Zoho Review: How Serious is this Software in Improving Your Business Experience?

In 1996, Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas started a Software and Information Technology Company under the name Advent.net Inc. The Company had a mission to deliver easy-to-use and deployable solutions explicitly targeting the Small Office, Home Office – the SOHO market segment. Probably, the name Zoho was also reportedly spun from SOHO...

“Software is our Craft, and Passion,” says the Company.

After 25 years, the Company has transformed into a fully diversified, and prolific software enterprise serving 70+ million small, medium, large, and public sector organizations in about 20 countries.  Zoho CRM Software is popular today. With nearly 50+ apps under its wing, Zoho Corporation has positioned itself well at the top slots in the market despite the competition. 

“Zoho Does Not Sell, Customers Purchase,” says Raju Vegesna, Chief Strategy Officer, Zoho.

The Company is also known for its empathetic culture. Without the right culture, exemplary employees, and the right path, the Company would not have seen this success.

When it comes to the sales and distribution model, Zoho has taken a different approach. Primarily an engineering-centric company, Zoho has been investing and re-investing the money in its engineers rather than the sales and marketing. And, the Company believes this to be a differentiating dynamics. 

ManageEngine is Zoho’s sister division.

Our business model is relatively simple, focusing only on the customers and the employees.

Zoho claims to have a future plan of transnational localism, to strengthen its local presence in every country.

Zoho’s product caters to the following sectors; 

• Sales
• Marketing
• Customer Support
• Finance
• HR
• Legal
• Email & Collaboration
• IT Management
• BI & Analytics
• Project Management

Other achievements include operating systems, custom solutions, mobile apps, browser extensions, etc.

So, as Zoho continues exploring, expanding, and innovating, how are its products performing? How serious is this Company in improving your business experience? Do the software products offered by Zoho prove as viable assets for various industries, business sizes, and types? GoodFirms has taken the initiative and decided to present a factual and unbiased review of Zoho as a whole which will help users gain substantial knowledge on all its tools, their most promising features, strengths and weaknesses, pricing plans, and the best alternatives. Zoho Review 2021 is the third in the software review series initiated by GoodFirms.

A Complete Review of Zoho Software Products 

Zoho has a series of software tools under its brand. The first one to roll out on the floor was Zoho CRM in 2005. It was followed by other releases, such as Zoho Projects, Zoho Creator, and Zoho Sheet. 

It is crucial to note that Zoho Corporation provides an array of more than 50+  incredible products that optimize and streamline almost every task related to various departments of an organization. 

While reviewing Zoho Products, GoodFirms identified a few prominent software tools that were launched a few years back, while a few others that were unveiled in recent years are yet to make a spot. The popular and the prominent Zoho tools include;

Few other software under the Zoho brand includes-

GoodFirms presents here an honest and transparent review of all popular Zoho products starting with Zoho One.

#1.  GoodFirms’ Review of Zoho One

Released in 2017, Zoho had the vision to place this product as a truly unified platform that can unify the experiences, both internally and externally, without any silos. Zoho One operating system serves nearly 40,000 plus organizations at this date and year. Zoho One is positioned currently as a leading operating system for businesses that helps to simplify and streamline various business processes, providing a unified suite. You can seamlessly run your operations 24x7 without any hiccups and focus more on the crucial goals. The operating system is available for startups and for small businesses.

Zoho One specializes in offering an array of incredible products besides the robust and fast operating system. These include the Zoho One integrated applications, customized tools, and smart services.

The Distinguished Features of Zoho One

• The Zoho One operating system is a productive business management tool that plays a critical role in improving business performance and efficiency and enabling employees to work smartly. 
• You can deploy this system to nullify the pain points and even get a mobile application. You can access real-time business insights, search business data, and simplify app provisioning. Similarly, the integrated applications allow you to run your business seamlessly from anywhere by providing a wide range of productivity tools for sales, marketing, finance, operations, support, collaboration, communication, HR activities, and more. Each of these potent tools provides different functionalities. 
• Zoho One Services offers sophisticated and unparalleled functions across the operating system. It means enhanced efficiency, convenience, and revenue generation for an organization.

Zoho consistently has been expanding and adding new values and improvements to Zoho One.

• Few challenges faced by customers:
• Disjointed data challenges
• Communications gaps
• operational, digitization, and retention challenges

To address this, the company recently added a few new apps and services in Zoho One that can empower businesses to be more productive, sustainable, resilient to the changing business conditions, and show growth.

