CINXE.COM

<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en"><head><meta charset="utf-8"><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"><link rel="preconnect" href="//www.zohowebstatic.com"><link rel="dns-prefetch" href="//www.zohowebstatic.com"><link rel="preconnect" href="https://static.zohocdn.com"><link rel="dns-prefetch" href="https://static.zohocdn.com"><link rel="preload" href="https://static.zohocdn.com/zohofonts/zohopuvi/4.0/Zoho_Puvi_Regular.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2" crossorigin><link rel="preload" href="https://static.zohocdn.com/zohofonts/zohopuvi/4.0/Zoho_Puvi_Bold.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2" crossorigin><link rel="preload" href="https://static.zohocdn.com/zohofonts/zohopuvi/4.0/Zoho_Puvi_Semibold.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2" crossorigin><script src="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/js/common/var_init.js"></script><script>(function(w,s){var e=document.createElement("script");e.async=true;e.src="https://zohotagmanager.cdn.pagesense.io/ztmjs/9e14ca550fb345518206a5a65a40a7a9.js";var x=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];x.parentNode.insertBefore(e,x);})(window,"script");</script><title>The CRM essentials - Zoho CRM</title><meta name="description" content="For your sales force to run like a well oiled machine, the processes that support it need to be optimized. Whether you're working on lead generation and qualification, marketing automation, opportunity management, or sales performance management, a CRM can help. Explore the CRM essentials with Zoho CRM."><link rel="icon" href="https://www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/images/favicon.ico" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon"><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.zoho.com/crm/crm-essentials.html"><meta property="og:title" content="The CRM essentials - Zoho CRM"><meta property="og:description" content="For your sales force to run like a well oiled machine, the processes that support it need to be optimized. Whether you're working on lead generation and qualification, marketing automation, opportunity management, or sales performance management, a CRM can help. Explore the CRM essentials with Zoho CRM."><meta property="og:image" content="https://www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/images/ogimage/crm-logo.png"><meta property="og:url" content="https://www.zoho.com/crm/crm-essentials.html"><meta property="og:site_name" content="Zoho"><meta property="og:type" content="website"><meta name="twitter:title" content="The CRM essentials - Zoho CRM"><meta name="twitter:description" content="For your sales force to run like a well oiled machine, the processes that support it need to be optimized. Whether you're working on lead generation and qualification, marketing automation, opportunity management, or sales performance management, a CRM can help. Explore the CRM essentials with Zoho CRM."><meta name="twitter:image" content="https://www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/images/ogimage/crm-logo.png"><meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"><meta name="twitter:site" content="@zoho"><link rel="stylesheet" href="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/css/common/zohocustom.css"><link rel="stylesheet" href="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/css/product/crm.css"><link rel="stylesheet" href="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/css/node/crm/3906-en.css"></head><body class="zw-page-3906 zw-product-107 zw-template-just_html i18n-en" data-prdname="crm" data-prdname-display="CRM"> <header><div class="zw-promo-top"></div><div class="zw-global-header"></div><div class="zw-product-header zwph-white"><div></div></div> </header> <main><div class="zw-template-inner"><div class="crm-essn-main"> <section class="crm-essn-banner im-anim im-header"><h1 class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-100">The CRM essentials</h1><p class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-150">The objective of a sales team is to convert qualified leads into paying customers by offering them value, in the form of a product or a service. By streamlining the processes around the customer journey, you can let your sales force focus on what they do best.</p> <a class="act-btn cta-btn animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-200" href="signup.html?plan=enterprise&src=crm-essn">Sign Up For Free</a> </section> <section class="crm-essn-sectn"><div class="im-anim im-header"><h2 class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-100">The pillars of a successful business</h2><p class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-200">Your sales team sells. A pretty simple concept, right? However, the reality is often more complicated. When you examine your business, there are often multiple processes designed to support your sales team. These range from ensuring a steady flow of qualified leads into your CRM, to nurturing leads so they're easier for your sales team to convert. To support those processes, you might have a robust system to manage all opportunities effectively, or an analytics system to help sales managers understand and improve the sales process.</p></div><div class="cstmr-like-inner im-anim"><div class="box-con frst animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-100"><div class="box-con-inner"><h2>The linchpin at the heart of your business</h2><p>If customer data is the lifeblood of your business, then a powerful CRM can be considered its beating heart. It collects, stores, centralizes, and delivers important information across different departments of your business. It can provide the necessary context and insights needed when interacting with customers or making business decisions. A powerful CRM is an indispensable part of modern businesses that ties together different processes and departments.