Zoho CRM Plus - Getting started guide for Sales teams

Zoho CRM Plus - Getting started guide for Sales teams

Every business goes through a sales cycle, from acquiring, nurturing, and following up on prospects to closing business deals with them. There may be many activities involved in each phase, such as scheduling appointments with your customers, performing product demos, and effectively communicating with them via multiple channels. 

Zoho CRM Plus has been designed with all customer-facing teams in mind, to help them carry out these activities efficiently and keep the sales cycle running smoothly, and ultimately close more deals faster. 

This Getting Started guide will discuss how CRM Plus has been designed to help the sales cycle of a business, and the functions that every sales rep will need to know to get started with CRM Plus.  

Customizing your CRM

When you start using CRM Plus, it is important that each module is customized to your business needs. Customizing a CRM system usually requires making alterations to default CRM functions to make better fit the needs of your business. 

One of the most attractive features of Zoho CRM Plus is its capacity for customization. This allows businesses of all sizes and industries to adapt it to their specific needs. 

The CRM module in CRM Plus allows you to customize parts of it to cater to the specific needs of your business, all without having to write a single line of code. This customization affects modules, page layouts, conditional layout, the fields in each layout, and the views you can use to display the records. 
 
Modules: Modules in CRM are categorized tabs where you store customer records. The main modules in CRM are Leads, Contacts, Accounts, and Deals. The leads that you acquire for your business can be stored as records in the Leads module. 
 
As part of customizing your CRM, you can rename the Leads module to a name that better suits the nature of your business. 
 
For example, you run a business that runs an educational institution called Zylker. Your leads will be the students who apply for admission to Zylker, so you might want to rename the Leads module to "Applicants". 
 
Fields: Each record in your CRM opens a page containing details stored in different fields such as the lead's name, lead ID, and phone number. CRM allows industry-specific custom fields and formula fields that populate data based on the values returned from standard and custom fields. 
Zylker could have custom fields such as Student Name and Student ID and formula fields to calculate the overall mark percentage scored by each student at the end of each semester. 

Layouts: Layouts are forms which store the information from your records in various fields. CRM has a standard layout containing 22 fields for the details you add about each lead. CRM also allows you to create and use customized layouts by adding fields that make sense for your business and industry. 
 
Let's continue with the educational institute example. Zylker offers courses in its engineering and arts departments. The application forms for these departments may not be the same. CRM allows Zylker to create and customize layouts with fields specific to each department. So every time a new applicant is added, the admin can choose the layout to add the applicant to from the dropdown list. 

Views: Once you have added records to your CRM, you can choose to view them in tabular view, kanban view, or our new canvas view. 
  1. Tabular view: Displays data in a simple tabular format.  
  1. Kanban view: A card-based view that displays the data in an organized manner for better comprehension. In Zylker's case, they could sort the applicants based on their status or categorize the admissions depending on the application stage.This sort of information gives better insights into potential bottlenecks and lets you fix them effectively.
  1. Canvas view: Allows you to personalize how you display the records by letting you choose from a gallery of predesigned templates or a view that you can create and customize to your business needs. The design layout editor lets you add additional customizations to the way records are displays. 
Templates: CRM contains preexisting email templates that can be customized and stored, saving you the effort of typing out repeated emails each time.

Customizing the Home tab: CRM in CRM Plus allows you to bookmark specific data from modules that you want easy access to and display it on the CRM Home tab. Custom home page layouts can be created for each role, making it easier to complete your daily tasks efficiently. 

Data imports

The initial data required for sales in Zoho CRM Plus is the details of the leads your business is aimed at. Now that you have tailored our CRM module to your business needs, let's look into how we can gather data to get started with.These leads may have been acquired from various sources, so having their information stored in one place makes it easier for the sales teams to access their profiles and build relationships with each of them. 
 
To bring all your leads together, we recommend importing them all to the Leads module in your CRM. 
 
*Importing is a way of capturing data from external sources (spreadsheets) and pushed into your CRM system to be accessible from a single interface.  

Each lead in the Leads module is stored as a record, and all the transactions you have with that particular lead will be associated with this record.  

Assigning leads

Now that you have your leads imported to your CRM, you can assign them to the right sales reps, who can then start contacting them. 
Let's look at the possible challenges we may face assigning the sales reps. 
 
