanation of Zoho CRM packages.  

Zoho CRM Free Plan – Free Forever 

This is the plan for individuals and startups who are looking to test the waters in customer relationship management. This Zoho free plan offers limited basic features, but enough to provide good work for its user status. Some of the features offered by this plan include: Rename Tabs, Layout Editor, Standard List Views, Predefined reports, Email Templates, GDPR Compliance, etc. 

The Zoho free plan is also meant for large corporations to try out the excellent offerings and customer relationship management of Zoho before they decide on the higher plan with more features they will purchase that serves the needs of their business. Here are other free CRM software to consider.

Zoho Standard Plan 

The standard plan is for small businesses that have outgrown the free plan and have the need to use more features and more seats for team members or employees in the business. The standard plan is priced at US$18 /user/month which is billed monthly. The standard plan provides access to more features than the free plan, such as security features, marketing automation features, etc. 

Zoho Professional Plan 

The professional plan of Zoho CRM is suited for mid-sized businesses that have continually increasing patronage and have the need to manage their customer relationship. This plan offers a wide range of features more than what is available in the standard plan. This plan has more security features, better analytics and reporting tools, and better customization tools. The Zoho professional plan is priced at US$30/user/month which is billed monthly. 

Zoho Enterprise Plan 

The Zoho enterprise plan is the plan for much more established mid-sized businesses that are targeting to grow into large businesses with several locations across regions. This plan provides more advanced features in security and every other aspect of customer relationship management compared to what is offered by the professional plan and other plans lower than it. 

Zoho enterprise plan offers Advanced dashboard components, Anomaly detectors, Webform analytics and several other advanced features that set it apart. The enterprise plan is priced at US$45/user/month billed monthly. The Zoho enterprise plan is the most popular plan on Zoho CRM software solid offerings. 

Zoho Ultimate Plan 

The Zoho ultimate plan is the plan for very large and established businesses looking to consolidate their positions through customer relationship management. Zoho ultimate plan offers all the available features on its platform to users who operate on the ultimate plan. The pricing of Zoho ultimate is placed at US$55/user/month for monthly billing. Zoho ultimate has the auto-responders feature exclusive to it meaning this feature and many others are available only on the Zoho ultimate plan. 

Zoho CRM Features

We’ll take a look at the major features offered by Zoho CRM. The features we will discuss include sales force automation, automation and process management, product customization, reports and analytics, and marketing automation. 

Sales Force Automation

Zoho offers a robust sales processing feature that is highly advanced with several functionalities within the sales force automation system. The sales force feature enables you to automate routine sales, marketing, and support functionalities that take up valuable work time. This gives you more time to concentrate on your customers. The sales force automation allows you to create optimized workflows that help reduce manual data entry and eliminate redundancies. This helps in increasing the speed of your business’s overall process.  

Automation And Process Management

This feature is the core feature that helps to automate the entire processes of your business sales team. This feature helps to make the functioning of the business sales seamless. This feature provides a blueprint of the business pipeline and structure, even if an employee or team member is not conversant with the system. With this feature, you can define your business sales process for your team.

Product Customization

This feature is a unique one with specialisation products as its main function. With this feature, you can combine various features to build a CRM that fits the specific needs of your business. This feature brings together all the needs of any business and builds a unique solution for your business. 

Security

Zoho CRM takes the security of users very seriously hence security is a top priority at Zoho CRM. Zoho provides businesses with the top security protection for their user’s data, and privacy while allowing employees the opportunity to carry out their work. With this feature, you are able to assign roles, define missions, define permissions, and control the information of your Zoho CRM. 

Marketing Automation

This feature ensures that you get your marketing and sales teams on the same page for the growth of the business. This collaboration leads to new leads and the execution of targeted marketing on small companies. This ensures that startups can also get marketing leverage, the marketing automation is done by integrations. 

Omnichannel

The omnichannel feature records and covers events in real-time, when handling customer projects, you will get notified whenever anyone interacts with your ads. This feature helps to provide businesses with more exposure and potential clients. 

