Zoho vs Close CRM

Zoho CRM and Close CRM are two platforms designed to enhance customer relationship management, each catering to different business needs. Zoho CRM is a highly customizable solution offering tools for sales, marketing, and customer support, making it ideal for businesses seeking an all-in-one, scalable platform. Close CRM, by contrast, focuses on streamlining the sales process with features like call tracking, email automation, and pipeline management, tailored specifically for fast-paced sales teams. In this blog post, we’ll explore their key features to help you decide which CRM fits your needs best – or if folk might be a more balanced alternative with user-friendly contact management and customization options.

What is Zoho?

Zoho is a CRM system with a strong sales focus. It has journey orchestration, sales process management, and workflow automation features. There's also something for marketing teams, including event management and customer segmentation.

Key features of Zoho

• Sales automation: Automates sales tasks like lead management, deal tracking, and follow-up actions.
• Customizable dashboards and reports: Allows users to create and customize dashboards and reports for in-depth analytics.
• Multi-channel communication: Integrates with email, phone, social media, and live chat to manage customer interactions.
• Lead and contact management: Manages customer information, tracks interactions, and segments contacts for targeted campaigns.
• Workflow automation: Automates routine tasks and processes to improve efficiency and reduce manual effort.
• AI-powered sales assistant (Zia): Provides predictive analytics, task automation, and intelligent suggestions to enhance sales performance.
  

What is Close CRM?

Close CRM is a sales-focused platform designed to eliminate the complexity of traditional CRMs, offering a streamlined and user-friendly experience tailored for small businesses with ambitious growth goals. Known for its intuitive design, Close provides robust features like automation to reduce manual work, built-in communication tools for faster follow-ups, and powerful integrations to fit seamlessly into any tech stack. Whether you’re managing leads, collaborating with a team, or scaling sales efforts, Close is built to save time and help small businesses succeed.

Key features of Close CRM

• Fast setup: Simple and quick to implement, allowing teams to start using the platform without delay.
• Intuitive interface: Easy-to-navigate dashboard tailored for speed and productivity.
• Built-in communication: Integrated calling, email, and SMS tools for seamless interaction with leads and clients.
• Automation tools: Includes workflows, smart views, and task automation to streamline repetitive tasks.
• Powerful reporting: Customizable sales and activity reporting for actionable insights into team performance and revenue trends.
• Team collaboration: Features like shared inboxes and task assignments to keep teams aligned and efficient.
• Secure and scalable: Designed with robust security and scalability for growing businesses.
• Integrations: Offers over 100 native integrations and Zapier compatibility to sync seamlessly with existing tools.

Zoho vs. Close CRM: Feature Comparison

Let's break down the key features of Zoho and Close CRM and take a closer look at their sales workflow and automation, email marketing tools, user experience, and more.

1. Sales pipeline management

Zoho CRM's pipeline management feature provides a visual overview of the sales process, allowing users to track deals at various stages and manage the flow of opportunities effectively. Close CRM's pipeline offers a streamlined, visual approach to managing sales processes, making it easy to track deals from start to finish. The Powerful Pipeline View provides a clear snapshot of all active opportunities, enabling teams to focus on what matters most.

2. Ease of use

Zoho CRM offers a user-friendly interface with customizable dashboards, making it easy for teams to navigate. Close CRM is designed for simplicity, with an intuitive layout that minimizes the learning curve, ensuring quick adoption by sales teams. Close CRM does not provide its own contact enrichment feature. You can only access this using a third party application, which might incur an additional cost.

3. Contact enrichment

Zoho CRM's contact enrichment feature, powered by its AI assistant Zia, automatically updates and enriches records using data from various online sources. The feature can fill in missing details, such as email addresses, phone numbers, company information, and social media profiles. Close CRM does not provide its own contact enrichment feature. You can only access this using a third party application, which might incur an additional cost.

