Organize your Customer and Sales Data in Zoho One

In this guide, we'll discuss how Zoho CRM organizes sales and customer data in Zoho One. This will allow us to understand how the system is setup by default and what changes can be made to it. Our goal will be to combine the requirements you have defined for yourself with this information so you can customize the system to your needs.

Topics covered in this guide:

• Modules and Records

• Key Modules: Leads, Contacts, Accounts, and Deals

• Customizing Modules

• Customizing Fields

• Editing Field Properties

• Customizing Page Layouts

• Viewing Records: Lists and Kanbans

We'll also show you how an example business, Corporate Cleaners, has set up their CRM so that you can understand how Zoho One works within an example business use-case.
 

Modules and Records

Zoho CRM consists of several modules. Modules help organize your customer information by storing groups of related data. Each entry in a module is called a record.

One example of a module is the Contacts module. Within this module, you will find your Contact records. Contact records will contain names, emails, phone numbers, and other information that you collect that is important to doing business with that contact.

Check out this page to see a quick 60 second explainer on the difference between Modules and Records.
 

Key Modules: Leads, Contacts, Accounts, and Deals

Zoho CRM has many default modules. The four key ones are generally Leads, Contacts, Accounts, and Deals.

These terms are used in different ways in the business world. It is important to understand how Zoho CRM has defined these terms so we can understand how the overall system is meant to function.

• Leads are raw data that need to be followed up with to see if there is a possibility to sell to them.

• Contacts are people you know. They are generally prospects you are trying to sell to and people who have already purchased your products or services.

• Accounts are organizations that Contacts work for. You may speak to several contacts at the same organization to close a deal. Sometimes it is possible to sell to different people in different departments within the same organization.

• Deals, sometimes called potentials or opportunities, are the sale agreements you make with your prospects and customers.

Check out these 60 second explainer videos on Leads, Contacts, and Deals.

Key Modules Story: Corporate Cleaners

Now that we know the key modules of Zoho CRM, let's take a look at our example business, Corporate Cleaners, so we can see how they use Zoho CRM for their business.

Sarah is the owner of an office cleaning company called Corporate Cleaners. Her company provides weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly cleaning for offices anywhere in the Central Valley of California. Her company has grown to have 20 employees.

When Sarah decided to start using Zoho CRM for her business, she wasn't sure where to begin. The CRM offered dozens of default modules, but she wasn't sure how her sales process would fit into them. She knew she needed to first outline her sales process so that she could customize the CRM to fit her business' needs. So, she sat down and mapped the entire sales process from the moment someone got in touch with them to the moment a sale was made.

Step 1: Leads - Dealing with inquiries

She first thought about how her team acquired leads. Typically, potential clients reach out by phone, email, through a web form on their site, or through an advertisement. Once they get these leads, they need to qualify them before they truly start trying to sell to them. So, they decided the Leads module was perfect for capturing these early-stage inquiries. They use the leads module to store basic info like name, email, and phone number.

Step 2: Contacts - Potential customers

Next, her team takes all of the leads they get and assign them to their sales reps. Sales reps then reach out to the leads to qualify them. Qualification involves asking questions to confirm if these leads are actually potential customers. For Corporate Cleaners, leads that have been contacted and qualified are called Prospects. They decided that the Contacts module was perfect for storing the information of prospects that they're going to try and sell to, as the Contacts module customarily holds info on people with whom you communicate, either in pursuit of a business opportunity or for personal reasons.

Step 3: Accounts - Businesses that contacts work for

Corporate Cleaners is an office cleaning company, so they always work with companies, not individuals. Sometimes they are in touch with multiple people at a single company. One person might schedule the cleanings, while another might pay the invoices. Because of this dynamic, they needed a module to group multiple contacts under one business. So, they determined that the Accounts module would be perfect to store all of the information that corresponded to their business customers as a whole. And within the accounts module, they can tie multiple contacts to one account. So if one contact at an account moves to a different company, they can reach out to another contact at that account and continue their business dealings.

Step 4: Deals - Tracking their sales process

In Corporate Cleaner's sales process, every time a lead was qualified and turned into a contact, they created a sales opportunity. These sales opportunities were manually added to a spreadsheet that Sarah had access to. But the process of adding opportunities to the spreadsheet was laborious and resulted in a lot of headaches for them. So, they decided they needed a more organized and efficient way to keep track of these opportunities.

They decided to keep track of these in the Deals module of Zoho CRM. Within the deals module, they can move these opportunities through every stage of their sales process.

Customizing Modules

In Zoho CRM, modules can be customized to align with the terms and processes that are used in your organization.

You can rename modules to match the terms you use in your organization. For example, maybe you prefer "Opportunities" instead of the default term "Deals."

You can hide modules that are not relevant to your processes. For example, maybe you sell directly to consumers and do not have leads to follow up with. In this case, you can disable the Leads module.