Zoho CRM Customer Review

Zoho is rated positively hence the over 250,000 clients that make use of Zoho CRM. Zoho is rated as one of the best CRM marketing software of 2023 by Forbes advisor. While G2 rated Zoho as one of the best global CRM software. 

Forbes advisor reviewers commended the CRM features available on Zoho CRM, saying that they are one of the best in the industry. 

G2 reviewers commend the Global customer relationship management abilities offered by Zoho CRM using its advanced features, especially the tons of customisation features offered on Zoho. 

Benefits of Zoho CRM

Zoho offers a wide range of benefits that help increase your business value offerings. The benefits include: 

Automated Sales Process

Zoho offers a robust platform for you to manage your business sales process in an automated manner. Zoho CRM helps you in lead generation and helps you in closing deals for agreed deals. With Zoho, you are Guaranteed of giving your customers what they want, which helps them to stay loyal and come to buy again. 

Automated Tasks

Zoho helps you to automate your business processes and management using the best process management tools. With Zoho your business is set to function optimally with little human intervention, this improves productivity in the long run. 

Customizable Dashboards and Reports

With Zoho, you have access to customizable dashboards and tools for reporting and making analyses of your business output and operations. This feature provides you with up-to-date happenings in your business in real-time, if you wish to have a real-time report of sales activity.

Integration with Other HubSpot Tools

With Zoho CRM you have access to third-party integrations that enhance work productivity and cross-platform sharing and collaboration among team members. This feature helps your business sales team to reach out to other organisations when necessary seamlessly. This increases organisational structure and overall performance.

Methodology for reviewing Zoho CRM

In researching this review of Zoho CRM, we looked at the various sections of Zoho CRM and the platform as a whole, we then considered these features for our review 

Marketing Automation

We examined the marketing features available on Zoho CRM, including Email templates, Email authentication, Mass email, Social profile integration, Email relay, and CRM for Google Ads. We examined the ease of use of these features, and the integration of Zoho with other third-party platforms, for business streamlining and sales growth through analytical capabilities offered by Zoho. 

Sales Force Automation

We examined the working of Zoho CRM sales automation tools including Sales forecasting, Email insights, Multiple currencies, Macros, SalesSignals, etc. These sales tools were also tested for full functionality. 

Automation And Process Management

We evaluated the workflow process management on Zoho considering the complexity of certain tasks, we determined that the automation of business process management offered by Zoho worked as stated by Zoho. Some of the features examined were Workflow rules, Blueprint, Webhooks, Record approval process, and Data review process. 

Security

Zoho claims to put security a priority for it, hence we checked out the security features of Zoho CRM. The system did have a very positive response to the system security examination. Some of the security tools examined on Zoho include CRM audit logs, IP address restriction, and Field-level security. 

Alternatives to Zoho CRM 

If you are searching for customer relationship management alternatives to Zoho CRM that offer more features and better pricing than Zoho. Here are alternatives to Zoho CRM, you may want to have a look at.  

HubSpot

Visit

HubSpot operates as a cloud-based CRM, HubSpot is designed to help businesses in the tracking and nurturing of leads. HubSpot provides customer relationship management for all sizes of businesses. HubSpot is a good alternative to Zoho CRM in terms of the features offered by HubSpot and the user interface of the user area of the platform.

HubSpot offers five tiers of membership plans from the free plan to the enterprise, HubSpot is priced from $0 for the free plan to the enterprise plan which goes for  $,5000/month. 

Salesforce

Visit

Salesforce as a CRM services provider offers unparalleled advanced tools. The platform offers great features that require you to learn committedly. The cost of the different plans of Salesforce prices is expensive, but the platform offers features and tools that cover the high cost of membership plans making it a worthy alternative to Zoho. 

Salesforce offers very extensive features that are solid which makes it a worthy alternative to Zoho CRM. Salesforce pricing is given thus paid pricing starts at $25/month/user. Salesforce is very user-friendly and cost-effective.