Zoho One smart services are powered by Artificial Intelligence and Zia, the Zoho Intelligent Assistant. You can get instant data, create real-time reports, and engage more customers. The Zoho One Services also boosts business intelligence, where you can leverage data to make quick and accurate decisions. You also get access to real insights and intuitive dashboards. Zoho also provides a unified search facility where you can look for all vital information like emails, customer records, and interactions in one place. You can also unleash the benefits of unified messaging to enhance team collaboration, telephony to interact with clients, and simplified administration. 

Zoho One Platform is an exceptional solution that customizes, transforms, and innovates the business processes to meet specific demands. Also, it enables app developers, IT professionals, and project managers to create customized web and mobile applications using low-code development practices. Zoho Flow allows managers and teams to visualize the no-code sync between Zoho and third-party apps efficiently. With Sigma, you can extend Zoho extensions, while Catalysts lets developers create serverless functions. 

Zoho One has also upgraded several features post its launch. For example, mobile apps have a much richer experience and improved admin functionalities. Similarly, user management provides deeper insights, while the developers have worked on the dashboard to make it more intuitive and user-friendly. Zoho One operating system can be custom-fit to view data in all formats and build a personalized customer experience. You can automate different tasks like sales, invoicing, and billing.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Zoho One: GoodFirms Assessment 

GoodFirms has thoroughly reviewed and analyzed every aspect of Zoho One to highlight the significant advantages and disadvantages of the software.

Zoho One Pricing Plans

A Few Zoho One Alternatives

Final Verdict for Zoho One 

Zoho One is an all-in-one comprehensive solution that focuses on digitizing and simplifying business operations through a number of useful applications and new innovative features. The applications are powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing to augment the customer experience. “There are a few areas where it has to work like improving customer support service, but overall it is worth investing in Zoho One software,” says GoodFirms.

#2.  GoodFirms’ Review of Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is a cloud-powered and leading CRM tool, also Zoho’s top-rated product. Zoho claims that the SaaS-based system is ideal for small and midsize businesses. Zoho CRM empowers more than 2.5 million businesses in 180 countries, helping them nurture more meaningful leads, build robust relationships with prospective customers, and boost their revenue. 

Zoho CRM is packed with a series of powerful features like sales force automation, canvas design studio, journey orchestration, advanced analytics, predictive sales, omnichannel customer experience, and many more. Like any other tool, Zoho CRM also has upsides and downsides. The positives that favor Zoho CRM include a simplified installation process, flexibility, affordable pricing plans, task automation, easy accessibility from any device, and many more. 

The Prominent Zoho CRM Features 

Zoho CRM provides everything to streamline business operations and help upsurge sales. For instance, sales force automation helps manage contacts, deals, and leads, while marketing automation plays a significant role in nurturing leads. Zoho CRM has recently added the Canvas Design Studio feature in August 2021 to enhance user experience using new customized templates and drag and drop editor. You can even find process management, omnichannel solutions, analytics, sales enablement, manage performance, predictive checkout analytics, simplify remote work management, boost software security, access everything from mobile devices, and many more. 

Some more viable features that make Zoho CRM stand out include the facility to design custom layouts, customized components, global selling, etc. Zoho CRM also offers effective team collaboration with sales reps, marketing professionals, and other departments, helping you work from anywhere hassle-free. Zoho offers third-party integrations with commonly used everyday tools like Google Drive, Microsoft Office, DocuSign, and more. 

Zoho CRM provides high-end and optimum solutions to a wide range of industries. For instance;

• The  Life Sciences CRM proves a boon for medical sales reps and healthcare professionals providing a customized and omnichannel solution to enhance productivity and improve collaboration. 
• The financial CRM proves crucial in getting real-time access to client data and understanding their needs quickly. It helps to create an exceptional user experience. 
• The real estate CRM automates various tasks, such as property management for real estate developers and agents. You can even manage incoming requests, prices, and quotations with much ease. 
• The Zoho retail CRM management allows efficient management of the supply and chain process seamlessly by integrating sales, marketing, inventory management, and viable customer support. 
• The insurance CRM software is uniquely designed to engage more customers through phone calls, emails, social media platforms, and live chat options. The tool offers real-time notifications and a facility to view previous interactions. 
• Zoho CRM also extends its help to the customer service industry by providing a single omnichannel communication, integrated document management, real-time billing and payments, and many more functionalities. 
• Zoho CRM is also for budding entrepreneurs and startups. The CRM system helps take your business to the next level by getting more customers, leads, and revenue generation. 
• Zoho CRM also acts as viable donor management software for all types and sizes of nonprofits. Smart webforms and omnichannel communication help to boost engagement and increase investment. 
• Zoho Bigin is a CRM software built exclusively for small businesses. It is a pipeline-centric CRM system that focuses on simplifying and building robust customer relationships so that you can engage more prospects. 

