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  • CRM in 2021: Trends and Predictions

    It is safe to say that, because of the unprecedented year that 2020 was for the entire world, everybody is curious and anxious about the future. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is not the exception, and probably now more than ever. Now that offering services and goods online has become a necessity, businesses are turning into CRM to either optimize it or implement it more than ever. The future is one of the factors that always drives businesses, so it’s no secret that everybody wants to know what will happen to CRM in 2021 to be up-to-date and thrive. So, it’s time to take out the crystal ball again!

    Image by Vladislav Murashko via Pexels

    Mobile CRM Will be Optimized

    Back in the day, CRM was only available for use in offices. But nowadays, CRM can be used anywhere from laptops, smartphones, or tablets to be current with new trends and customer needs. Because of the still ongoing global health crisis, countless people are still working from home, so they need to access their company’s CRM. Therefore, the online-offline interchangeability must be efficient and without any inconveniences. These necessities will bring tools that include apps that function throughout many platforms with more instinctive interfaces and additional security features.

    Customer Experience Will Get an Update

    Because the pandemic has increased reliance on the internet, there is no doubt that optimizing customer experience will be a must. Customers always expect businesses to know what they like and customize their engagements. CRM already has the task of collecting information from customers and personalizing it. This will be enhanced with social and demographic data, life events, relationships, and conversational tones.

    CRM Integration with AI

    AI has become a part of daily operations with a huge impact in the health sector because of telemedicine and even robots doing medical procedures. This impact is also felt in the marketing and sales industries, with AI playing a considerable role in CRM activities like customer segmentation and campaign optimization.

    The purpose of the CRM and AI combo is to empower sellers with real-time sales data so they can be well-informed when it comes to making decisions. By the end of 2021, this kind of integration could boost global revenues by $1.1 trillion. Sounds promising, right?

    Self-Service Will Surge

    We’ve already seen that automations are a huge tech trend. We see them daily in websites’ and social media’s chatbots, and email automation for marketing, both of which make easier all the tasks related to contact engagement and management. But with chatbots, self-service is possible since they collect information and offer personalized interactions. The increased demand in these services will create a need for even better and more personalized experiences created in the CRM that will be fit for smaller businesses, remote areas, and younger consumers.

    Image by Lisa Fotios via Pexels

    CRM Integration with Social Media

    CRM software already integrates with social media channels. So, naturally, CRM will keep doing so and making it stronger because it represents an opportunity for companies to have a one-on-one connection with various stakeholders. With regular and prospective customers using social channels, marketers and salespersons are enabled to enhance brand equity without major costs. Besides that, the CRM and social integration can get huge insights on how customers see their products and offerings, which allows quicker replies to customers and adjustments.

    We are definitely looking forward to seeing how these predictions roll out in 2021! Meanwhile, check out our previous 2020 CRM predictions to see how those did.

    To read more CRM trends, read the full article here.

    Are you considering to implement Zoho CRM in your business? Then click here for more information.

  • Zoho CRM Hits Milestone of 500+ Extensions

    Zoho Corporation has announced that Zoho Marketplace is now offering more than 500 plug-and-play extensions for their Zoho CRM software. According to the company, “the no-code, ready-to-use extensions” integrate and add functionalities that help salespeople to easily better their performance.

    Image via Zoho

    Integrations for Zoho CRM are available for more than 10 categories like sales, customer service, finance, marketing, collaboration, among others.

    Because salespeople use many other tools throughout the different stages of sales processes, switching between applications is inevitable, thus causing productivity to decrease because of the additional distractions. The usage of extensions allows users to quickly connect Zoho CRM with the tools they use, which saves more time to focus and increase productivity.

    In a year that has been challenging to everyone, Zoho Corporation has managed to thrive with new offerings and recognitions. The India-based company, which was recently named a Visionary by Gartner, had reached another milestone in Zoho Marketplace last August by reaching 1000+ extensions for their applications.

    To read the full article, click here.

    Are you considering implementing Zoho CRM in your business? Then click here and sign up for a free trial of Zoho CRM.

  • Zoho is Named a Visionary in 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant

    Here’s another recognition for the list!

    Zoho Corporation has recently announced that they have been named as a Visionary for 2020’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, thanks to their Zoho Creator application.