Pipedrive

Visit

Pipedrive as a CRM solution is designed to cater for sales teams, Pipedrive is an excellent and powerful solution for small and mid-sized businesses. This makes Pipedrive a good alternative to Zoho, the platform provides a robust range of features to business owners. Pipedrive offers features such as Customization tools, integration, dashboard features, etc., pipedrive has a super easy-to-navigate interface making it a go-to platform for customer relationship management. 

Pipedrive paid plans costs are similar to that of Zoho CRM, this puts Pipedrive in a good position again as an alternative to Zoho CRM. The pricing for Pipedrive starts at $9.90/month/user to $59.90/user/month. Pipedrive does not offer free forever plans but gives a free trial to intending members.

Bottom Line

Overall, Zoho CRM offers a wide range of customer relationship management solutions as we have discussed. The tools available on Zoho CRM are amazing, even though Zoho has limitations like every other CRM solutions provider.

Zoho is a CRM solution provider you should consider because it is a viable option to enhance your business marketing and management efforts. With Zoho, you can continually grow your business relationship with your customers. 

Freshdesk Contact Center (formerly Freshcaller) offers a new channel for telephonic communication called VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). You’ll see in this Freshcaller review that it’s a helpful tool for businesses looking to scale and establish a local presence. It also allows you to manage all calls from anywhere with a mobile device or computer. 

Our Verdict 

Freshdesk Contact Center

Visit

For business owners who want to set up a call center but find it an overwhelming process, they might want to consider the Freshdesk Call Center. This VoIP solution is tailored to streamline the whole process. 

Freshdesk offers many features that make managing a remote and large team of agents easy. First of all, the system is user-friendly and intuitive, so both you, your managers, and your agents won’t get caught up in configuration or learning how the system works–it requires no zero phone hardware, coding, downloads, or costs, and you’ll find that this VoIP service is much more intuitive than competing VoIP platforms.

The platform also provides built-in reports that convert phone metrics and team performance into data sets that can be used for your analysis. According to our research, the Freshdesk Call Center VoIP solution offers the best balance between affordability and available features.

• Free plan available
• Customizable and in-depth reports
• Easy to set up and run
• Wide set of features

• Focused on call center operations
• Expensive per-minute calls
• Not recommended for organizations dealing with highly sensitive data

Freshdesk Contact Center at a Glance 

When your business hours starts to grow, you might realize that you’ll need customer support. But the good news is that voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) services such as Freshdesk Contact Center give you the option to set up an easy and scalable customer support operation with multiple agencies represented by one single number. 

Freshdesk Contact Center is a VoIP phone number provider that offers local, international, toll-free, and vanity phone numbers across 90+ countries.

The agents can make and receive calls through both mobile and computer devices, and traditional online telephone support system features such as caller ID, call forwarding, and conference calls. But Freshdesk features make VoIP the ideal solution for modern enterprises wanting to leverage their call center software system like automatic call routing, voicemail, call recording, CRM, helpdesk, or other third-party integrations. It also allows the managers to monitor their team performance through customized reports with information like metrics and activity. 

Freshdesk Contact Center’s live dashboard allows you to monitor all call your agents are doing and you can even engage and join a specific call. Also, the AI bot streamlines your team’s work by offering features like round-the-clock automatic response to callers, queued call-backs, and holiday settings.

In case you already have a business phone number provided by an external carrier but you want to upgrade your call center capabilities, you don’t need to switch your current number. Freshcaller offers the BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier) option which you can port your existing phone number to VoIP, so you can continue using the same phone number while availing the benefits of VoIP.

Who Freshdesk Contact Center VoIP Solution is Best For 

Freshdesk Contact Center VoIP tool is an excellent solution for businesses that are scaling but are on a tight budget. The company offers a free plan and a 21-day free trial. If after the trial you want to continue, plan tiers are very affordable. 

Pricing 

The free plan best suits small teams with low call volume and basic call management needs. As the business needs go up, so does the pricing. See the pricing chart below.