4. Outreach

Zoho CRM supports multichannel outreach, enabling businesses to connect with leads through email, social media, and other platforms. The platform automates workflows such as lead assignment and follow-up reminders, while AI-driven sentiment analysis helps prioritize customer responses for timely engagement. Close CRM's outreach features integrate built-in calling, email, and SMS tools, enabling seamless multi-channel outreach without the need for external apps. Users can send emails directly from the platform, make calls with one-click dialing, and track SMS conversations for streamlined follow-ups.

5. Automation

Zoho CRM provides comprehensive automation features that streamline tasks like sending emails, updating fields, and triggering alerts through workflow automation. It includes Blueprint for standardizing sales processes, Macros for automating repetitive tasks in bulk, and Zia AI for predictive automation that suggests workflows and actions based on data patterns. Close CRM's automation features are designed to save time and streamline workflows for sales teams. Users can create custom workflows to automate repetitive tasks, such as updating deal statuses, assigning leads, or sending follow-ups. The platform's Smart Views allow teams to automatically organize and prioritize leads based on predefined criteria.

6. Integration

Zoho integrates with a wide range of third-party applications to expand its functionality, including popular tools like Google Workspace and Microsoft Office. It also connects with accounting software such as QuickBooks and more. Close CRM offers integrations with various tools to enhance sales workflows and streamline data management.

7. Artificial Intelligence

Zoho CRM integrates AI through its assistant, Zia, which enhances productivity by automating tasks like data entry, lead prediction, and workflow recommendations. Zia provides predictive analytics for sales forecasting, identifies anomalies in sales processes, and suggests the best times for customer engagement based on past interactions. Close CRM does not appear to have an AI integration.

Price and plans comparison

Let's take a closer look at the price and plans of both Zoho and Close CRM.

Zoho prices

Zoho offers a free plan which is limited to three users suitable for small businesses. After that, an annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $14 per user, per month
• Professional: $23 per user, per month
• Enterprise: $40 per user, per month
• Ultimate: $52 per user, per month.

Close CRM prices

Close CRM offers a monthly and annual payment option. The annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Startup: $49/user/month.
• Professional: $99/user/month.
• Enterprise: $139/user/month.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to Zoho and Close CRM

Looking for an affordable alternative? We recommend folk. A multiple award-winning CRM platform loved for its easy-to-use, plug-and-play CRM system. folk can support multiple business functions including sales, marketing, recruitment, and more. You can use folk as a solopreneur, small to mid-size team, and large enterprise.

Key features

• Contact management: Bring all your contacts into one place seamlessly, from social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram and X to multiple inboxes including Gmail and Outlook.
• Notes and reminders: Attach notes directly to a contact's profile in folk, and access them on the go. And assign reminders so you know exactly when to follow-up.
• Sales pipeline dashboard: Manage your entire sales cycle and leads with a highly customizable sales pipeline dashboard that can be used in Kanban-board view or listicle.
• Ease of use and customization: Easily customize the pipelines, dashboards, automation, email sequences, so that you can use it across your sales cycle and pipeline management – and other business functions such as recruitment, marketing, and more.
• Social media integration: Import people and companies from LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Instagram, and X within a click thanks to folk’s Google Chrome extension.
• Contact sync from Gmail and Outlook: Full email sync enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Find email addresses in a click: Contact enrichment powered by Apollo, and Dropcontact so you can fill in missing data points with 1-click.
• Email sequences: Send email sequences with reminders if your leads don’t reply to your first emails. It includes an AI integration allowing you to personalize email at scale.

Price and plans

folk has a 14-day free trial. After that, there are affordable monthly or annual subscription plans. The annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $80 per user, per month.

Zoho vs. Close CRM: What's the Verdict?

Between the choice of Zoho and Close CRM, it's clear that each platform offers unique strengths. Zoho excels with its comprehensive features and scalability, making it a strong choice for larger enterprises. Close CRM, on the other hand, shines with its intuitive design and focus on sales productivity, ideal for small to medium-sized businesses. However, for companies seeking a more personalized approach to relationship management, folk provides a flexible alternative, blending ease of use with customization. Try folk today, free, and experience a CRM tailored to your business needs.