Zoho CRM Adds Smart Email, Location Awareness, More
Zoho today launched new updates to its CRM suite aimed at helping sales and marketing professionals collaborate better, prioritize their email communications and leverage opportunities on the go with the addition of location awareness to their travels.
The company's just-released Document Library module acts as a central repository for sales and marketing collateral, according to Zoho. Instead of functioning as another cloud storage add-on, Zoho evangelist Raju Vegesna told Enterprise Apps Today that the new module serves as a “full-fledged document management system.”
Document Management with a Difference
Users can share, view, edit and even create new documents, spreadsheets and presentations from within the Zoho CRM Web interface, thanks to Zoho Office integration. More importantly, said Vegesna, Zoho's Document Library lends context to document sharing and collaboration duties among teams.
Document Library enables users to define which colleagues are allowed access to certain documents. For instance, users can enable access to select account executives or entire sales groups or limit access to certain roles, like sales managers or high-level executives.
Given its level of integration with the rest of the Zoho CRM suite, said Vegesna, Document Library makes it a trivial task to add supplemental information to accounts, leads and contacts. Document Library offers Zoho CRM Professional Edition users 250 MB of free storage., while Zoho CRM Edition users are allocated 500 MB of free storage.
Added Email Intelligence
Zoho today also flipped the switch on a new feature called MailMagnet that Vegesna said will help sales people cut through the clutter in their email inboxes. A smart filter of sorts, MailMagnet employs insights gleaned from Zoho CRM's backend to bring important emails to the fore. It's all due to the tightly integrated nature of the offering, Vegesna explained.
“Because of the CRM system, we know what's important to the salesperson,” Vegesna said. During an online demonstration, he showed how clicking on the MailMagnet icon instantly displayed emails relevant to current projects, deals and proposals within the MailMagnet panel.
Users can then reply, add follow-up tasks and annotate items from within the same panel without switching screens. MailMagnet works with most email services, including Zoho Mail, Gmail, Google Apps and Microsoft Exchange-based accounts.
Location Awareness
Lastly, Zoho added location awareness to its mobile CRM app for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
It's a simple truth that “salespeople travel a lot,” said Vegesna. Zoho wants them to stay in better touch with current and prospective clients by adding a social, location-aware twist to business trips.
Zoho's updated app “displays all the customers and leads in a current location,” Vegesna said. Contacts appear as pins on a map from within the Leads & Contacts module. Road warriors can view contact information and even initiate calls from within the app.
Zoho Document library, MailMagnet and the Zoho CRM Mobile update with location awareness are available now.
Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.
Pedro Hernandez contributes to Enterprise Apps Today, and 11Press, the technology network. He was previously the managing editor of Internet.com, an IT-related website network. He has expertise in Smart Tech, CRM, and Mobile Tech, Helping Banks and Fintechs, Telcos and Automotive OEMs, and Healthcare and Identity Service Providers to Protect Mobile Apps.