Plans

Free Plan

Growth

Pro

Enterprise

Price

Free

Starts at $18 per agent per month

Starts at $47 per agent per month

Starts at $83 per agent per month

Buy Local Numbers

Buy Toll-free Numbers

Call Metrics & Notes

Basic Call Queues

Inbound Caller ID

Wait Queues

Call Recording

Call Monitoring

Holiday Routing

IVR (Phone Trees)

Smart Escalation

Omnichannel Routing

Freshdesk Contact Center VoIP Features

Freshdesk Contact Center offers a variety of features that works well for any size and type of business. We’ve listed the main ones in this Freshcaller Review.

Smart Escalation

Available only at Pro and Enterprise plans, the Smart Escalation feature proactively plans to handle all your customer service team allowing calls with fallback rules. This functionality aims to reduce the operational burden from the calls that your technical support team can’t attend to immediately, so it will automatically direct these calls to voicemails, wait queues, nested call queues, and callbacks wherever suitable.

Call Metrics

You can view your team’s call metrics by storing call logs, checking and analyzing call lifetime metrics, and keeping a tab of all billing-related information for every call made or taken. Functionality is available in all plans, including the free package.

Reports

You can collect and use all the data available in your favor with the reporting analytics tool. From call trends, volume trends, and the number of call transfers, hold time, and average talk–you can use any of these reports to evaluate your team’s performance and spot trends in calls either hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

After Call Work

After Call Work is defined as the process of wrapping up the current call before being available for the next call. It can include logging notes about the call, emailing prospects on critical points discussed, and updating comments on the CRM. You can increase your team’s productivity, understand each agent’s time spent on ACW, and gain insights into the average ACW time through the comprehensive call summary report.

Alternatives to Freshdesk Contact Center VoIP

Choosing the right VoIP platform for your business doesn’t have to be complicated. If you wish to know what else is out there besides what you’ve learned about in this Freshcaller review, we’ve listed the best VoIP providers for businesses.

RingCentral

Visit

RingCentral offers very similar services and sets of features, such as voicemail, toll-free numbers with minutes, and call recording. The solution also allows users to structure automated prompts for callers, and make use of several collaborative tools to boot.

Pricing tiers start at $19.99 per month and it’s a great option for international companies as it provides international phone numbers to over 100+ countries, while Freshdesk Contact Center supports over 90. 

• International presence in more than 100 countries
• Toll-free numbers available
• Collaborative tools to bots

• No free trial
• No free plan
• Not as user-friendly as Freshdesk Contact Center

8×8

Visit

8×8 Review

8×8 brings together voice, video, and messaging to call center. Get multiple call flows depending on the origin of the call, and set up HD video conferencing for up to 100 guests (and expand to 500 participants at higher-level plans). The software also offers to record and transcribing capabilities for future reference. 8×8 is the best choice for companies looking for the best video conferencing solution – which might not be the case for most small enterprises. 

However, the downside of 8×8 is that it’s not as easy to identify and block spam calls as the other best VoIP providers for businesses can. Also, for companies looking to expand internationally, you might choose other options such as Freshdesk or RingCentral – 8×8 makes international phone calls available for 48 countries. 

Pricing ranges from $15 to $133.

• HD video conferences 
• Video call record and transcribe

• Voice calling for up to 48 countries
• Limited protection from spam calls

Dialpad

Visit

Dialpad’s most significant feature is its work with AI. With a business and sales approach, business owners may use the Dialpad solution to run their call center and scale sales and revenue by using virtual assistants–which can transcribe voicemail and video calls to text and let you know the tone of the message. Freshworks also offers call recording but only on paid plans. Pricing starts at $15 per month. 

The solution offers unlimited calls, SMS, and group messaging for all plans and a 14-day free trial. The downside of Dialpad is that it charges a $15 add-on fee for video conferencing for more than 10 meeting participants

• Free 14-day trial
• Call recording and voicemail transcription available at all plans
• Unlimited calls, SMS, and group messaging

• The Standard plan limits your service to one physical location
• $15 extra for video conference with 10+ participants

Bottom Line on Freshcaller Review

Setting up a call center doesn’t have to be daunting. Many customers highly appreciate high-quality and efficient customer support phone number, and at times, it can be a decision-making factor when choosing between two products or services in an effortless and affordable manner. In other words, if your company doesn’t offer an appropriate center solution, they might look for your competitors. 