Zoho has been consistently rolling out new updates and features to its CRM product with a focus to unfold every element of business operations.

Zoho CRM Pricing Plans

Pros and Cons  of Zoho CRM: GoodFirms Analysis 

The expert team from GoodFirms has thoroughly analyzed Zoho CRMs’ strengths and weaknesses to help you understand the pros and cons of the software.

A Few Zoho CRM Alternatives 

Today customers are looking for varied choices when selecting the best CRM Software. Hence GoodFirms has shortlisted a few probable alternatives of Zoho CRM below-

Final Verdict for Zoho CRM 

In order to unify and escalate the customer experience, Zoho has introduced Zoho CRM Plus with explicit features and nine powerful services. Also, there is Zoho Bigin that can efficiently cater to the requirements of small businesses. The software provides rich and useful resources in the form of documentation, developer guide, ebooks, tutorials, and webinars to help you get started. Although the product has a few drawbacks like other tools, GoodFirms’ review team suggests this software as a viable investment.  

#3.  GoodFirms’ Review of  Zoho Inventory

Zoho Inventory is an online cloud-based popular inventory management software that can streamline and simplify order management. The software offers an extensive range of inventory solutions allowing businesses to gain full control over inventory, easily prepare product lists, and adjust stock. Businesses can even manage the warehouse efficiently and transfer items between multiple warehouses. 

Zoho Inventory has also become a digital order management system providing the facility of multiple channel selling. An up-to-date order fulfillment solution helps in simplifying the workflows and fulfilling orders quickly. You can access real-time insightful reports to make smart decisions.GoodFirms’ evaluation and analysis of the Zoho inventory management system are based on different parameters that include;  the core features, benefits, updates, functionality, drawbacks, pricing plans, and more.

The Prominent Zoho Inventory Features 

Zoho Inventory is a cloud-based and popular inventory management tool designed to function for all business types and sizes right from micro, small, and medium to large-scale enterprises. The tool acts as a single platform where users can manage orders, track inventory efficiently, handle billing, manage warehouses, and process all inventory-related operations without friction. 

• Zoho Inventory efficiently manages all items through item grouping and bundling, multiple warehouse management, and tracking item serial numbers and batches. 
• The customer lifecycle feature deals with proper invoicing, managing sales orders, and packaging and shipping the products to their ultimate destination. 
• The software allows you to improve vendor relationships by managing customized price lists, providing purchase orders and billing solutions, efficiently handling the backorders and dropshipping the purchases, and providing customized purchase order templates. 
• The robust integrations with other applications, such as shipping tools, marketplaces, online shopping carts, electronic data interchange (EDI) systems, accounting, and CRM solutions. 
• The tool automates the daily tasks to simplify business processes like barcode scanning and customizing email for special customers. 
• There are some smart features like SKU generator, reordering points, reporting, and analytics. 
• Zoho has recently added some new features and upgraded a few existing ones. These include fulfillment by Amazon and generating the inventory valuation summary report for particular branches. 
• Zoho inventory has also introduced ABC classification for improved classification of inventory stock items. 
• You get different units of weights for items, the option to edit the bills, and shipping addresses for items purchased from Amazon Marketplace. 
• The software integrates with Microsoft Outlook and Zoho Mail. You also get payment reminder emails. 
• Other new features include a Cliq chat bar, advanced search in sales returns, new filters for FIFO, multiple carriers selection,  etc.

Zoho Inventory Pricing Plans

*** Please note that for adding every additional user, you need to pay $2.5, $8 for an additional warehouse, and $6 for 50 orders and 50 shipping labels. All these charges are billed annually. 

Upsides and Downsides  of Zoho Inventory: GoodFirms Analysis 

The next critical part of reviewing this software is highlighting the good and the bad about Zoho Inventory. Check the table below for the pros and cons of the Zoho Inventory tool as analyzed by GoodFirms.

A Few Zoho Inventory Alternatives

Final Verdict of Zoho Inventory

Zoho Inventory is more than a handy inventory management system that has proved a boon for small businesses as it allows them to efficiently manage all their stock items and sell the products on multiple platforms. The centralized inventory management feature can automatically update the stock when an item gets sold. But GodFirms’ analysis says that you can buy this tool.

#4.  GoodFirms’ Review of  Zoho Books

Zoho Books is a cloud-powered end-to-end online accounting system that streamlines finance, optimizes accounting practice, and automates the workflows, allowing users to collaborate across different departments efficiently. Zoho Books offers a wide array of useful features that allows users to create invoices, generate sales orders, and negotiate deals right from the same platform.  Also, this accounting platform allows accountants and auditors to prepare audit reports based on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidelines. Zoho being an integrated platform extends the facility to the users to manage all business processes right from any of its products. This is possible by integrating Zoho Books with Zoho’s other 50+apps.

