These innovations are designed to make CRM more accessible across organisations, not just for sales teams.

“Many people across departments need access to customer information, yet CRMs have traditionally been limited to sales,” said Kehinde Ogundare, country head, Zoho Nigeria. “With CRM for Everyone, we’re democratising access and simplifying system use through Zia’s capabilities. Anyone can now create reports, workflows, or even redesign their CRM interface using simple prompts.”

CRM for Everyone is now generally available globally, with enhanced Zia capabilities and new features like Connected Records and Connected Workflows.

Zia Capabilities Deepen CRM Power

The platform now features several agentic AI capabilities through Zia. Users can issue natural language prompts to generate reports instantly, with the ability to review, pause, and edit in real time.

Zia also enables custom module creation using plain language, allowing non-technical users to set up field types, permissions, and module structures effortlessly.

Creating workflows is similarly simplified – Zia acts on behalf of the user to automate tasks. Additionally, a unique “Image to Canvas” tool lets users convert images into functional design elements within the CRM interface, enhancing visual customisation.

Improving Customer Experience with CRM for Everyone

CRM for Everyone introduces Connected Records and Connected Workflows, and is now available globally.

Connected Records automatically link tasks and data across departments, ensuring continuity throughout the customer journey.

Connected Workflows orchestrate tasks across multiple teams, enabling sales, marketing, onboarding, account management, finance, and legal departments to stay aligned with seamless access to contextual information. This ensures customers receive consistent experiences at every interaction point.

Availability and Pricing

AI capabilities are included in licence costs, unless stated otherwise. Team user licences (non-sales CRM users) start at NGN 4300/per user/month on all paid editions of Zoho CRM.

Zoho’s AI Commitment

Zoho designs its AI with customer privacy and value in mind. Zia’s models—contextual, assistive, and agentic—are not trained on consumer data and retain no customer information.

Zoho delivers useful, cost-efficient AI tools without inflating customer expenses.

With over 1,500 schools across Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda, Bridge International Academies is one of the largest education providers in Africa focused on providing quality, affordable education to underserved communities.

Bridge International Academies uses a data-driven approach to ensure that children receive high-quality education, regardless of their socio-economic status.

The partnership with Zoho is expected to further enhance Bridge’s ability to deliver impactful educational outcomes through the use of Zoho’s comprehensive suite of cloud-based applications.

Ogundare explained the importance of this collaboration, saying, “At Zoho, we believe in the power of technology to drive social impact. Our partnership with Bridge International Academies will help drive our goal to help communities thrive by empowering institutions like Bridge with the tools they need to deliver top-tier education.”

Through this partnership, Zoho aims to sponsor school uniforms, shoes, and fees for four academic terms, starting from the third term of 2024 and extending into 2025. In addition to these essentials, Zoho will provide other necessary items to 200 underprivileged pupils attending Bridge International Schools.

Zoho is contributing to sustainability by repurposing billboard flex materials to create school bags. These eco-friendly bags, designed and distributed by Zoho, have been given to 500 school children in Nigeria, further enhancing the company’s focus on both social and environmental responsibility.

The partnership will also see Bridge International Academies leveraging Zoho’s platform to simplify its operations, improve communication, and enhance overall efficiency.

Bridge will integrate Zoho’s productivity tools such as Zoho Workplace, Zoho CRM, and Zoho Desk into its day-to-day operations, allowing administrators, teachers, and support staff to work more effectively.

Zoho’s cloud-based tools will enable Bridge to manage student data, track academic performance, and facilitate better communication between schools, teachers, and parents.

One of the key aspects of the partnership is Zoho’s ability to offer customized solutions specifically tending to the needs of educational institutions.

“We understand that every industry is unique, and education is no exception. That’s why we’ve developed tools that are adaptable and can be tailored to the specific needs of schools like Bridge International Academies,” Ogundare noted.

By using Zoho’s tools, Bridge International Academies will also be able to analyze data more efficiently, allowing them to make informed decisions that can improve student outcomes.