For example, you have 100 leads to assign to 10 reps. It's easy enough to do this, since the number isn't huge and it can be done manually. But if the number of leads is much higher, manual assignment begins to look less practical.
 
The risks are:
  1. One sales rep is assigned too many leads, and it becomes impossible to give each lead enough attention
  2. Leads may not be assigned to the most appropriate sales reps, which increases the chances of losing a lead
So, how do you get to assign your leads equally to your sales reps in Zoho CRM Plus? The solution is simple: assignment rules. 

There are two ways to set up assignment rules in CRM:

1. Assigning leads to specific owners

This system assigns leads to sales reps based on conditions set by the admin. Once such assignment rule is the 'lead owner' assignment rule. Let's say you want your leads from the United States to be addressed by a sales rep working in the US shift.



 You could set this assignment rule in your CRM by the following steps: 
  1. Go to  Setup > Automation > Assignment Rules.
  2. In the Assignment Rule page, select a Module  from the drop-down list and click Create Rule .
  3. In the New Rule page, enter the Rule Name. Click  Save. 
  4. In the  [Module] Assignment Rule page, click  Create Rule Entry . 
  5. You can also clone an existing rule entry by clicking on Options > Clone against the rule entry you would like to clone.
  6. In the Rule Entry page, do the following: 
  7. Criteria: Enter criteria for the rule entry. 
  8. Record Owner: Choose one of the options to assign owner to the record. 
  9. Assign To: Select the user who should be assigned as the owner of the records. Click Save.
Your leads from the United States will now be automatically assigned to the sales rep in charge of US leads.

2. Assigning leads in a round-robin pattern

This system helps you assign the leads equally to all the sales reps (users) in your CRM Plus account. Assigning the leads in a round-robin pattern allows all members of your sales teams equal access to interact with customers and make sales. 


 
Assigning sales reps in the round robin fashion:
  1. Go to Setup > Automation > Assignment Rules.
  2. In the Assignment Rule page, select a Module  from the drop-down list and click Create Rule .
  3. In the New Rule page, enter the Rule Name. Click Save. 
  4. In the [Module] Assignment Rule page, click Create Rule Entry . 
  5. You can also clone an existing rule entry by clicking on Options > Clone against the rule entry you would like to clone.
  6. In the Rule Entry page, select the Criteria. Enter criteria for the rule entry. Assign to users in Round robin: 
  7. Select Users, Roles or Groups from the drop-down list. Records will be assigned to the list of selected users.
  8. Click Save.
Your leads are now equally divided among the sales reps where each of them will take turns to address the leads.
Note:
The assignment rule is applicable only for the leads, contacts, cases and records in custom modules that are imported or the records that are captured through web forms. 
Automation

A typical day for a sales rep includes sending emails, updating fields, logging calls, scheduling tasks, and leaving voicemails. Performing these repetitive activities can become tedious and time-consuming. As a sales rep, you'd much rather focus your time on pitching deals to your customers. Increase your productivity and allow your sales reps to focus on the activities that matter most to your business by automating the routine tasks they perform every day.

CRM Plus allows you to fully automate sales routines that happen regularly, end to end. Let's look at some of the functions in CRM that can help you achieve this: 
 
Workflow rules

Workflow rules are automated processes to send email alerts, assign tasks, and update fields when they meet the trigger criteria.


 
An example of the workflow rule in Zoho CRM is the Big Deal Alert rule. This rule is executed if both the sales amount and probability of winning the business opportunity are high enough. When this rule is triggered, a notification is sent to the manager and other members of the sales team. You can edit this rule and its criteria to define your own big deal alert.

Process Management

Blueprints

While workflows automate parts of your business processes, you may also sometimes want to automatean entire sales process, like lead nuturing or deal follow-ups.

Let's look at the deal follow-up process. This can be broken down into several stages like qualifying a lead, proposing a deal, negotiating the deal, approving any discount offered, and signing contracts. Let's see how CRM can help manage how these tasks are performed.
By the end of the transaction, there are only two possible outcomes of the process: The deal is either won or lost. If the deal is lost, a sales manager will go in and check if the steps were followed correctly, and nothing was missed. However, as your business grows, tracking this may become impossible, especially if there is no log of each step the sales rep took.
Blueprint in CRM solves this problem. It maintains an online record of every process that happens during the deal follow-up, ensuring that all the steps were followed throughout the process, with none missed out. 