The Promising Features of Zoho Books 

Zoho Books accounting system streamlines finance, optimizes accounting practice, and automates the workflows, allowing users to collaborate across different departments efficiently. Zoho claims to provide a host of features that make your accounting practice simpler and much more productive. 

• You can create customized invoices to receive much faster payments and keep track of your expenses, and generate bills to check the payment status. 
• The client portal lets you check all customer transactions in one place, while banking allows you to reconcile the accounts with ease. You can even monitor every minute of the billable project and track the inventory level at every stage of goods transfer. You can efficiently manage the purchase and sales orders, e-invoicing, track audit trails, and many more.
• You can automate business workflows and store and streamline the documents in one place. Zoho Books also has a mobile application for android and iOS platforms, enabling you to access the software from your mobile devices. 
• Other additional features include customized templates, bank reconciliations,  management of recurring expenses, automated bank feeds, multiple project management, shared reports, role-based access, and many more. 
• Recently, in November 2021, Zoho Books added a few new features like accepting and rejecting purchase orders, configuring advanced filters while generating expense reports, automated sales receipts, importing and exporting warehouse stocks, etc. 
• Zoho Books is available for small businesses and mid-market businesses. 

Zoho Books Pricing Plans

Advantages and Disadvantages of Zoho Books: GoodFirms Assessment 

While reviewing and making an unbiased assessment of Zoho Books, GoodFirms found both positives and negatives that are summed below-

A Few Zoho Books Alternatives 

Zoho Books has a few shortfalls, which may propel users to look or choose some other accounting system for their business. GoodFirms suggests the following software as the best alternatives for Zoho Books.

Final Verdict of Zoho Books 

After reviewing Zoho Books thoroughly we can say that it is easy-to-use and reliable accounting software for small businesses. But unlike Quickbooks, it does not provide additional features in the basic version and the payroll functionality is also missing. However, you can consider Zoho Books as you get various functional features, quick customer service, and tutorials to get started with the application. On-the-go accounting is also possible with Zoho Books.

 #5.  GoodFirms’ Evaluation of Zoho Creator

Zoho Creator is a top-rated low-coding platform implemented and used for developing apps. You can create custom mobile applications and enterprise-based apps compatible with all devices and run seamlessly on all major operating systems. The software allows users to design customized forms, gather data in real-time, automate workflows and extract business intelligence easily from one place. It comes with a minimally designed drag and drop user interface that helps you customize the app.

Zoho Creator Features That Make the Software Exceptional 

• Zoho Creator is a robust cloud-powered software that lets you build your custom applications with the added advantage of storing data and automating the workflows. 
• The low code platform supports an extensive range of industries, various departments of the organization and streamlines the tasks of professionals. 
• You can migrate your data from various resources with ease supported by AI-powered migration solutions. 
• Zoho Creator allows you to generate your model and gather any type of data with visualization of the data structure. There is the option of automating the repetitive tasks and updating the CRM. Increase your productivity by integrating the apps with your daily tasks with a drag and drop built-in connector. You can personalize the customer experience by changing the app’s appearance.
• Zoho Creator has also fortified the application’s security through data encryption, API security, IP restriction, multi-factor authentication, password policy, etc., strictly based on GDPR and HIPAA compliance. It also helps to maintain data transparency. Zoho provides you with complete control over data access through single sign-on, automated user management, role-based access controls, audit trails, automatic backups, etc. 
• Zoho Creator helps manage the app’s deployment and hosting, allowing you to host your apps on the preferred platform. The software enables you to create your own user interface components and Java libraries or integrate with third-party apps.
• Zoho Creator is also a viable tool that offers optimal solutions to various industries. These include retail, manufacturing, education, logistics, information technology, healthcare, and more. Retailers, for example, can efficiently manage retail operations through a centralized system that helps in expediting customer purchases. 
• You can develop a low code application with ease, adding new features and upgrading it quickly. Recently, in November 2021, Zoho unveiled the advanced version C6 with the latest functions like integrating business intelligence, analytics, production environments, and development lifecycles. 
• The V2 bulk APIs help in robust authentication, while the introduction of blueprints enables you to process business virtually.

Zoho Creator Pricing 

Zoho Creator offers two types of pricing plans - Professional and Ultimate. Also, there are two more supporting plans - Premium and Enterprise, but they are based on licensing fees.