For instance, Zoho Analytics will enable Bridge to assess the performance of its schools, track student attendance, and evaluate the effectiveness of teaching methods. These insights will help Bridge to refine its approach and ensure that it continues to provide high-quality education to its students.

Ogundare also emphasized the scalability of Zoho’s solutions, which will allow Bridge to expand its operations and reach even more students across Africa.

This partnership is part of Zoho’s goal to support social impact initiatives across the globe. Zoho has a long history of working with non-profit organizations and educational institutions, providing them with the tools they need to succeed in their missions.

Zoho Corporation, a leading global technology company, is today unveiling the latest version of Bigin, the company’s CRM solution for small businesses. 

As the preferred CRM solution for small businesses, Bigin offers a simple yet powerful CRM without the high barrier of entry and cost.

Today’s product updates further support small and micro businesses by providing them the tools and insights they need to maintain and grow meaningful and high-value relationships with customers in a challenging economic environment.

“Small businesses face challenges in choosing the right technology for managing their customer-facing operations because of constraints related to time, cost, and software implementation,” said Kehinde Ogundare, Country Manager, Zoho Nigeria. “Bigin is the only solution that brings together all customer operations like sales, onboarding, delivery, training, advocacy, and more into an intuitive interface that takes only 30 minutes to deploy. By bringing together all the facets of customer operations into a single view, Bigin allows small businesses to have a more accurate understanding of the customer’s journey. These insights help them attract and retain customers, ultimately growing the business. The fast-growing adoption of Bigin shows the expanding appetite of small businesses who want and need CRM technology suited to their particular needs, helping them move beyond old-school spreadsheets.”

ALSO READ: Why Zoho CRM is an Essential Tool For Businesses Aiming for Success- Ogundare

Since Bigin’s launch in 2020, it has stood out as a robust, easy-to-use, and welcoming CRM solution thanks to its 30-minute set up promise. Bigin has seen a revenue growth of 161% in 2022 in Nigeria, indicating the revenue has doubled compared to 2021.

Zoho has observed that around 65% of Bigin’s global customers have never used a CRM previously, making it the ideal choice for business owners who are looking to move away from spreadsheets.

When they outgrow Bigin, Zoho also offers them an easy migration to its full-fledged CRM solution. Bigin now boasts 20,000 customers and continues to help small and micro businesses manage all of their customer-facing operations within a unified platform.

Bigin’s latest version includes the introduction of Team Pipelines, which allow customer-facing teams to manage their distinctive operations using a set of pipelines and sub-pipelines within a single Bigin account.

Competitive offerings often cater only to a single function — like sales — whereas Bigin is an efficient solution for all customer-facing teams. New features compile customer operations into one place, and enable tighter alignment and collaboration between individuals and teams without compromising the simplicity that makes Bigin stand out.

Key Product Updates 

• Team Pipelines: This feature connects and streamlines various customer operations in one place, offering small businesses an easy way to manage their day-to-day processes and a single source of truth for analyzing customer data.

• Connected Pipelines: Automates the flow of customer data across processes, improving the customer experience and saving time on manual data entry.

• Toppings: Additional functionality and third-party integrations can be added to address specific business needs. Examples include the ‘Email-In’ topping which maps emails to customer records and the ‘File Cabinet’ topping which automates file collection and management.

• Mobile Capabilities: Zoho is providing new features across all platforms, including iOS, iPadOS, Android, and macOS and has added a new feature called Dynamic Display which allows users to customize the appearance of records in their pipelines. Bigin also recently updated its apps for the Apple’s iOS16and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 launches, where it was an exclusive launch partner.

• Developer Center: Bigin has opened its developer platform to a network of global app developers and partners who can create custom solutions for unique business needs. With various tools and components like custom fields, buttons, links, widgets, related lists, and REST APIs, developers can create new Toppings and monetise them in the Bigin Marketplace.

 Pricing

Bigin by Zoho CRM starts at ₦2,100 /user/monthly (billed annually) for the Express edition and goes up to ₦3,600 user/monthly (billed annually) for the Premier edition. A free edition is also available.