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Improving sales productivity is among the primary concerns of business owners. A sales team is considered productive if they are producing maximum results while expending minimum resources like cost, effort, or time. Although sales professionals are spending an average of 49 hours per week working, only 22 percent of this is spent selling. Your sales team can concentrate on selling and worry less about administrative tasks with the help of business applications like CRM software.
Choosing the right CRM software from hundreds of options requires careful study and planning. Some solutions put emphasis on sales productivity and performance tracking, while others focus on providing excellent customer support and experience. This Zoho CRM vs. SugarCRM comparison will showcase some common features of the two popular systems and the different ways they deliver their benefits.
Of course, Zoho and SugarCRM aren’t the only options for flexible and extensible CRM software. If these systems don’t have what you’re looking for, or you’re still looking around, use our Product Selection Tool to get a short list of recommendations based on your needs.
Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a product of Zoho Corporation, a private software company founded in 1996. It has several offices around the world, including the US, Mexico, Europe, India, Australia, and Asia. Zoho CRM serves 150,000 organizations of all sizes across 180 countries, including Netflix, Abu Dhabi Aviation, and Ducati Motor. The company invests heavily in product development and customer service. With 7,000 employees across the globe, it believes that the best way to grow their business is to give customers continuous software refinements and friendly support.
Zoho CRM was launched in 2005, and over the years it has added modern capabilities including:
- Sales force automation
- Contact management
- Customer segmentation
- Event management
- Customer portal
- Mobile apps
- CRM integrations
SugarCRM
SugarCRM is a privately held software company founded in 2004. It has offices in the US, Mexico, Europe, and Australia. Over 2M of its users are distributed in 120 countries. Some of its customers include Crown and Caliber, Sennheiser, and Tyson Foods. The company uses technology to enable its clients to deliver the best experience to their customers. Based on this mission, its CRM solution uses tools that improve efficiency and productivity, so sales, marketing, and customer support professionals can spend more time on their customers rather than on completing their tasks.
Some of SugarCRM tools and features include:
- Sales force automation
- Quote management
- Inbound marketing
- Lead nurturing
- Customer service console
- Knowledge base management
- CRM integrations
Features comparison for Zoho CRM vs. SugarCRM:
Lead management and sales forecasting
Lead management is one of the several sales force automations available in Zoho CRM. For generating leads, Zoho CRM has web forms and live chat that can capture information. It has scoring rules to enrich your leads and predefined workflows for automatic distribution. Multiple communication channels allow you to nurture your prospects easily, and a one-click process converts your leads to deals.
Zoho CRM also has forecasting tools to help forecast your revenue and assign targets to your team. You can break down forecasts by sales rep, team, and territory as you track your sales performance. Through reports and dashboards, you can visualize targets and identify top achievers.
SugarCRM includes tools that lets you capture leads across multiple channels using its no-touch information management. You can get customer information from email, voice, text, and other applications. It allows you to segment leads based on industry, channel, lead source, geography, and other attributes. You can design business rules to automatically route leads to a sales rep based on territory, team, or specialty.
The sales forecasting tool in SugarCRM allows your team to see real-time performance against quotas. You can view sales quotas at the individual, team, and sales organization level. A comprehensive and detailed view of your pipeline lets you make decisions based on data. You can track your top performers and team progress easily.
Read also: The 11 Best CRM Software Vendors of 2020
Marketing automation and analytics
Zoho CRM allows your marketing and sales team to work in sync smoothly. It has tools that automatically segment customers based on region, requirements, lead source, and others. You get updated with every lead interaction. Automation tools such as email workflows and templates save your team precious time that can be devoted to nurturing leads. Scan your customers’ business cards to quickly turn them into records. You also have access to analytical tools like reports and dashboards that bring together different metrics like sales trends, marketing campaigns, activity reports, and team performance.
SugarCRM marketing components include built-in advertising and social tools to increase traffic to your website. Drag-and-drop builders and optimization tools let you create landing pages, email, and forms with high conversion rates. You can build automated campaigns with templates and builder tools, or code your own. Built-in tools let you add, manage, and track events, whether online or offline. Create questionnaires and surveys with various layouts inside your landing pages and web forms. Access advanced analytical tools with a simple point-and-click interface. Interactive dashboards show you which campaigns are working, and where new opportunities are present.
Predictive sales and intelligence
Your sales team can spend more time selling with the help of Zia, an AI companion of Zoho CRM. It’s a conversational sales assistant you can chat or call with. Zia can process data and give predictions on the success probability of your deals. Other capabilities include assigning scores, detecting deviations and anomalies in your sales reports, and suggesting personalized automations, so every sales team member can complete routine tasks faster.
Sugar Hint is an intelligence component of SugarCRM that acts as an assistant. It gathers data from social, news, and other business sources to eliminate data entry. Configure how you get alerts, either by real-time email, push notifications, or periodic email digests that updates you whenever there is development or activity from your accounts. It automatically uncovers information at every stage, so you can act on every opportunity to sell, upsell, or cross-sell.
Zoho CRM or SugarCRM?
Zoho CRM lets your team focus on work that matters by providing multiple tools and capabilities in a single platform. You do not have to switch between applications, and you can automate repetitive tasks, automate processes, and get instant alerts at the most crucial time. It integrates with other Zoho products and many third-party applications and services like Zoho Mail, G Suite, and Office 365 to give you a complete business solution. You can try it for free for 15 days.
SugarCRM is a modular solution so you can start with only what you need, and build from there. It has automation tools and intelligence-based features that let your team sell efficiently and effectively. You can create meaningful customer experience and still have time to make relationships last. The CRM software integrates with other Sugar products and external applications, like Gmail, G Suite, and Office 365. Try it for free for 7 days.
Want more CRM software options? Use our Product Selection Tool to get a short list of recommendations based on your needs.