    Zoho Creator is a low-code platform with more than 14 years of existence. According to Zoho, all this time their vision has been to “provide a platform that reduces the complexity of app development, enabling different user personas to build applications of varying complexity effectively.” With that in mind, the India-based company has just introduced features like extensive AI capabilities, Deluge tasks, improved form workflows, Progressive Web Apps (PWA), simple drag-and-drop deployment, among others. Also, Zoho promises that their product roadmap for Zoho Creator has “a lot more in store” for the app’s future.

    The criteria used by Gartner for the evaluation included many parameters based on how complete is the company’s vision and the ability for execution. Zoho’s vision, along with Zoho Creator’s large-scale growth and adoption, goes in hand with Gartner’s research, which shows the following: “By 2023, over 50% of medium to large enterprises will have adopted an LCAP (Low-Code Application Platforms) as one of their strategic application platforms.”

    Despite the challenges that 2020 has brought, Zoho has received other recognitions throughout the year as well. Earlier this year, Zoho was named the January 2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for CRM Lead Management, while Business News Daily chose Zoho CRM as the Best Overall CRM Software. The software company also achieved milestones by reaching 1000+ extensions in Zoho Marketplace, and almost a year ago Zoho reached 50 million business users worldwide.

    Major congratulations to our partner Zoho for their entrance in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant!

    To read the full article, click here.

    Are you interested in learning more about Zoho’s applications or implementing them in your business? Then reach out to us by clicking here. We’ll be happy to help!

  • A Tactic to Grow Your Business Continuously

    Like everything else in life, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software needs quality maintenance and support to function in an optimized way and fulfill its objectives in businesses. Based on our vast experience working with Zoho and Salesforce, we’ll explain you how this type of program can help you get your CRM ready for updates, usage maximization, getting service according to your system’s customizations, and saving time that you can invest in growing your business.

    Image by InterConnecta

    For the Rookies

    Having the right CRM maintenance is something that applies to new and old users. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been using a CRM system for a short or long period of time, because in both circumstances you can benefit from a team that guides you and the other CRM users. For example, we have seen that businesses with a recently implemented CRM take time to find the configuration they need. So, a maintenance team will help the business get to that point.

    For the Experienced

    Meanwhile, even if it’s been a long time since Zoho CRM or Salesforce was implemented in your business, it’s very important that you consider your CRM processes as a living being. That is, as a system of constant change and evolution. As a result, you and your team must be prepared for those processes and adapt to them. Over time, as you use Zoho or Salesforce and invest more time in one of them, you will see that it will open you a world of possibilities. This is because there you will find more ways to grow your business.
    Think on how many times you have gone through repetitive and recurring actions, or in the instances when a product’s better structured sales cycle would’ve helped you. Wouldn’t you like to have had a team that could’ve guided you to implement these solutions?

    Beyond Maintenance

    Web applications can become their own universe, and Zoho and Salesforce are no exception. These universes require knowledge that isn’t purely technical, which is why they need a technical support team with knowledge dedicated to CRM systems and constant contact with processes for sales, marketing, project management, and much more.

    With this in mind, your IT team might be more focused on the functioning of your digital infrastructure rather than making easier the closing of a deal. By not being prepared to deal with situations that are typical of a CRM, it will be more difficult for them to provide answers regarding how to maximize the use of your database so your business can keep growing.

    Customized Support to Cover Your Needs

    Another important aspect about support is having one that can be customized. For example, even though Zoho offers support for their wonderful and handy 40+ applications, they won’t be in the know of your specific model and customizations. However, at InterConnecta we know our customers’ systems and we can give them support that’s informed and customized.

    In conclusion, having within reach a CRM maintenance and support program brings many benefits to your business. This type of program is of great help when you want to focus on growing your business without taking away time from it and avoid the worries that your system is not performing according to your expectations.

    Because of that, you must focus on giving your team better tools, meaning an optimized system by a support team dedicated to CRM, instead of teaching them how to work with the existing tools. That way, you will be able to stop answering technical questions about CRM and start answering questions about how your team can work better.

    If by finishing this article you consider that your CRM needs a maintenance and support program, contact us.

