Using Quote Roller + Zoho CRM to Keep Your Sales Funnel Flowing

Building a business is all about customer relationship management (CRM). That’s precisely what led me to trying out an app from one of Quote Roller’s integration partners, Zoho CRM. Although I use the services of several products from our integration partners myself (Google Drive, Box, and PayPal), I wanted to share my experience using one of my favorites: Zoho CRM.

You see, even before I started blogging for Quote Roller, I was using Zoho Mail for my professional emails (and Gmail for personal), and dabbling with some of the company’s other app offerings now and then.

I have long been especially keen on using Zoho Invoice for billing. I freelance for several websites on a regular basis and take on one-off and guest assignments all the time, so I was pleased to find that I can easily integrate Quote Roller with Zoho CRM to streamline those two processes, allowing you to access customers in the CRM inside Quote Roller to send any one of them a business proposal.

I have a growing customer list, which is too hard to manage without CRM. Since I use Quote Roller to submit proposals and close business, it has become quite clear that I have to use a CRM tool to keep it all straight, and Zoho CRM has proven to be the right tool for the task.

So, based on my experience, here’s what it is like to use Quote Roller, Zoho CRM, and Zoho Invoice.

And we’ll start with how all you Quote Rollers can get started with using Zoho CRM right away.

Getting started with Zoho CRM integration

Integrating Zoho CRM into Quote Roller is (thankfully) very straightforward.

Although, as a blogger for Quote Roller, I have ready access to the awesome tech support team at HQ, I was able to get Zoho CRM and Quote Roller working together in just a few seconds, without ever ringing up support.

The basic process is as follows:

1. Open your browser

2. Sign into Zoho CRM

3. Open a new tab and sign into Quote Roller

4. Click on “Settings”

5. Click on the “Integrations” tab

6. Locate the Zoho CRM icon and click “Enable”

7. Locate your Zoho token and copy it to the clipboard

8. Paste the number into the “Authentication Token” field in Quote Roller settings

9. Click “Save”

You can then click the blue “Sync” button to import Zoho contacts into Quote Roller. After syncing, all of the contacts you have in Zoho CRM will pop-up in the recipient field inside Quote Roller when you create a new proposal.

This makes it extremely effective to conduct a customer through the sales funnel, track the customer through Zoho CRM, and switch seamlessly over to Quote Roller (as the “Lead” becomes a “Potential” in Zoho terminology) to progress the customer through the business proposal process before ultimately recording the outcome in Zoho CRM.

We’ve discussed in the past how a sales proposal is really a sales funnel within itself, and the best thing about Zoho CRM/Quote Roller integration is that the proposal gets to be treated as its own funnel with ease. Looking at the proposal as one part of the CRM process lets you measure the overall effectiveness of your proposals, which can reveal opportunities to improve our proposals.

The proposal process

The business proposal process can be considerably more complex than simple way I do it, and that’s really what makes the Quote Roller/Zoho CRM integration so powerful. For larger organizations that have dedicated proposal managers and teams, when it comes time for a proposal, the process gets handed off to that department. When a proposal is accepting, the customer continues through other parts of CRM.

That’s where Quote Roller steps in to compartmentalize the proposal creation process within the context of the overall CRM workflow. This allows you to take the time needed to research, prepare, write, deliver, track, analyze, and negotiate a business proposal before updating the customer relationship inside Zoho CRM.

The Zoho experience

In addition to its CRM app, Zoho has a few other apps that I’ve used and that, though not expressly integrated with Quote Roller, are definitely worth checking out. Zoho projects provides project management, which I’ve used from time to time and can recommend.

The company also offers Zoho Writer which you can use for writing and storing documents on the Web which has more features (like onscreen word count and customizable headers) than Google Docs – and which you can also use for drafting copy to work into your business proposals.

The tools in Zoho are more specific to business than Google products. You can manage communications with Zoho Mail and billings with Zoho Invoice. As an example of how that works, say you submit a business proposal to a lead from Zoho CRM via Quote Roller. The bid might be for an ongoing service – like inbound marketing monthly retainer services.

This type of service usually calls for different prices depending upon what services are called upon on a month-to-month basis, in addition to the monthly retainer fee. You can set up and adjust routine and on-the-fly billings for add-on services as needed, using Zoho Invoice.

As I mentioned already, I use other Zoho services besides its CRM app. Perhaps the main thing I can stress about Zoho’s various services is that they represent an alternative to the mighty, all-knowing, all-consuming Google services, and Zoho adds a few services that Google simply doesn’t offer.

That’s the extent to which I’ve personally used Zoho apps, but the company provides a comprehensive suite of tools that help you manage everything from campaigns to accounting, troubleshooting, developing, recruiting, website monitoring, and more. You should check them out as well the other Quote Roller integration partners. You may just find everything you need to run your business!

Have you checked out how Quote Roller works with Zoho CRM? Have you tried any of Quote Roller’s integration partners? We would love to hear about your experiences in the comment space below.