Zoho CRM+: Affordable Alternative to the HubSpot/Salesforce Combo

The Gist

Getting sales, marketing, and customer success teams on the same page isn’t just about better communication—it’s about working from one shared source of truth. When each team has its own tools and data, confusion is inevitable: sales doesn’t see what marketing has promised, customer success isn’t looped into what sales has closed, and suddenly you’re dealing with frustrated customers and missed revenue.

With Zoho CRM Plus, everything runs from one platform, so all your teams access the same customer data in real time. No remixing data, no missed updates—just clear, consistent information that empowers each team to work efficiently. When everyone’s on the same page, leads don’t fall through the cracks, deals close faster, and customer experience improves.

How Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success Teams Win with Zoho CRM

1. Sales: Keeping Everything Connected

Sales teams need a solution that tracks deals and connects the dots between sales, marketing, and customer success interactions. Zoho CRM+ for Sales is built to handle this kind of collaboration effortlessly.

With Zoho, every interaction your sales team has—from lead generation to closing a deal—is automatically linked to customer history. Whether it’s a lead engaging with marketing emails or a customer who’s filed a service ticket, they’ll get the full context. This means your sales team knows exactly what’s happening and can tailor their approach accordingly.

With Zoho’s sales automation tools, your team can:

• Track leads and manage deals efficiently.

• Access real-time updates from marketing campaigns and service requests.

• Make smarter, more personalized sales decisions thanks to a 360-degree view of each customer.

Compare this to the traditional setup where HubSpot handles marketing and Salesforce handles sales—data doesn’t flow as easily between these platforms, often leading to gaps in communication and less effective interactions.

2. Marketing: Better Campaigns with Shared Data

Marketing isn’t just about generating leads—it’s about nurturing those leads through the funnel with targeted, timely campaigns. And to do that well, marketing teams need full visibility into what’s happening in sales and customer success. Zoho CRM+ for Marketing makes this easy by integrating marketing automation, lead scoring, and campaign analytics directly with the sales data.

With Zoho’s marketing features, you get tools to:

• Run email campaigns, social media posts, and track engagement in real time.

• Deliver content that aligns perfectly with where leads are in the sales cycle.

• Use advanced lead scoring, so only the most engaged leads get passed to sales, ensuring sales teams are working with qualified prospects.

In the typical HubSpot/Salesforce combo, this integration doesn’t happen automatically. Marketing and sales are often left trying to sync up their data manually, which can delay decision-making and lead to mismatched messaging. Zoho eliminates those silos by giving everyone access to the same data, which means better collaboration and more successful campaigns.

3. Customer Success: The Secret Sauce

Customer success is the unsung hero of long-term business growth. They’re the team that keeps your customers happy and coming back for more. But to do their job right, customer success teams need access to both sales and marketing data. If they can’t see a customer’s full history, they’ll be flying blind when problems arise.

With Zoho CRM+ for Customer Success, your team can:

• View a customer’s entire journey, from their first interaction with marketing to the latest service ticket.

• Understand what content or products a customer has engaged with and what sales promised them during the buying process.

• Quickly respond to service requests with all the necessary background info, resulting in faster resolutions and happier customers.

This integration between service, sales, and marketing just doesn’t happen in the HubSpot/Salesforce setup. In many cases, customer success is left out of the loop entirely, creating a fragmented experience for customers. With Zoho, everyone works from the same playbook, making it easier to provide a cohesive customer experience.

Why Zoho CRM+ is Better Than the HubSpot/Salesforce Combo

In traditional setups, companies often use HubSpot for marketing and Salesforce for sales, but this approach creates disjointed workflows. Here’s why:

• Data silos: HubSpot and Salesforce don’t naturally sync, which means data doesn’t flow smoothly between marketing, sales, and customer success. This causes communication gaps and slows down decision-making.

• Fragmented customer experience: If customer success doesn’t have access to sales and marketing data, they can’t provide the level of service today’s customers expect. Similarly, sales teams can’t see what marketing content a prospect has interacted with, leading to less personalized interactions.

• Manual data syncing: The time your team spends trying to connect these systems is time wasted. They should be focusing on closing deals and helping customers, not on manually updating records across platforms.

With Zoh, everything is integrated on a single platform. Your teams can see all the customer data they need in real-time, from sales interactions and marketing engagement to service tickets. This eliminates silos, improves collaboration, and leads to better, faster decisions—without the hefty price tag of separate tools.

The Bottom Line

Getting your sales, marketing, and customer success teams on the same page is a must for growth. Disconnected tools mean missed opportunities and wasted time. This is where Zoho CRM Plus comes in strong. It pulls everything together in one platform, making it a better alternative to juggling HubSpot for marketing and Salesforce for sales. Zoho keeps your teams aligned, cuts down on confusion, and helps you focus on what matters: closing deals and keeping customers happy.

FAQs

Q: How does Zoho CRM Plus improve collaboration between sales, marketing, and customer success?
A: With Zoho CRM Plus, all customer data is in one place, giving each team real-time visibility into what’s happening across sales, marketing, and customer support. Sales can see which marketing campaigns have captured a lead’s attention, marketing can track engagement beyond the first contact, and customer success has the full context to resolve issues faster.

Q: What’s the main advantage of using Zoho CRM Plus over separate tools like HubSpot and Salesforce?
A: Zoho CRM Plus eliminates the need for complex integrations by providing sales, marketing, and customer success tools on a single platform. This means data flows freely, reducing silos and manual syncing. With everyone working from the same data, your teams can make faster, better-informed decisions.

Q: How does Zoho CRM Plus support sales teams in managing deals and leads?
A: Zoho CRM Plus offers a full suite of sales automation tools, including lead tracking, deal management, and customer history. Sales reps can view every customer interaction—from initial marketing touchpoints to customer service tickets—allowing them to personalize their approach and close deals faster.

Q: Can Zoho CRM Plus handle complex marketing campaigns?
A: Yes! Zoho CRM Plus includes marketing automation features like email campaigns, social media management, and advanced lead scoring, all integrated with sales data. This gives marketing teams the insight to target their campaigns precisely and deliver content that aligns with where leads are in the sales cycle.

Q: Why is customer success more effective with Zoho CRM Plus?
A: Customer success teams have access to the entire customer journey in Zoho CRM Plus, from marketing interactions to sales promises. This full visibility allows them to respond to issues with context, track customer satisfaction over time, and identify upsell opportunities based on customer needs.