</p> <a href="/crm/what-is-crm.html?src=crm_essn" class="learnmore">Explore the concept of CRM<span></span></a></div></div><div class="aditn-cnt"><div class="box-con bg animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-150"><div class="box-con-inner"><span class="bx-icn sprt-icn crm-strgy"></span><h3>CRM strategy</h3><p>How businesses approach customer interactions and building relationships with them informs their CRM strategy. It involves collecting customer data and analyzing past customer interactions to provide better services and build better relationships with customers.</p></div></div><div class="box-con bg animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-200"><div class="box-con-inner"><span class="bx-icn sprt-icn crm-soft"></span><h3>CRM software</h3><p>Customer relationship management software is designed to provide a 360潞 view of all your customer data by gathering it in a central place. Contact information and communication preferences, as well as interaction and purchase history, can be shared to help your teams reach out to customers for the right reasons and through the right channels.</p></div></div></div></div> </section> <section class="crm-essn-sectn blue"><div class="im-anim"><h2 class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-100">Streamline your sales cycle</h2><p class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-150">Your business depends on different departments to bring in customers and drive revenue. A marketing team drives leads into your CRM to qualify and nurture them, before passing them on to sales. Your sales team handles prospecting and converting those leads into paying customers. Finally, your support team addresses the long-term happiness and needs of your customers.</p><picture><img class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-200 zcp_lazy zcp_loading sales-cylceimg" data-src="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/images/crm/comprehensive-sales-process-webview.svg" src="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/images/crm/comprehensive-sales-process-webview-2kb.png" alt="Lead scoring in Zoho CRM"> </picture><p class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-300">The impression that your business leaves on the customer throughout this journey is called "customer experience." How a prospect is engaged across different points in the sales cycle determines if that experience is positive or negative. That, in turn, effects their willingness to commit and make a purchase. At the heart of your customer experience is the CRM software your business uses to connect these processes and create a seamless customer experience.</p></div><div class="mktg-atmn-tool-inner im-anim"><div class="algn-cnt"><div class="atmn-tool-pop animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-100 cnt-order1"><div><span class="sprt-icn sales-icon1 ftrs-icn"></span><h3 class="sml-hdr">Finding leads and bringing them into your system</h3><p class="para">The first challenge for your business is getting word out and making people interested in what you're selling. You likely use a mix of inbound and outbound strategies to generate leads, but there's no one-size-fits-all solution. You need to choose a lead generation strategy with a mix of inbound and outbound techniques that work for you. Maximize the ROI of your marketing activities by capturing these leads and sending them into your sales cycle.</p> <a href="/crm/lead-generation.html?src=crm_ess" class="learnmore">Learn more<span></span></a></div></div><div class="atmn-tool-pop animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-150 cnt-order4"><div><span class="sprt-icn sales-icon4 ftrs-icn" cnt-order4></span><h3 class="sml-hdr">Making the most of every sales opportunity</h3><p class="para">An opportunity opens up when your sales team engages with a prospect who shows interest in purchasing. You need to make sure they're equipped with everything they need to convert this opportunity into a successful sale. The right CRM can help sales teams manage their opportunities and drive more revenue. It will help your sales team collaborate, access sales collaterals, sell on the go, manage quotes, and have a complete 360潞 view of the prospect.</p> <a href="/crm/opportunity-management.html?src=crm_ess" class="learnmore">Learn more<span></span></a></div></div></div><div class="algn-cnt"><div class="atmn-tool-pop animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-200 anim-delay1 cnt-order2"><div><span class="sprt-icn sales-icon2 ftrs-icn"></span><h3 class="sml-hdr">Identifying the best leads and nurturing them</h3><p class="para">The next step is to identify which leads are worth following up with and nurture those leads. Not every lead you capture becomes a paying customer. Some might just be trying to figure what your business is about, while others might be looking for useful information. However, hidden among the hundreds or thousands of leads you generate, there are people who will genuinely benefit from your products or services. Your marketing and sales team need to work together to identify and qualify them, then nurture their interest, before converting them into opportunities.</p> <a href="/crm/qualify-and-nurture-leads.html?src=crm_ess" class="learnmore">Learn more<span></span></a></div></div><div class="atmn-tool-pop animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-300 anim-delay1 cnt-order5"><div><span class="sprt-icn sales-icon5 ftrs-icn"></span><h3 class="sml-hdr">Helping your sales team perform their best</h3><p class="para">Help your sales team focus and succeed by giving them the right targets and territories. A solid sales performance management tool can help you in guiding newer sales reps to understand your sales process, while giving experienced members the necessary tools to help them sell more. It can also analyze how your reps are performing and give insights to sales managers on how they can improve across the board.