  • Zoho CRM Updates Requirements for Browser Versions

    Zoho recently announced that they have upgraded the default internet browser versions needed to use Zoho CRM. This was done in order to make easier the usage of features like widgets and scripts, which are often implemented separately from advanced functionalities for many business requirements.

    Photo by Pixabay via Pexels

    According to Zoho, the latest browser update is aimed to provide better performance improvements available in the latest version of Zoho CRM.

    Zoho warns that the oldest browser versions will not be supported starting October 15th, 2020. Consequently, it is important that all Zoho users upgrade their browsers before that date. As a reminder, Zoho CRM will display an in-product banner to remind users about that changes. The banner will be shown until October 15th, 2020.

    After October 14th, 2020, Zoho users will be restricted to use their CRM accounts from the older versions of browsers, and they will be encouraged to get an upgrade.

    To make sure that you are complying with the browser requirements, check the list below, which shows the current oldest versions of the browsers that are supported by Zoho and the recommended versions that Zoho users must upgrade to.For more information on system requirements, click here.

    Minimum Required Browser Versions

    Chrome

    Firefox

    Safari

    Opera

    Edge

    Old

    49

    44

    9

    45

    11

    New

    73

    69

    13

    60

    79

    Do you need help with your Zoho CRM from an experienced support team? Click here to learn more about our Maintenance and Support Program for CRM.

  • Zoho Launches Zoho Workplace Update with Business Context and Continuity

    Zoho Corporation recently announced the latest update of Zoho Workplace, a single software platform that brings together collaboration, productivity, and communications tools; and integrates them into other business processes. This new proposal is centered around a full-featured business mail and cloud office suite and it includes nine closely associated applications, built on a common data model and unified through common search and AI across one dashboard. This allows customers to solve business problems quickly and collaboratively.

    Zoho Workplace provides a unified platform with multi-faceted communications like email, messaging, audio and video conferencing; a cloud office suite with shared file storage; common team and collaboration paradigms built into each of the products; and AI, search, and other services that span right across the entire suite. According to Zoho, this will allow people to work better and more effectively than before.

    Vijay Sundaram, Zoho’s Chief Strategy Officer, had to say the following about Zoho Workplace:

    “The nature of work has undeniably changed, and Workplace has grown to meet that change. Businesses are not looking to solve a collaboration problem, they are looking to solve a custom invoicing problem or sales enablement problem or support problem. Collaboration platforms need to facilitate better business outcomes, not just improve productivity. Workplace, through pre-built integrations with powerful business apps and context and continuity across applications, devices, and departments, stands alone in having the vision and functionality to meet the broad business needs of today.”

    In a recent joint study by Zoho and Beagle Research, it was found that “54 percent of enterprise-level employees (businesses with more than 500 employees) found the applications they work with not intuitive and difficult to integrate.” Moreover, “40 percent of the largest enterprise employees surveyed (businesses with more than 4,000 employees) said their work can be chaotic, working with multiple technology platforms to do their job accordingly.” The study reveals that businesses want unified solutions that streamline complex processes such as data migration, content creation, contextual collaboration and communication, and search.

    Consequently, Zoho Workplace has been rapidly adopted in the last quarter, now supporting 2 million organizations, with 15 million users located across more than 150 countries. More than 25 percent of new Zoho Workplace customers have made the decision to switch over from G Suite and Microsoft.

    Zoho Workplace has the following capabilities:

    • Contextual communication with Zoho Mail (business mail), Zoho Cliq (messaging), and Zoho Meeting (conferencing).
    • Continuity with Zoho Connect (social intranet) and Writer (word processing).
    • Convenience with Zoho Show (collaborative presenting), Zoho Sheet (spreadsheet), Zoho WorkDrive (cloud document management), and Zoho ShowTime (online training).

    To read the full press release, visit Zoho’s page.

    Are you interested in learning more about implementing Zoho’s applications in your business? Then reach out to us by clicking here. We’ll be happy to help!

  • Customer Networks Are the Key to Driving Business Success

    By Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist for Zoho, for CMS Wire

    Customer networks are going to be one of the biggest tools for driving business growth and success in the coming decade. Conventional sales and marketing approaches just won’t cut it anymore. A well thought-out engagement strategy through customer communities will make all the difference, particularly in the post COVID-19 world.