*** Please note that the licensing fee is the same as Professional and Ultimate Plans 

The Good and Bad About ZohoCreator: GoodFirms Assessment

A Few Zoho Creator Alternatives

Final Verdict For Zoho Creator 

Zoho Creator is the right choice for all businesses looking to boost their efficiency and operations using a low-code development platform. The software can easily sync with other Zoho products, providing an intuitive, and user-friendly interface. Zoho has also worked on enhancing the security features to safeguard the app data. However, despite the disparity in pricing plans, you can look to select Zoho Creator as your next app development software.

#6.  GoodFirms’ Assessment of Zoho Analytics

Zoho Analytics is a premier and modern self-service business intelligence software and analytics solution that helps businesses to develop explicit data visualizations, link, and analyze that data to make informed decisions. The various teams of an organization can easily derive meaningful insights and critical metrics in real-time.

Zoho Analytics also serves best as a data visualization tool and data analysis software with an intuitive dashboard to get filtered views, quality data, and statistical modeling.

“Connect and blend data to generate data patterns, visually analyze, and share insights in real-time,” says the Company.

Zoho Analytics provides a wide range of innovative products such as advanced cloud BI solutions that convert raw data into actionable insights, embedded analytics, which help them save valuable time and resources while working on core projects. The on-premise and public clouds play a crucial role in finding out deep insights from various cloud environments like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Services, etc. Zoho Marketplace provides an array of analytical apps to simply carry out various business operations, along with customized extensions and connectors.

Critical Features of Zoho Analytics 

Zoho Analytics has attracted business managers, executives, and key decision-makers due to a host of unique features that puts the software on the top spot. The core features include-

• Zoho Analytics provides more than 250+ data sources to analyze data by linking it with files, feeds, business apps, URLs, etc. 
• ZohoDataPrep is self-service data preparation and management tool that cleans transforms and enriches the raw data for improved analysis. 
• Visually analyze your data accurately by using digital technologies like artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and machine learning offering augmented analytics. 
• The software can efficiently unify all your data from across departments in one place to provide end-to-end insights. 
• Share reports and dashboards, publish the reports, start a comment thread, email the reports automatically, and access full control over clients and colleagues. 
• Turn your data into a visual storyteller with eye-engaging slideshows and web portals. 
• Access every data seamlessly on mobile devices and tabs from anywhere, anytime. 
• The tool allows you to offer a comprehensive embedded BI and analytics under your company name.
• The security has been boosted through privacy for design and greater control over data and administrator accounts. 
• Zoho Analytics has launched the latest version of the software 5.0 with modern and upgraded self-service and BI analytics platform features.
• DIY the data integration, cleaning, preparation, and modeling within the analytics tool.
• Ask Zia - AI-powered Zoho analytical Assistant has been updated to support the conversational mode to provide quick insights.

Zoho Analytics Pricing 

Zoho Analytics has categorized its pricing plans based on two different deployment models. These include-

• The Cloud Deployment 
• On-Premise Deployment

The Cloud Deployment Pricing Model

*** Please note that all plans include a 15-day free trial period. Also, for adding additional users, you need to pay an extra fee of $6.40 per user per month billed annually. Similarly, for adding a minimum of 25 viewers, the additional cost is $3.20 per month billed annually. 

The On-Premise Deployment Model

***The plans also include an additional add-on fee, wherein you need to pay $10 per viewer per month, available for a minimum of 10 viewers. Apart from this, the concurrent guests also have to pay $8 per month with a minimum of 25 concurrent guests. There is an extra charge of $8 per email schedule and a minimum of 25 schedules.

Zoho Analytics Pros and Cons

A Few Zoho Analytics Alternatives

Final Analysis of Zoho Analytics 

Zoho Analytics is more than a handy self-service business intelligence tool that enables businesses to efficiently and seamlessly analyze and filter data, create reports, and different types of dashboards. It is a reporting, data analysis, and embedded analytics tool that helps to offer accurate insights on sales, marketing, finance, help desk, and social media. The software provider needs to work on simplifying the steep learning curve and making reporting seamless. All in all, it is a worthy software tool to invest in.

#7.  GoodFirms’ Analysis of Zoho People

Zoho People is a leading and best-in-class cloud-based HR Software that digitizes the various HR practices and nurtures employee growth at the same time. 

Zoho People is a part of the Zoho People Plus bundle that includes other such applications like Zoho Recruit, Zoho Expense, Zoho Vault, and more.

Zopo People software makes HR management more agile and productive by simplifying multiple tasks. The tool aims to retain potential talents and produce a high-performing workforce. The software further promotes intelligent HR workflows, scales employee case management, and provides real-time insights and analytics of employee performance. You can even track the employee attendance instantly and convert time into the timesheet.