 
Setting up blueprints in CRM will help facilitate automation, validation, and collaboration within teams, making your business processes more efficient and free from inconsistencies.
 
Learn how to set a blueprint for the deal follow-up scenario here.
 
Approval process
 
Some actions that occur during the deal process may require approval from one or more person further up in your organization's structure. For example, if you require sales reps to seek approval before offering discounts to your customers, or if you require a marketer to get approval from the head of marketing before sending a campaign. 

This not only increases the number of decisions to be made in your team, but it can also be tedious for sales executives to manually send deals, campaigns, or other records for approval.

If you set up an approval process in CRM, an email notification is sent to the approving authority, and they can choose to approve or reject directly from the email, without any need for manual follow-up. 



How to add an approval process

Each approval process is associated with a rule that defines the process. You need to specify the rule criteria, the approval authority, and also the actions that need to be carried out when the record is approved or rejected.
  1. Navigate to Setup > Automation > Approval Processes.
  2. Click Add Approval Process in the Approval Process List page.
  3. In the New Approval Process page:
  4. Select the Module to apply the approval process to.
  5. Enter a Name and Description for the approval process.
  6. Select from the following options for when the approval process will be executed:
  7. Record Creation: The approval process will be triggered when a record is created.
  8. Record Edit: The approval process will be triggered when a record is edited.
  9. Click Add Rule to this Process.
  10. Specify the Rule Criteria. The approval process only apply to the records that meet the criteria.
    Adding criteria is mandatory. You can edit the criteria pattern manually, if required.
  11. Select approvers from the Users, Roles, Groups or Levels dropdowns under Who should Approve.
    The levels listed depends on the number of levels defined in your organization's role hierarchy. When you select levels, the approving authority is applied for the record based on its owner's level in the role hierarchy. For example: The record's owner has three roles above them in the hierarchy and the approval process asks for two levels of approval. In this case, the record needs to be approved by a user from each of the immediate two superior roles.
  12. Click the Add icon to add more users who need to approve. If you add more than one entry for approval, you will see the following options.
  13. Anyone: Select this option if you want any one of the members to approve.
  14. Everyone: Select this if you want all the members to approve. You can set the multiple approvals to be either parallel or sequential:
  15. Sequential: All the users need to approve in a sequence. The second user will not be able to approve until the first user approves.
    The first user in the list will be the first person to approve the record followed by the second user, and so on.
  16. Parallel: All the users need to approve, but they can do so in any order and will all be sent the record for approval at the same time.
  17. You can create or associate a task to be assigned to the approver when they are sent the record for approval.
  18. Specify the Action on Approval, which can be adding a task, updating fields, sending email alerts, calling webhooks, or executing custom functions.
  19. Specify the Action on Reject, which can be updating fields, sending email alerts, calling webhooks, or executing custom functions.
  20. Click Done and then Save. 
Note:
Users with the Manage Workflow profile permission can set up an approval process by specifying the criteria for records to be sent for approval. You can also include actions to be performed if the records are approved or rejected. 

Macros

One of the sales routines that sales reps perform regularly is the process when a lead does not answer a call, in which they follow up via email and update the information in CRM to track who they have contacted.
 
This routine is performed for each lead who can't be contacted and requires three actions:
  1. Sending an email to the lead to let them know that you tried calling them
  2. Updating the status of the record to "attempted to contact"
  3. Scheduling a task for to call the lead again 
You can create a macro to automate these tasks.

Macros in CRM Plus are a feature that let you execute a bunch of tasks for select records quickly.
Note:
Macros can be created for leads, contacts, and potentials in CRM Plus. 

Lead scoring  

Once your sales reps are assigned their leads, they can start contacting them using a range of different communication channels, to pitch deals. However, not all leads will become deals, and it's important for sales reps to be able to analyze leads' behavior to help ensure they are communicating effectively with them. How can this be achieved? By setting up scoring rules. 

Scoring a lead helps sales teams predict the chances of winning a deal with that lead. A lead with a high score is worth pursuing, since you already have a good chance of closing a deal with this lead. 