RingCentral is a voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) communications service, providing streamlined calling to anywhere in the United States and Canada. The software helps businesses efficiently connect with consumers to improve sales and customer retention. Read on to see how RingCentral provides the tools you need to succeed.

Our Verdict

RingCentral

Visit

RingCentral is an excellent upgrade to any cloud phone system. Not only will it allow for faster and clearer calls, but the software also incorporates several additional features like video conferencing and collaborative tools to streamline business communications.

With several tiers of service, RingCentral is a solid option for any size venture. Price points and feature sets scale with your organization as it grows, making RingCentral viable for many years to come.

• Unlimited calls within the U.S. and Canada
• Several integration options
• Built-in team messaging and document sharing

• Can be overcomplicated for first-time users
• Limited mobile features
• Lacks some collaboration tools

RingCentral at a Glance

RingCentral’s VoIP communications platform allows businesses to reach out over the internet instead of relying on traditional landlines. VoIP comes with several benefits, including better connectivity, lower costs, and clearer voice quality. Plus, more than 60% of businesses have already made the switch to VoIP, according to a Blueface research report.

The software doesn’t stop there, adding several other features to an already impressive cell phone platform. With RingCentral, businesses can take advantage of tools like call recording, auto attendants, and integrations with other popular business apps. If that wasn’t enough, RingCentral also includes audio and video conferencing for internal or external use.

You’d be right to think that all these features don’t come cheap, but RingCentral is one of the more affordable options out there. It offers four different tiers that grow in features as the price goes up. This allows businesses to start at a level they can afford and scale accordingly.

Who RingCentral is Best For

RingCentral expertly scales alongside different business models, allowing companies of any size to make use of its many features. Small ventures in need of a VoIP phone system can use RingCentral to establish a business phone number and communication tools, while enterprises requiring video conferencing can find what they need as well. Even large businesses with call centers can build an infrastructure with RingCentral, taking advantage of the auto-attendant, analytics, and storage.

Pricing

RingCentral has four pricing plans that increase in price with additional feature sets. The prices listed below are annual rates, where you can save upwards of 33% of what you would normally pay monthly. You can tap into additional savings per user if your team reaches 100 people or beyond.

Features

Essentials

Standard

Premium

Ultimate

Price

$19.99/user/month

$27.99/user/month

$34.99/user/month

$49.99/user/month

Business Phone and Toll-free Numbers

Unlimited Calls Within US and Canada

Voicemail to Text and Email

Team Messaging and Document Sharing

Video Meetings and Participants

Up to 100 people

Up to 200 people

Up to 200 people

24/7 Support

Multi-level Auto Attendant

Call Recording

On Demand

Automatic

Automatic

Basic Integrations

Real-Time Analytics

Unlimited Storage

RingCentral doesn’t skimp on the features it includes with each tier of service. With four plans to pick from, chances are you’ll find one that suits your needs.

At the low end, the Essentials tier kicks off at $19.99 per user each month with several VoIP-based phone tools to build your communications network. RingCentral gives each user a unique phone number that can call anywhere in the United States or Canada. If you miss calls, it’s possible to receive voicemails to email or text, so they don’t get lost in the shuffle.

The Essentials tier also has internal tools your team can take advantage of. Users can communicate through messages within RingCentral’s dashboard and also share documents for easy viewing and modification.

If you can afford a little more, the Standard plan runs $27.99 per user and unlocks the ability to have audio and video conferences with your team or external clients. At this tier, you’ll also gain access to 24/7 customer support via phone or online chat. 