The Core Features of Zoho People 

To simplify and streamline the HR tasks, Zoho has categorized its HR software into four categories. These include-

• HRMS
• HR Analytics
• HR Essentials
• Automation and Customization 

Each of these categories contains an extensive range of features and functionalities. 

• The HRMS or Human Resource Management System contains many functions like employee onboarding, attendance tracking, creating timesheets, corporate learning management system, shift scheduling, performance management solution, case management, and expense integration.
• Zoho has aligned the HRMS with payroll integration to feed the employee data into the payroll system and keep the records updated and online.
• HR Analytics helps HR professionals make accurate, informed decisions based on real-time data insights. It calculates the metrics and provides intelligent reports based on performance and workforce trends. 
• HR Essentials help you manage the entire employee data hassle-free, organize, secure, and maintain the database. The employee self-service feature allows employees to help themselves apply for leaves, submit their details, etc.
• Zoho People has a centralized document management system that effortlessly manages all vital documents related to job interviews, candidate resumes, and onboarding. It acts as a centralized and classified vault for the company. The introduction of e-signature has reduced the paperwork. 
• The software further facilitates real-time GPS and mobile attendance, which can be useful to record the attendance of remote-working employees. The shift scheduling helps rotate the shifts where an organization runs 24x7 seamlessly. 
• The HR customization and automation aim to customize and automate the various HR tasks like email alerts, leave approvals, tasks to make workflows more productive. Send notifications and alerts across all departments to ensure all employees are notified. The HR process customization provides customized forms to store all necessary information and data easily.

In the last quarter of 2021, Zoho added new facilities within Zoho People. A few notable features include;

• The Vaccination status form to collect the employee's Covid-19 vaccination status and details.
• Report access settings – that allows admin to define the access to reports
• Custom feedback template
• Mobile application for Zoho People Kiosk – a feature that allows check-in via Facial recognition

Zoho People Pricing and Plans

You can even select Zoho Profile if your employees cannot access this software, which starts at a minimal price of $0.23. It helps you maintain their records without providing them access to the system. If you want to add the Corporate Edition of Zoho Recruit additionally, you can do so by paying $600 per year. Also, the learning management system is available at $18 per year per user.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Zoho People: GoodFirms Analysis

A Few Zoho People Alternatives

Final Verdict of Zoho People 

After reviewing the software thoroughly, we can say that Zoho People is a handy HRMS solution, focusing on simplifying the hiring process, onboarding, and retaining potential talents. The tool further streamlines attendance and payroll management efficiently tracks time and monitors the performance of each employee. It may have a few drawbacks but they are all overshadowed by the pros and powerful tool features.

#8.  GoodFirms’ Evaluation of Zoho Projects

Whether you are working from home remotely or from the office, you need to remain productive all the time. Zoho Projects is a next-generation and digital project management software that enables you to efficiently manage all your tasks and plan the project execution exponentially well for its successful completion before the stipulated deadline. The tool also allows the managers to assign tasks to different teams, view real-time task status, and even track time spent on a particular project. The easy-to-use user interface has been interactively designed with multiple colors.

The Striking Features of Zoho Projects 

• The first prominent feature that GoodFirms came across while reviewing the software is task management, which helps you divide your project into task lists and subtasks, the issue management where you can quickly track bugs and report them. 
• You can also swiftly add tasks and get a detailed view of tasks. You also have Gantt charts to plan projects and monitor progress, dependencies, recurrences, reminders, and more. 
• The customization feature lets you customize everything from layouts to fields, views, status, functions, templates, domains, and tags. Zoho Projects is known for offering seamless team collaboration where the roles of every member are predefined, and communication takes place in real-time with quick feedback.
• The task automation contains the blueprint and SLAs that help design workflows and escalate the task process, establish a set of predefined rules, and automate notifications. 
• Time management lets you keep track of start and end time, whereas the timesheet records the project’s total time. It also manages budgeting, invoicing, and calendar. 
• You can prepare and view different reports based on tasks, issues, and timesheets, project dashboards, etc. Zoho Projects also deals with user administration that focuses on resource management, adding clients as users, permitting or denying access to client or portal users, and keeping an eye on the teams’ progress.
•  The software is advanced enough to integrate easily with other Zoho tools like CRM, Books, Sprints, Cinq, Analytics, Desk, Mail, Meeting, People, and more. If one talks about the Add-ons, the list includes popular Google and Microsoft apps. There are options for importing projects from Microsoft, Jira, and Basecamp. The tool can run seamlessly on web and mobile apps. 
• Zoho Projects even serve as an enterprise project management system improving scalability across all modules and automating tasks. The software manages hybrid projects to bring agility and improved collaboration. 
• In addition to these, businesses involved in construction work, education, software development, marketing, real estate, and others can also look to invest in this affordable software solution. 