    A conventional strategy typically includes a great product, a sound go-to-market strategy, an ever-eager pre-sales team that whips up prototypes for every business need, and a relentless sales team that converts every lead. That’s a great start. But it’s not great enough in a future that includes continued increases in customer acquisition costs, annual subscription models that don’t lock-in customers for the long term, and the ever-expanding options for customers to choose from.

    We see how technology has helped businesses with automation, precision and reach. It has provided customers with the information and knowledge to weigh pros and cons and choose wisely. Customers no longer rely on factors like advertisements or pricing. Instead, they rely on their own research, and on research and reviews by their peers. A Gartner study found B2B buyers spend only 17% of their time engaging with potential suppliers, but nearly 45% of their time conducting online and offline research and 22% of time engaging with peers. This, and the fact that 95% of consumers tend to rethink their buying decisions when they come across new information, are significant changes in buyer behavior and reason enough to consider moving past a conventional marketing and sales strategy.

    Pursuing a customer-centric approach by setting up a close-knit user community around a product or brand will complement conventional marketing and sales strategies by focusing on continuous engagement and improved customer stickiness. Thriving customer communities lead to a steady uptick in revenue, improve customer retention, build brand loyalty, and most importantly, businesses spend a lot less on marketing while making it more effective. For the communities to thrive, it is important to strategically set up customer success and advocacy programs that focus on meaningful engagements and align to community building.

    It Begins With Customer Success

    A well thought-out customer success program focuses on winning customers by onboarding and helping them with solution prototypes, implementation and continued customer support. This is critical for retaining early customers. The customer engagements here are transactional, highly individualized and one-on-one. It is a proactive strategy that anticipates what the customers need and helps the teams prepare solutions and alternatives. The knowledge gained in the process by the customer success team is built into reference repositories to be used by the other teams who will engage with the customers in the future. A seamless handshake is set up to transition the engagements to the larger user community where customers connect with their peers.

    “For the communities to thrive, it is important to strategically set up customer success and advocacy programs that focus on meaningful engagements and align to community building,” says Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist for Zoho. (Image by Kaboompics via Pexels)

    Moves on to a Customer Community

    Communities help foster a lasting relationship between a business and its customers, and between customers themselves. To build a thriving community that influences the peer group in making purchase decisions, a team of experts pick up the baton from the customer success team. They constantly endeavor to bring the users together online and offline, empower them with resources that help them learn and adapt the products to their business.

    The nature of engagements here are non-transactional, dynamic and many-to-many. Customers are encouraged to extend peer-support and share knowledge with other members. Communities are great avenues for customers to build on their skills as well. Among other things, customer communities help retain the charm of a human element in business, making information more relatable and transparent.

    The Final Destination: Customer Advocacy

    With the right framework for customer success and community, customer advocacy is the next logical program to set up. Validation and endorsements from existing customers positively impact a brand’s perception and reach. To roll out an effective customer advocacy program, businesses identify and nurture a select set of customers who are potential customer advocates. As part of nurturing, they are included in the rewards and recognition programs that identify them as brand experts or champions. Tailored initiatives train and certify these users as experts. Constant encouragement to engage with the peer community actively, building recognition as a leader and expert makes them effective advocates. The customer advocates become the brand representatives among other users.

    Setting up customer networks are therefore central to building and sustaining engagements as it connects the rookies and pros. The presence of an active community reinforces trust among the new customers as they get to connect with other peers. It provides a framework for businesses to stay connected with their customers through meaningful engagements. The more engaged a community is with the brand, the easier it is to find and nurture brand advocates. An engaged community and the brand advocates determine the growth and success of a business. The businesses that adapt this strategic shift are well poised to win and retain customers for the long term, and also earn champions for their brand, particularly in the B2B world.

    Source link: https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/customer-networks-are-the-key-to-driving-business-success/

    Are you looking for solutions to improve the management of your leads and existing customers? Zoho CRM could be a great option for you. Click here and register for a free trial of Zoho CRM.

  • How to Give Zoho CRM Users Permission to Manage Tags?

    If you have a user with a Standard profile in Zoho CRM, you may notice that they don’t have access to the (very useful) option Manage Tags. This can be found in a record’s List View, under the ellipsis [· · ·].