For example, let's say you run an email campaign for a product launch, where the emails are sent out to your leads. Leads who open the email could be scored 10 points and those who click on your email can be scored 50 points. On the other hand, leads who do not open the emails could be given a subtracted score from their current scores. In this way, you will know which set of leads needs to be given more attention to, and eliminate those that aren't worth following up on. Eventually, you will be spending more time only on the right leads. 



You can score leads automatically by setting scoring rules in your CRM. 

To set up a scoring rule:
  1. Navigate to Setup > Automation > Scoring Rules.
  2. Select a module from the dropdown to set scoring rules for.
  3. Click +Add under [Module] Fields.
  4. Select your desired combination of criteria in the [Module] Score - Choose Criteria pop-up:
  5. Select Add or Subtract and specify the number of points that you want to add to or subtract from the record when the record satisfies the criteria. You can also click + for AND rule combinations.
  6. Click Save and repeat the steps to add more rules under [Module] Fields. 
  7. Click +Add under Emails to add scores based on email actions.
  8. Select a check box in the Email Insights score - choose criteria pop-up to add your preferred criteria:
  9. Select Add or Subtract from the dropdown and specify the number of points that you want to add to or subtract from the record when the record satisfies the criteria. You can select one or more entries from the list of predefined criteria and modify the points to be added or subtracted. Click Save. 
  10. Repeat the steps for Calls to add criteria for scores based on call actions.
  11. Choose the page to set criteria for under Social - Facebook and click +Add.
  12. Select a check box in the Facebook Score - Choose Criteria pop-up to select your preferred criteria.
  13. Select Add or Subtract from the dropdown and specify the points that you want to add to the record if it satisfies the criteria. You can select one or more entries from the list of predefined criteria and modify them as required. Click Save. 
  14. Repeat the steps for Social - Twitter, Survey, Campaign, and Support
  15. Once you have set the scoring rules, they will be applied automatically for all the records in your CRM account going forward. Click the Run Scoring Rules for all Records button to apply these rules to all the records that have already been added. 

Territory management 

Now that we understand how automation works in CRM, let's look into how your leads can be managed effectively using territories. 
 
Business with a substantial presence across various geographic locations often categorize their leads into territories based on factors like location, industry, product line, or verticals. Creating territories is an effective way for sales managers to help their sales executives focus on and prioritize the leads assigned to them. 
 
With CRM Plus, you can create a systematic sales territory management plan to organize your team, auto-assign leads in a round-robin pattern, assign phone numbers to territories, transfer calls from territories that do not fall under your assigned region, limit territory access, and generate territory-based reports to get insights into the sales situation in each territory. 
 
How can setting up territories benefit you?
  1. Get more accurate insights to evaluate the efficiency of the sales teams in each territory
  2. Provide a more focussed work environment since the customer accounts are distributed based on territory, ensuring better salesforce engagement and reducing travel time for sales reps.
  3. Forecast sales for each territory and set clear goals
To create territories:
  1. Go to Setup > Users and Control > Territory Management > Territories.
  2. Click New Territory.
  3. In the CreateTerritory page, specify the following:
  4. Specify a Name for the territory.
  5. Choose a Territory Manager from the drop-down list.
  6. Choose a Parent Territory from the lookup.
  7. Search and add Users and allot Permissions.
    These users will have access to the records assigned to this territory. All the users can have the same permission for the records, either Read Only or Read/Write/Delete.
  8. Under Account Rule, specify criteria for accounts.
    Based on this rule criteria, territories will be assigned to accounts in Zoho CRM. See Also Territory Assignment for Accounts
  9. Under Deal Rule, specify criteria for deals. This options will be available only if it is enabled under Settings.
    Based on this rule criteria, territories will be assigned to deals in CRM. 
Note:
Only users with the CRM Plus, Enterprise, and Zoho One editions can access Zia on their iOS devices.

Analytics 

We have now seen how CRM can help automate and streamline various sales activities, but it's also important for you to know what's working and what isn't so you can assess your revenue margins and see which sales reps and teams are closing the most deals.We have now had a fair understanding of how CRM, with the above functionalities helps streamline various sales activities at ease, with the scope of automation.