With Standard, you can also set up the multi-level auto attendant to field calls and distribute them right where they need to go. This feature saves your team from handling initial inquiries from customers, allowing them to stay in the area they excel. On-demand call recording allows you to save conversations for training purposes or improvement opportunities. Finally, you can link up RingCentral office with other popular apps such as Office 365, Google Suite, and Slack.

For $34.99 per user monthly, you can add real-time analytics to your repertoire of tools. These analytics report essential business data to help you identify areas of success and improvement. This Premium tier adds in several more integration options, such as Salesforce and Canvas that weren’t available before.

Lastly, big businesses can make use of the Ultimate plan’s unlimited storage to keep all the organization’s files in one place. Be prepared to pay $49.99 per user to use such a feature.

RingCentral Features

RingCentral has a long list of features across its four tiers of service. Below are some of the standouts that really make the software shine.

VoIP Calling

All incoming and outgoing calls run through the broadband internet you already use, helping to keep costs down and connectivity high. You can place an unlimited number of calls to anywhere in the U.S. or Canada for no additional charge. RingCentral gives a dedicated phone number to each user on your plan for efficient call routing, and the software is set up for SMS messages as well.

Call Recording

Most plans offer some form of call recording. On-demand recording allows you to manually capture conversations for training or improvement. RingCentral’s higher tiers incorporate automatic call recording, where you can collect calls from individual users or departments as a whole.

Voicemail

At times, team members aren’t available to answer incoming calls. RingCentral saves these messages to play back later. The software can automatically convert voicemail messages into texts you can read directly from your mobile devices. It’s also possible to have voicemails sent to an email address or view them straight from the dashboard.

Team Collaboration

In addition to being a system for VoIP calling, RingCentral has RingCentral video offers several features teams can use to collaborate. Users can chat with colleagues, share calendars, see assigned tasks, and more within its dashboard. The software also allows team members to share and access files to keep communication in one place.

Conferencing

While other VoIP phone providers stop at calling, RingCentral goes above and beyond with conferencing tools. You can have audio conferences of up to 1,000 individuals, with each user having a unique login and access code. Video conferencing is also available for 100 or 200 participants depending on the level of service that you’re using. These video meetings have built-in screen sharing and chat capabilities.

Auto Attendant

Auto attendants may very well be your hardest worker. These virtual receptionists answer every incoming call so no customer falls through the cracks. The assistant can share important information with anyone calling your main number and route clients to the correct department through button presses or voice commands. It’s possible to record a unique message using a voice of your choice or build customized options for sending callers precisely where they want to go.

Using an auto attendant frees up an employee from having to answer incoming phone calls, allowing them to tackle more important tasks. Best of all, this feature is included with nearly all RingCentral plans.

Integrations

RingCentral gets along well with a host of other apps designed to make project management, communication, and marketing a breeze. Having software to communicate well saves time with data entry and converting information from one place to another. Lower tiers only allow integrations with popular apps like Office 365 and Google Suite. You can link up RingCentral with tools like Salesforce and Canvas at higher price points.

Alternatives to RingCentral

RingCentral has a lot of great features, but it isn’t for everyone. Check out how some of the most popular alternatives compare to what RingCentral has to offer.

Nextiva

Visit

Nextiva is a VoIP calling platform designed to help businesses connect with clients and potential customers. As you move up the price ladder, Nextiva adds features that extend well beyond what a typical communications platform can do. Its mobile apps don’t carry the same praise, often lacking features that appear on the P.C.

The service offers three tiers of service that somewhat mirror RingCentral. Starting at $23.95 per user, the Essential plan contains unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada alongside a free local and toll-free number. It stands apart from the competition with an auto attendant and 24/7 customer support across all price points.

The Professional plan for $27.95 per user each month adds in video conferencing of up to 250 users, integrates with several other business apps, and showcases a multi-level virtual assistant. The Enterprise plan allows unlimited video conference participants and finally introduces call recording into the mix for $37.95.

This range of price points makes it possible for businesses to use Nextiva’s tools for communication and collaboration at any stage of the game. Costs aren’t too far off from RingCentral, but features are different. To learn more about Nextiva’s features, read our complete Nextiva review.

