Zoho CRM vs Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring): Which is a better fit?

Nicole D.: My name's Nicole. I'm the owner and founder of Nicole Du Guay Coaching & Consulting, and I give Zoho CRM a four out of five. Prior to using Zoho CRM, I've tried a number of different CRM platforms, and Mindbody Online is an example and a couple of other ones. And I found that Zoho CRM, although the other platforms have ... Some are more specific for specific industries. Having tested a number of them, I just find that I like the integration and the versatility of Zoho CRM a lot better. The number one reason that I decided to try Zoho CRM was because I was already using Zoho Meetings and I liked the idea that I can integrate my calendar and my booking system and have it directly linked to my meetings platform that I was already using. Zoho CRM was a little bit challenging at first. It does take a little bit of time to find your way around the platform, but once I was familiar with it, it was actually really easy to get the hang of and get into using it. I would recommend that anybody wanting to use Zoho CRM take some time just to look at all the other integrations that you're already using and wanting to use and actually consider combining your accounts into the Zoho platform because I did find that if you had platforms like MailChimp, for example, that was separate, it actually ... Even though you can make it work, it actually is just easier if you keep everything in the Zoho family, which I would recommend.

Josh A.: My name is Josh. I'm the founder and CMO, and I give SharpSpring a five out of five. If you want more reviews like this, you can click below. Prior to using SharpSpring. I was using a few different tools. I was using Pardot, Pipedrive, ActiveCampaign and MailChimp. The reason that I was looking to change solutions is because those solutions... Well, it depends on the solution. For Pardot, it wasn't really easy to use. It required more of a professional kind of Pardot expert, and we didn't always have one around. For Pipedrive, it was more of a CRM, so it wasn't really a fully functional marketing or sales automation software. It really just kind of kept track of your leads. With ActiveCampaign, I felt like their tool's on a good track, but not nearly as refined as what I later found with SharpSpring. Soon as I saw SharpSpring, I realized there was a lot more functionality and capability and that it was more refined than ActiveCampaign. And the last one that I would explain would be MailChimp, and MailChimp really worked well as a good email marketing tool, but it wasn't a holistic kind of complete marketing and sales automation tool. So those are the reasons, those are the tools that I use prior to SharpSpring. The reason I chose to use SharpSpring and [inaudible 00:01:21] SharpSpring is because it's so robust. I feel like the team at SharpSpring does a good job of continually adding new features, and plus, they have a very solid base, a good foundation of features already in place. It allows us to do both marketing and sales automation, all in one software, which is a huge convenience. I don't have to worry about connecting different pieces of software. For the most part, it all works together in one tool. And it's very affordable, knowing that you get all those different tools in one place as well. If there's a capability that it doesn't have, then it works really well with APR so you can, you can kind of make up a gap for anything that you don't find built-in to SharpSpring by default, which makes it just a very robust and powerful tool. Yeah. SharpSpring, as far as integration goes, was very easy to integrate and stand up. That part was really quick. I would say there's a little bit of a challenge in just being able to customize the software. And it's probably a challenge to customize and integrate software in general, when you're dealing with any sales and marketing automation tool; every company has very specific needs. I know quite a few companies that actually use SharpSpring, so I've been able to see this firsthand. But everyone has different needs and different capabilities, so getting it just right takes a lot of work and a lot of refinements. I think it's important for companies to know that from the start. What I will say is the SharpSpring does a really good job of giving you options and flexibility in their solution set so that you can make sure that everything gets set up to the way that you like. It just may take a little while to get there as you're figuring out exactly how to harness their tools and harness their setup options, to get it set up exactly how your organization wants. When someone is considering to look to integrate SharpSpring or to choose a similar like sales and marketing automation tool, there's a few things that I'd recommend. Foremost is, I would recommend creating a very clear set of use cases. For me, a use case is just how you're going to use the software, so if you can come up with all of the core reasons that you're going to be able to use the software and want to use a software, define those at the very beginning before you even start your search. So that makes your search a lot easier; if you're asking questions, you'll know what to ask. You'll know what are must haves, what are not. And then as you are getting sold on the software or going through the sales process, you can ask to make sure that all those things can be accomplished with the software and what type of time and cost to expect with a software. Now with SharpSpring, for the most part, everything is built into the same price. There's no major ad-ons, so that's a huge advantage, but in general, it's just nice to know what exactly it is that you really need in your software and for your solution before you get into the sales process.