That said, it is important to know what's working and what's not from time to time, to assess your revenue margins every year. For example, do you as a sales manager know which sales rep or team has bagged more deals for the month. 
 
To properly track this, you need regular updates on trends, targets, performance indicators, meetings, follow-up calls and so on, which is a lot of information to gather and analyze, so you may be tempted to turn to specialist reporting software to help.
 
Dashboards in CRM
 
CRM Plus makes staying on top of all this easier by helping you create dashboards in the CRM modules. Dashboards use analytical insights to give you a detailed overview of all the important data at a glance. 


 
Dashboards are powered with analytical components that display your organization's data in a pictorial, form making it more easily comprehensible. The six different analytical components that you can choose from to create your dashboard are:

Chart: A chart is a graphical representation of your data. It gives a quick insight into the records for easy analysis. 
KPI: Key Performance Indicators let you measure the performance of your team.
Comparator: A comparator gives you a comparative overview of any data such as user performance, lead source, etc. 
Anomaly Detector: The anomaly detector finds any discrepancies in your usual business process. 
Target Meter: The target meter lets you set and monitor targets for your team.
Funnel: Funnel provides a visual representation of different stages in your business.

Analytics in Zoho CRM Plus 

CRM Plus is powered with analytics, that helps you easily analyze your business data and create insightful reports and dashboards to inform your decision-making. With over 300 preset dashboards to choose from, you can prepare your dashboards in no time or create customized dashboards to suit your business models.   

Zoho CRM Mobile App

Stay connected to your business wherever you are with the CRM mobile app. From accessing basic contact information about your customers, seeing what leads are nearby while you're on the go, to creating deal quotes, the CRM mobile apps offers you the same great features as the desktop app, optimized for mobile. 
 
Some key features of the Zoho CRM mobile app are:
  1. Check in to a location: Check in to a location when you meet with a client. Managers can be notified when a member of their team checks in to help them keep track of all their sales reps' appointments. A rep can check in to an existing event or create a new event upon check-in. 
  1. Locate leads or contacts near you: Get in touch with customers when you are on a business trip, by checking the CRM app for leads, contacts, and accounts whose address is near your current location. 
  1. Stay connected: Send an SMS or email or call your customers directly from the CRM mobile app. Feeds in the CRM mobile app help you stay connected with your team, discuss work plans, and make business decisions as a team. Get periodic updates on the important leads you follow, such as who has updated a record and what changes were made. 
  1. Zia: Zia, the AI-driven sales assistant, can be accessed from the Zoho CRM Mobile app. You can either talk or text with Zia to access data from your CRM database. 

How you can leverage our inbuilt AI, Zia

Good businesses analyze their customer data from multiple touchpoints effectively. This data analysis is key for many businesses to make the most profitable business decisions in the future. 
 
Zia, the AI-driven sales assistant, helps you deliver a personalized customer experience by presenting you with real-time customer information fetched from the CRM database.  
Here's a few things that can Zia can help you with: 
 
  1. Best time to contact leads 

 
Zia can suggest the best time to contact your leads, so you increase your changes of a favourable response. This suggestion is calculated from your SalesSignals (which records when prospects and customers open and reply to your emails, when they interact with your organization on social media, and other time-based data). Set up follow-up reminders based on Zia's suggestions, and cut down on the time it takes to get in touch with customers.
  1. Lead and deal prediction: Zia can tell you the win probability of each record by analysing the activities performed on it and comparing these activities to your usual win pattern.
  1. Macro suggestions 


Zia observes patterns of sales activities that are performed on a daily basis, and comes up with macro suggestions, making automations run faster and easier. Zia can also calculate the efficiency of your workflows and stop you from making mistakes, like sending an email template twice to the same user.
  1. Sentiment analysis: Zia can infer customer reactions from email exchanges with your sales reps, and help plan their next conversation accordingly. Zia scans the content of every email for a positive, negative, or neutral tone, and gives a percentage to show how strongly the email conveys this tone. 
Note: 
Only users with the Zoho CRM Plus, Enterprise and Zoho One editions can access Zia on their iOS devices.
 
Conclusion 

With the various facets of CRM module in terms of customization, managing leads to automating end-to-end sales processes along with AI driven insights, sales teams could look forward to more streamlined sales routines, and make informed sales decisions that accelerate your sales revenue. 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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