Zoho vs Salesforce – Match Off!

Before we get too cutthroat with our comparison of Zoho vs Salesforce, I want to point out one important thing. CRM is somewhat very incidental to your company’s needs, corporate culture and philosophy, and when it comes to that aspect, you just can’t weigh hard data. There simply isn’t any hard data to account for tastes and philosophies. So while on a logistical level, one or the other may seem advantageous to your particular situation, it’s important to remember that that “taste” factor may preempt some of that. Also, when it comes to a comparison like Zoho vs Salesforce, there’s the fact that some of the hard data may be more important in different order as well. Some may consider pricing more important than others, and some may consider features or plan diversity more important, etc. So, just bear those things in mind when we compare things like this, because sometimes the statistical winner isn’t the winner in your own judgment. So, let’s take a look at these two CRM giants, and see which one wins out statistically. Pricing: Salesforce, as we’ve said before, isn’t cheap. We’ve been over why this isn’t necessarily a detracting factor, but the point remains, if you’re on a budget and have to count pennies, Salesforce is going to be a bit of an obstacle to afford. With its professional edition costing sixty five dollars per user per month, compared to Zoho’s twelve dollars per user per month, when it comes down to straight up price comparisons of the base solutions, Zoho actually wins this round. Solution Compatibility: This one’s a factor where it just depends on what you need. They both work for financial, healthcare, manufacturing and media solutions. Salesforce will claim not to work for retail, where Zoho does, but with Salesforce’s App Exchange, getting functionality for retail, hospitality and consumer packaged goods isn’t actually that difficult. However, Zoho supports those out of the box, but does not support non-profit, education or government solutions. It’s harder to get extensions to remedy this with Zoho, so Salesforce wins this despite needing tweaking to make it full. Business Size: Salesforce can grow to any business size, where Zoho only really grows to meet small or medium business scales. Salesforce wins this round. Features: Here’s where we get into the nitty gritty. When it comes to market automation features, Salesforce supports email marketing and mailing list management, but Zoho supports these along with product catalog integration and territory management. When it comes to security, Salesforce has field-level, group creation and management, role hierarchy and security admin profiles. Zoho has these plus data encryption. Two points for Zoho in features thus far. They’re absolutely evenly matched when it comes to channel management and sales automation, as well as customer service, so no points for either but kudos to both for being rich in this department. However, for collaboration features, Salesforce supports chat, mail merge and mobile access, where Zoho lacks the chat, but also has remote tracking and workflow rules and management. But, since the chat is pretty vital, Salesforce wins this round. Salesforce beats Zoho completely when it comes to integration, offering legacy integration and product catalog integration where Zoho has nil for this. All in all, when it comes to Zoho vs Salesforce, statistically they’re fairly evenly matched. But, the thing to consider when it comes to Salesforce is any feature it lacks that Zoho has (aside from a lower price) can be added either by an existing extension in their App Exchange, or by developing one of these yourself. So, Salesforce gets an extra point for the fact that “what you see is what you get” is not the rule.