• Unlimited calling within U.S. and Canada
• Free local and toll-free number
• Customizable auto attendant

• Call recording is only available in higher-tier plans
• The Essential plan has no conference calling
• Mobile apps lack features

Vonage

Visit

Vonage is well-known for its phone service and has a three-tiered VoIP package for businesses. The platform stands out for its customization, offering API tools for voice, video, and more. The downside is that these coding options come with an additional cost.

There’s no clear list of what goes into each of Vonage’s price points, but costs per user decrease as you hire more individuals to your staff. If you’re a business with over 100 employees, you’ll need to call Vonage for a quote.

The Mobile tier is pretty basic, allowing for unlimited calls to the United States and Canada. Your team can access the messaging center through either desktop or mobile app, and its app center can integrate with over 20 third-party apps. Gaining access to these features will set you back at most $19.99 per user.

Sitting at $29.99 per team member, the Premium plan adds in unlimited video meetings for up to 100 attendees. Here, you can integrate with big names like Google and Microsoft, and Premium also contains a multi-level auto attendant. If you’re looking for more, the Advanced plan at $39.99 per user monthly brings in call recording and visual voicemail features that RingCentral adds in at its lowest tier.

• Several routing options to never miss a call
• Apps for mobile and desktop
• Very customizable with communications APIs

• Limited customer support
• Hard to understand which plans offer which features
• API tools come with additional cost

8×8

Visit

Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for years, 8×8 has something for everyone with its six calling plans. High-end service tiers revolve around contact centers for high call volumes and large staff. The large feature set is beneficial but can muddy the dashboard when trying to locate the tools you need. Sadly, you won’t have access to customer service with some of the lower-priced plans.

New ventures can pick up 8×8’s Express plan for $15 per user each month, including voice, video, and messaging. Your team can call anywhere in the U.S. or Canada, and an auto attendant with intelligent call routing will get incoming calls where they need to go.

Moving to the X2 plan enables calling to 14 different countries, increased video conferencing size with high definition, and integrations for $24. The price jumps to $44 per user for the X4 plan, but you’ll gain access to tons of analytic data and calling to 48 countries.

Tier X6 adds in basic contact center features, call recording, and intelligent voice response for $85 per team member. X7 adds social media and chat connections for $110, whereas X8 introduces speech analytics and multi-screen monitoring for a whopping $140.

Read our in-depth review on 8×8 to learn more about its features and pricing.

• Voice calling for up to 48 countries
• High definition video conferencing
• Mobile and desktop apps

• Limited protection from spam calls
• Customer support isn’t available on low-end plans
• Complex dashboard

Grasshopper

Visit

Grasshopper has a unique business model that targets smaller companies through flat rates for service. It’s also quite easy to get set up and start running. However, any enterprise with over five or ten users will struggle to find use for this VoIP provider due to a minimal feature set.

All Grasshopper plans include a free business phone number, texting capability, and voicemail for storing missed messages. You’ll also have access to basic reporting tools and the ability to transfer calls to another sales team member. There’s no video conferencing, call recording, or auto-attendant to field calls for you.

For a flat $26 per month, you’ll receive a single phone number and three extensions to transfer calls to. $44 nets you 3 unique numbers and 6 different extensions, while paying $80 per month allows for 5 numbers and an unlimited number of extensions and unlimited internet fax. It’s worth noting that adding an additional line will set you back $10 per month. Read our Grasshopper review to learn more about its service.

• Flat rate per month
• Fast to set up and start using
• Free vanity phone numbers

• Lacks conferencing and call recording
• Limited tools for larger businesses
• Costly to add additional phone numbers

Bottom Line on RingCentral Review

RingCentral is a powerful unified communications solution communications platform with an abundance of features businesses can use to reach that next level. Whether you’re working to retain clients, collaborate better, or offer video training sessions, this phone app has what you need. With varying tiers of service, small enterprises to large corporations should have no trouble finding a price point that works for them.