</p> <a href="/crm/what-is-sales-performance-management.html?src=crm_ess" class="learnmore">Learn more<span></span></a></div></div></div><div class="algn-cnt"><div class="atmn-tool-pop animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-200 anim-delay2 cnt-order3"><div><span class="sprt-icn sales-icon3 ftrs-icn"></span><h3 class="sml-hdr">Keeping consistent engagement at scale</h3><p class="para">One of the most important things a customer (or even a prospect) expects from business is communication. From the first interaction, through the sales cycle, and while they're a paying customer, you need to engage with them consistently. Your communication should be personalized and crafted to their needs. However, it's hard to scale up personalized communication as your number of leads and customers grow. You need to be able to plan and execute a wide range of marketing campaigns, without having to hit send or publish every time. Marketing automation helps you do just that.</p> <a href="/crm/what-is-marketing-automation.html?src=crm_ess" class="learnmore">Learn more<span></span></a></div></div><div class="atmn-tool-pop animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-300 anim-delay2 cnt-order6"><div><span class="sprt-icn sales-icon6 ftrs-icn"></span><h3 class="sml-hdr">Delivering excellent post sales support</h3><p class="para">To ensure a truly great customer experience, your efforts should continue past the point of purchase. You need to make the customer feel valued enough to come back for future purchases. This is where customer support comes in. Your support agents can best address the needs of customers with all the necessary sales information and context at hand. A CRM that integrates with your help desk software can sync tickets with relevant sales data. It can also make existing customer data accessible to customer facing teams, helping them provide a consistent customer experience.</p> <a href="/crm/help-desk-crm.html?src=crm_ess" class="learnmore">Learn more<span></span></a></div></div></div></div> </section> <section class="crm-essn-sectn im-anim"><div class="crm-essn-slider"><ul class="slid-list"><li data-id="frstsec" class="slt" onclick="activeLineSet(this)"><li data-id="scndtsec" onclick="activeLineSet(this)"></ul><div class="crm-essn-slider-lft"><div id="frstsec" class="sal-cnt"><h2 class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-100">Choosing the right CRM <br> for your business</h2><p class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-150">When you're trying to find the right CRM, you might be overwhelmed by the amount of options available. Making a choice can be difficult, unless you're very certain about your specific needs and challenges. The size of your business, how your customers prefer to communicate, and other factors can affect the features you need. Identify your pain points, frame your long-term objectives, and then choose the CRM that fits your needs best.</p> <a href="/crm/buy-crm.html?src=mktg_atmn" class="learnmore animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-200">Check out some guidelines to purchase and deploy a CRM solution<span></span></a></div><div id="scndtsec" class="sal-cnt" style="display: none"><h2>Why choose Zoho CRM?</h2><p>Zoho CRM is easy to get started using and customize for your specific needs, without sacrificing features or functionality. The combination of features and intuitive UI, along with transparent pricing makes Zoho CRM a great choice for businesses of any size. From SMEs to Enterprises, no matter the industry, businesses can use Zoho CRM to connect with their customers and provide an exceptional customer experience.</p> <a href="/crm/why-choose-zoho-crm.html?src=mktg_atmn" class="learnmore">See why Zoho CRM is the perfect fit for your business<span></span></a></div></div><div class="crm-essn-slider-rit"> <picture class="zc_lazy"><source class="webp" type="image/webp" data-srcset="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/images/crm/choosing-crm-144.webp 2x, /sites/zweb/images/crm/choosing-crm-72.webp 1x"><source class="other_format" type="image/jpeg" data-srcset="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/images/crm/choosing-crm-144.jpg 2x"><img class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-200" data-src="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/images/crm/choosing-crm-72.jpg" alt="Sign up for CRM software | Zoho CRM"></picture></div></div> </section> <section class="crm-essn-sectn pT0 im-anim"><div class="crm-slutn animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-100"><h5>Industry solutions</h5><ul class="crmslu-links"><li><a href="/crm/life-sciences/?src=crm_ess">Life Science</a></li><li><a href="/crm/retail/?src=crm_ess">Retail</a></li><li><a href="/crm/real-estate/?src=crm_ess">Real Estate</a></li><li><a href="/crm/financial-services/?src=crm_ess">Financial Services</a></li><li><a href="/crm/insurance/?src=crm_ess">Insurance</a></li><li><a href="/crm/service-industry/?src=crm_ess">Services</a></li><li><a href="/crm/agencies/?src=crm_ess">Agencies</a></li><li><a href="/crm/non-profit/?src=crm_ess">Non-Profits</a></li></ul></div> </section> <section class="crm-essn-bottom im-anim"><p class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-100">Everlasting customer relationships are built with<br> the world's favorite CRM.</p><h2 class="animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-150">Start building yours today.</h2> <a class="act-btn cta-btn animated-initial animated-showing animated-delay-1200" href="signup.html?plan=enterprise&src=crm-essn">Sign Up For Free</a> </section></div></div> </main> <footer><div class="zw-product-footer"></div><div class="zw-global-footer"></div><div class="zw-only-copyright"></div><div class="zw-promo-bottom"></div> </footer> <aside><div class="zw-other-info"></div> </aside><script src="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/js/common/zcms.js"></script><script src="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/js/common/lyte-lazyload.js"></script><script src="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/js/common/zohocustom.js"></script><script src="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/js/product/crm.js"></script><script src="//www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/js/node/crm/3906-en.js"></script></body></html>