In 2021, Zoho added new facilities within Zoho Projects. A few notable features and updates include;

• Facility to compare between two baselines
• Reminders for time logs
• Unique layouts for project-related data
• Facility to specify the scope of projects
• Support for task-level budget

Pricing and Plans: Zoho Projects 

Zoho Projects provide two types of pricing plans apart from the free version. These have been discussed as follows-

The Ups and Downs of Zoho Projects

A Few Zoho Projects Alternatives

Final Verdict for Zoho Projects 

Zoho Projects project management tool is best known for its effective task management, seamless team communication, and collaboration, real-time project time tracking, bug tracking, and many more explicit features. The software can prove more than useful for startups and small businesses due to the free version and affordable pricing plans. Some features are not as functional as expected, but the easy-to-use application makes it a preferred choice for different project management teams.

#9.  GoodFirms’ Review of Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is a powerful and handy omnichannel help desk software and customer support system that aims to improve the support staff efficiency and enhance customer satisfaction to establish long-term relationships. The software enables you to manage your customer interactions over multiple channels, both online and offline modes. You can offer optimal support to all your customers 24x7 without any hindrance and handle the entire process like a pro. The tool can even automate the workflows and help solve the hiccups quickly. You can sync the Zoho Desk tool with other apps and have the ability to customize the software so that you can develop your own desk. The SaaS and cloud-based product allow you to integrate the knowledge base, user community and embed AI-powered support. 

Zoho Desk Features that Makes it Stand Apart 

• Zoho Desk allows you to manage the customer support tickets and all queries in one place. It means you can track customer requests in real-time and know their completion status. These include requests that come from different channels. 
• Artificial intelligence helps to escalate queries and manage large volumes of requests efficiently. Facilities like Zoho Desk Zia Voice, auto-tag tickets, sentiment analysis, Zia notifications, etc., are an added advantage.  You can also provide accelerated assistance to customers through multi-brand help centers and embeddable self-service. 
• Zoho Desk has been uniquely designed to surge agent productivity to provide complete customer satisfaction and improve the experience. Zoho claims to accomplish this through effective team collaboration, efficiently organizing open tickets, CRM integration, and others. All mundane and repetitive tasks can be automated, saving a lot of time and effort. 
• Zoho believes in offering the best customer support with strict security. You can safeguard all your data with access control within each module. You can customize almost everything with complete customization capabilities, including the templates, the customer portal, layouts, and ticket generation status. 
• Get access to real-time data insights with the help of reports and dashboards, proactive mobile radar. Another viable feature that puts Zoho Desk on top is its capability to integrate robustly with other tools. 
• It helps to cater to specific requirements of the business. Business organizations of all sizes and types are viable to use Zoho Desk, including those offering freelance services. For example, freelancers can prioritize their tasks using work modes from the Desk that help to organize bulk ticketing. They can even get real-time notifications and capture vital insights to serve their customers. Similarly, for the enterprises, Zoho provides all the tools in one place and AI-based assistant and multi-stakeholder process management. Zoho Desk can prove beneficial for a wide range of business domains, whether education, e-commerce, telecom, finance, hospitality, IT, insurance, and more

Zoho Desk Pricing Plans 

Benefits and Drawbacks of Zoho Desk

A Few Zoho Desk Alternatives

Final Verdict for Zoho Desk 

The answer to the question should you invest in Zoho Desk is a definite yes. The help desk software is a good investment for business if you want to enhance your customer relationship by providing unmatched customer support. You can also proactively manage your support ticketing all in one place. Also, artificial intelligence and machine learning help to escalate customer complaints.

#10.  GoodFirms’ Analysis of Zoho Social

Zoho Social is a popular and leading social media management software that enables businesses of all sizes and domains to effectively and swiftly connect with their target audiences. The social media marketing tool allows you to enhance your brand strategy and visibility on different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram by total posts that instantly grab the users’ attention. Social media managers can also track how the posts and content are performing through real-time customized reports. Interestingly, you can schedule the posts based on audience activity and visualize the content via an intuitive publishing calendar. Zoho Social provides social media analytics that helps you understand and analyze your audience and create customized content accordingly.