    If you checkout the profile section, you’ll actually see that this profile is set to give full access to Tags. This issue is caused because this level is handled differently but it is not mentioned very clear. In order to enable this, you need to allow Module Customization.

    If you check out the profile section, you’ll actually see that this one is set to give full access to Tags. This issue is caused because this level is handled differently but it is not clearly mentioned. In order to enable this, you need to allow Module Customization.

    As explained by our friends at Zoho Partner Support:

    Tags profile permission is different to Manage Tags permissions. Users with Tags permission for their profile can add/associate/remove tags for records. To Manage Tags, Module Customization permission is required, which will help them to customize Modules, Pipelines, Tab Groups, Web Tabs, Fields & Links, Layouts, Wizards, Related Lists, and Business Card View.

    Are you having a hard time figuring something out in your Zoho CRM setup? Sign up for our Maintenance & Support Program! We deal with these kinds of cases and much more!

  • Zoho Marketplace Reaches 1000+ Extensions

    Zoho is in full celebration mode! The India-based software company has just announced that Zoho Marketplace, their online store where users can find and install extensions that expand the core functionality of their Zoho applications, now provides 1000+ extensions. These extensions can address the exceptional needs of every role and function in a business.

    According to Zoho’s statement, users can extend the power of the Zoho products they use with 1000+ ready-to-use extensions across 40+ business categories, which include sales, marketing, customer support, accounting, back-office operations, and more. These allow their users to connect their favorite business tools with Zoho to add new capabilities immediately and with zero coding. Among those capabilities are making calls from Zoho CRM records, sending out appointment links for support sessions from Zoho Desk, and much more.

    Zoho Marketplace offers an extension for every stage of the customer lifecycle: reach, acquisition, conversion, retention, and loyalty. Also, it has 374,000+ installations and counting, and an average of 20,000+ monthly installations, while helping 100,000+ business users all over the world to do more with Zoho.

    Congratulations to Zoho! Once again, we are very proud to be one of their Premium Partners.

    To read the full article, click here.

    Are you interested in learning more about Zoho’s extensions or implementing their applications in your business? Then reach out to us by clicking here. We’ll be happy to help!

  • Zoho BackToWork: The New App for the Transformed Workplace

    It’s no secret that 2020 has brought challenges in every aspect of our lives —globally speaking—. That includes workspaces, which have now changed forever. As some companies are gradually starting to allow employees back at their offices, Zoho saw that a need had to be fulfilled to meet the compliance guidelines and employee safety around the world. That lead to the creation of Zoho BackToWork: a software that lets you make your workplace transition a smooth one.

    Image via Zoho

    To make all those things possible, Zoho BackToWork offers the following functions:

    Admin control center module

    Track the status of your facilities to welcome your staff back to a safer office space. This dashboard empowers top-level management to better assess the facilities’ readiness, view individual employee health status, and decide on the right course of action to be taken. You can also assign the hierarchy of approvals for entry, assets, and more, and set up virtual meetings with employees.

    Wellness module

    Circulate and collect self-assessment and contact tracing forms among employees and oversee organization-wide information about their health status. This module provides industry-approved surveys, and organizations can decide the frequency of employees taking it based on company policy.

    Safe entry module

    Study employee self-assessments, segregate the high-risk and low-risk crowds, and determine which employees are ready to work from the office. You can also collect and evaluate entry requests from employees and visitors using this module.

    According to its creators, Zoho BackToWork lets you “future-proof” your workplaces.

    Employee self-service module

    This lets you cater to the different workplace service requests of your employees. Manage asset requests of different types, ranging from office supplies to hand sanitizer and office space maintenance.

    Communications module

    Share guidelines, best practices, and frameworks with your staff right to their phones. This module lets organizations gather, design, and circulate health and hygiene-related materials, FAQs, and announcements in a coordinated manner, over web and mobile devices.

    Volunteer module

    Organize and execute volunteer drives to give back to the community. According to Zoho, business entities and individuals are all indebted to the communities around them. Therefore, this module allows organizations to recruit employees and coordinate volunteering activities.

    Besides those functions, Zoho BackToWork is a suite that is ready to use, affordable, has enterprise-grade security to ensure the complete safety of your data, and it’s cloud-based.

    Zoho BackToWork will be available for free until December 31st, 2020.

    To read the full article, click here.

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