Zoho CRM vs Freshsales: Maximizing Sales Efficiency with CRM

Customer relationship management tools can help you maximize sales more efficiently. Find out which CRM platform is better – Zoho CRM or Freshsales?

What if we told you that your business can increase its sales tremendously without additional effort? How? You might be wondering. Well, the answer is simpler than you might expect – digital innovation tools. To be more specific customer relationship management (CRM) tools can be used to aid you in maximizing your business sales efficiency. Luckily, there are plenty of CRM tools available for every business.

In the battle for the best small business CRM, we have two well-known names in the industry – Zoho CRM and Freshsales. But which one is better? Which one can maximize sales more efficiently? Which one offers better features? The questions seem endless. To help you in your search for the most suitable CRM platform for your business’s needs, we have prepared the ultimate comparison between Zoho CRM and Freshsales.

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What is Zoho CRM?

Zoho CRM serves as a sales CRM solution for managing sales and customer support. As part of Zoho CRM, businesses can choose between two platforms – Bigin and CRM Plus. The purpose of these two platforms is to offer the necessary support to businesses of all sizes. Bigin can be considered a small business CRM as the CRM system it provides is simpler to use by those who are just moving from spreadsheets. For offering a top-notch experience to customers and more advanced capabilities, CRM Plus is a better choice. So CRM Plus is indicated to larger enterprises.

Zoho CRM’s Key Features:

Sales Force Automation – this feature is sure to provide your business with enhanced sales productivity. Instead of letting your team occupy their time with daily mundane tasks such as scheduling sales appointments, tracking contracts, and updating sales opportunities, leave them to Zoho CRM. With Zoho CRM you can automate these time-consuming but important tasks, so your sales team can move to tasks that require human intervention.
Omnichannel – by choosing Zoho CRM, you are provided with a platform that lets you connect with customers through multiple channels. However, all these channels are centralized in one platform. You can connect your email so you can send and receive emails directly from Zoho CRM. Even more so, you can make calls and view all customer information on the platform.
Analytics – with Zoho CRM’s analytics feature you can get visual answers from your data. They help you monitor everything related to sales and create customized dashboards. You can also benefit from insightful real-time reports that you can customize. With Zoho CRM’s reports, you can assess the exact health of your sales and your team’s performance.
Sales Performance – to simplify the process of monitoring sales performance and activity, Zoho CRM offers sales performance management software. What’s more, this software has predictive capabilities so you can prepare in advance for what is to come. By tracking regions and products, Zoho CRM’s software comes up with a forecast that can help your team set up goals and adjust strategies.
AI – the AI assistant provided by Zoho CRM is called Zia and is here to help you. This assistant can do whatever you want it to do, from taking notes to automating tasks. When you don’t have the time to search for something yourself, just chat with Zia, or even call it if you can’t use your hands.
Customization – depending on your needs and preferences, you can customize the platform to look the way you want it to. You can create custom views, and customize fields and buttons without needing to code – only visual elements. Also, you can design your own page layouts so data is easier to visualize.
Process Management – to ensure your sales team's path to success, you can build a standardized sales process that your team can follow. And Zoho can make sure that everyone is on the right track when you are not there.
Canva Design Studio – this feature brings you the new era of CRM design. Say goodbye to dull designs – now you can have an aesthetic database. The best part is that everyone can do it, you just have to drag and drop elements to customize it to your liking.

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What is Freshsales?

Freshsales is an AI-powered sales CRM solution that can accelerate your business’s sales. Irrespective of the industry, Freshsales can help all businesses scale. It offers a very user-friendly interface and a generous number of features for sales growth. It also offers features that enable a complete overview of customer data such as table and Kanban boards. Freshsales CRM lets you connect with your customers over the phone, email, or chatting apps. You can even integrate Zoom to have online meetings with your CRM team.

Freshsales’ Key Features:

Views – Freshsales allows you to have a complete overview of your customer data. You can choose to see it as a table, Kanban board, or list – it’s all up to your preferences. To better understand customer engagement, you can view all customer interactions in chronological order. In case there is something you want to come back to, you can highlight modules, meetings, and activities.
Channels – instead of making your customers come to you, you can connect with them on apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, or over the phone or SMS. You can also connect your email inbox so you can send customized campaigns directly from Freshsales.
Automation – to boost sales productivity, Freshsales provides you with automation capabilities. Manual work is reduced by automating workflows and sales processes. Creating workflows is both easy and time-saving as Freshsales offers pre-set templates to which you add the conditions of your choice. But if you have more complex workflows to automate, don’t worry Freshsales can help with that too.
Deal Management – this feature enables you to create custom pipelines through which you can track deal progress. You can also set activity goals according to how many deals have been closed.
Sales Intelligence – to ensure sales efficiency and productivity, Freshsales provides AI-powered in-depth analytics and predictions. Freshsales’ AI-powered sales assistant is called Freddy and it can help you identify prospects that are sale-ready and predict deal closure.
Customization – you don’t have to adapt to Freshsales, the platform adapts to you. It allows you to create activities that are specific to your sales process and to track them across completion. Layout is another thing that you can customize – fields, groups, and modules. English is not your main language? Don’t worry, you can manage data from your native language.
Governance – to ensure data security, you can set role-based access so only the people you want can manage data. You can also track actions performed by team members such as edits and deletions.
Integrations – when using Freshsales you don’t have to switch to your favorite apps – you can integrate them. You can bring in Slack, Outlook, or other apps through third-party integrations.

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Zoho CRM vs Freshsales

When it comes to features, both Zoho CRM and Freshsales offer complex and powerful ones. This makes deciding on one of them more difficult. To further draw differences between them, we have to compare the free plans (if available) and subscription prices.

Free Plans – when it comes to the availability of free plans, only Bigin by Zoho CRM offers one. This plan is for single use and has a limited number of features. Otherwise, Zoho CRM only offers a 15-day free trial, and Freshsales a 21-day free trial.
Pricing – Zoho CRM offers four plans that can be billed monthly or annually (up to 34% save-ups) – Standard ($15.10/month per user), Professional ($24.81/month per user), Enterprise ($43.15/month per user), and Ultimate ($56.10/month per user). Freshsales allows you to pay either monthly or yearly, but choosing the annual commitment comes with discounts. There are three plans – Growth ($9/month per user), Pro ($39/month per user), and Enterprise ($59/month per user).

Why You Might Prefer Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM has better reporting features than Freshsales
Zoho CRM is easier to set up in comparison to Freshsales
Zoho CRM has better customization capabilities than Freshsales
You can opt for Bigin by Zoho CRM’s free plan if you are a smaller business

Why You Might Prefer Freshsales

Freshsales has a more user-friendly design than Zoho CRM
Freshsales offers better workflow automation capabilities
Freshsales has better integration features compared to Zoho CRM
In terms of prices, Freshsales is more affordable

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Both Zoho CRM and Freshsales are great CRM platforms that are sales-oriented. But a business can only choose one. In case you were expecting a yes or no answer to “Is Zoho CRM better than Freshsales?” we are sorry to disappoint you – we can’t do that. It’s all up to what your business needs. Is the ease of usage a priority? Then Freshsales is a more suitable solution. Do you need more robust reporting features? In this case, you might want to go with Zoho CRM.

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