Zoho Social Features That Makes it Exceptional 

• The first critical feature that makes Zoho Social unique is creating personalized content to engage the audience and intelligent reports to measure the campaign performance. You can preview and schedule the content before posting.
• The software lets you manage the content pipeline efficiently from a single place. Content scheduling and slotting can be done using Zohos’ SmartQ. You can also use advanced tools like zShare browser extension, and RSS feed that sync with the dashboard. 
• Zoho Social allows you to monitor the content performance, check product reviews, comments, feedback, and brand keywords. You can view the live streaming of content and social engagements and track who has interacted with the brand. 
• Social media management is teamwork, and Zoho Social enables you to effectively collaborate with your team members to have vital discussions on how your brand and social media campaigns are performing. 
• You can do live chatting, audio, or video calls. You can define and allocate tasks for each team member. 
• Get crucial data on clients and their geography, and analyze the brand performance through key metrics. The tool provides you with customized reports adding a more visual appeal with colorful charts and graphs. 
• Zoho Social is a tailor-made solution for social media marketing and management agencies. It provides a well-organized, intuitive dashboard that manages the entire campaigns and brands together. 
• You can measure and analyze clients’ social media performance through real-time analytics and create customized reports. Zoho recently added the Canva button to Zoho Social that allows you to create stunning and engaging social media designs using Canva easily. 

Zoho Social: Pricing and Plans 

Zoho Social offers pricing plans for two types of industry verticals - Business and Agencies. The various plans are as follows -

Strengths and Weaknesses of Zoho Social

Best Alternatives for Zoho Social

The Final Verdict for Zoho Social

Zoho Social has become a popular choice specifically for startups and small business enterprises as it offers an array of different pricing options and comes with a plethora of features. It is an all-in-one social media management solution to efficiently manage and monitor all social media marketing campaigns on various platforms. You can even schedule your content postings and target customers when they are most active. Hence you can purchase this software to increase your customer base despite a few hiccups.

To Sum Up

The GoodFirms’ review team has meticulously and thoroughly analyzed the ten most popular and widely used Zoho software in some detail. But there are far more options and leading tools, such as Zoho Mail, Bookings, Meeting, SalesIQ, SalesInbox, Forms, Campaigns, Calendar, PageSense, Bigin, and many more.

Does Zoho Improve Your Business Experience: GoodFirms Analysis 

Zoho Corporation provides an extensive array of software products that can streamline and optimize each aspect of business operations. Zoho has products for every business function, right from enhancing customer relationships and experience through CRM, efficiently managing accounts through Zoho Books and Finance, simplifying inventory management, managing all applications in one place through Zoho One, till managing HR processes through Zoho People Plus. On the whole, the software caters to different business types and for different purposes. With more additions in the pipeline, Zoho definitely appears to have taken the spot as a “users’ prefered tool.” There is a huge scope for betterment in the future and as of today, Zoho is a promising tool that can improve the business experience.

GoodFirms Final Review of  Zoho as Whole 

GoodFirms’ review of the  Zoho software is based on various parameters. There are a few notable functions of Zoho software that make the software worth investing in. 

• For example, Zoho one is a comprehensive solution that integrates applications and customized tools for different business departments despite a few cons. 
• Zoho CRM is also a viable solution that combines marketing and sales features to surge productivity through customization and automation. 
• Zoho Books professionally managed accounts with streamlined expense reporting. But at times, it develops payment issues and does not integrate well with other Zoho tools. 
• Zoho Inventory is stuffed with useful features like inventory management, item grouping, bundling, e-commerce integrations, invoicing, etc. But it lacks live location tracking and has minimum features in the free version. 
• With Zoho Creator, you can easily build mobile applications with best-in-class customization features. But the new version of the software is not well documented and tricky to sync with third-party apps.
• Zoho Analytics allows you to access advanced BI tools to analyze, prepare, and embed data and analytics. 
• Zoho Social the broadest range of versatile features to grow your business boosts customer engagement, and upsurge profitability. But you may have to face a few challenges while adding Instagram profiles and uploading videos. 
• Zoho People has digitized HR management, hiring, onboarding, talent management, and other tasks. The product may have a few downsides, but it has provided an exceptional experience to most of its customers. 
• Zoho Desk has been outstanding in providing customer support and augmenting the customer experience through multiple channel interaction and automatic ticket assignment. However, the software does not have a desktop application with limited customization in the live chat option. 
• Zoho Projects lets you plan and execute projects efficiently with real-time project time tracking, the status of the competition, and team collaboration. But there are features that are not used to their full potential. 
• Zoho Mail serves as a secured and encrypted email hosting and management platform for business and personal use.
• Zoho BacktoWork is acting as a futuristic workplace with comprehensive adherence to employee safety. 

There are many more products under Zoho’s umbrella. GoodFirms’ review of Zoho Products is an honest and genuine attempt to bring the best and highlight the ones that need a bit of reconditioning. If you have used any of the above-discussed tools, share your thoughts, comments, or review with GoodFirms.