You can create custom modules so the CRM can collect and manage the particular kinds of data you need to do your work. For example, a property management company may have leads they follow up with, contacts that they work with, deals or agreements that they close, and then Properties that they manage. It would be logical to create a custom Properties module to log detailed records on each unit that they manage.

Check out this 60 second explainer on standard and custom modules.

Module Customization Story

Let's take a look at how our example company, Corporate Cleaners, customized the modules in their Zoho CRM account.

When Sarah, the owner of Corporate Cleaners, first rolled out Zoho CRM to her 20 person team, she noticed that there were some default modules that weren't right for her business. Her sales team sells a recurring service, not a physical product, so she didn't need the Products module that came in the CRM by default. Also, there was no module to store specific information on the cleaning teams that would be assigned to each account. So, she decided to customize their account to change the default modules.

Step 1: Removing unnecessary modules

Since Corporate Cleaners is an office cleaning company that sells services and not physical products, they didn't need the Products module. So, to make their CRM account only show the information they need, they simply hid the Products module. They did that by navigating to Setup -> Modules and Fields -> and then clicking to deactivate the Products module.

They repeated this process for all the other modules they didn't need. By removing unnecessary modules, Corporate Cleaners created a streamlined CRM that exclusively shows information that is essential for their business.

Step 2: Re-naming an existing module

As Sarah continued to refine their CRM, she was constantly thinking about things she could change to align the CRM with how she actually talked about her business. One aspect that she decided to change was the "contacts" module.

In their sales process, her sales team acquires leads through various channels and then contacts and qualifies those leads to figure out if they're potential customers. Historically, the sales team has called these qualified leads "prospects". But when first deploying Zoho CRM, they noticed that the module that aligned with their prospects was actually the "contacts" module. So, they decided to rename that module to "prospects" to have the CRM better align with the sales terms that they already used. To change the name of their module, they navigated to Setup -> Modules and Fields -> and then clicked to rename the "contacts" module.

Step 3: Adding required modules

Corporate Cleaners also noticed that the default modules in Zoho CRM didn't fit all of their needs. They needed a module to store information on their cleaning teams so they could assign their various cleaning teams to different jobs. So, they decided to create a new module called "Cleaning Teams."

Within the "Cleaning Teams" module, they needed to track the different teams of cleaners that they had, as well as which teams were assigned to which jobs. They also needed the teams' availability, specialty, contact info, etc.

To track all of this info, they had to add custom fields within their newly made module. You'll learn more about how they created custom fields a little later in the guide.

Once they finished customizing, they had the exact modules they needed to store all of the relevant information to their business.

Check out this 14 minute video on how to create and customize modules in Zoho CRM

Module Relationships

In Zoho CRM, module relationships dictate how data is shared between different modules. Module relationships are extremely important for a variety of reasons. Some are listed below:

• Connects related information. If we have a list of contacts who have bought from us, then we want to know what they bought and other terms of the deal. To do this, we need to connect contact information and deal information, or in CRM terms, we need a relationship between the Contacts and Deals modules.

• Reduces data entry. Rather than having to enter a company name multiple times, you just enter it once and then reuse it where needed.

• Increases your data's integrity. By reusing one piece of data instead of having to enter it multiple times, you only have to enter it correctly once for it to be trustworthy multiple times. The more you have to re-enter the same piece of data, the more likely it will be that an error gets introduced that will cause problems later.

In Zoho, module relationships get created through something we call lookup fields. In Zoho CRM, the system has default lookup fields that connect the Contacts, Deals, and Account modules. You can add new and custom relationships within Zoho CRM by creating a custom lookup field.

Check out this 60 second explainer on module relationships.

Check out this 5 minute how-to video on interlinking modules.

Customizing Fields

Records allow you to store information about a particular thing in the system. Fields are what allow you to collect detailed information. Let's consider the example of a contact. A contact record would include fields to store the contact's name, phone number, email, mailing address, birthday, and much more.

Check out this 60 second explainer on fields.

Each default module comes with default fields. You can find a list of default modules and fields here. These fields can be re-named and removed depending on your requirements.

For example, if you sell coffee to consumers through an e-commerce store, you will not need the Zoho CRM's default "Reports To" field for records in the contacts module. This field is meant to identify who a contact's boss is in a more complicated B2B sales process. For a direct-to-consumer online coffee business, the "Reports To" field can easily be removed.

You can also create new fields to collect single lines of text, picklists, and more. When creating a new field, there are different field types to handle different kinds of data.

For example, the coffee company who sells directly to consumers may also sell to coffee shops. When adding a new contact, the business may have a field in their CRM instance that tracks whether a contact is a consumer who buys online or the buyer at a coffee shop. This field might be called "Contact Type" and may list the two types of customers they have. This field would not be available by default in Zoho CRM but can easily be created.

In addition to re-naming, removing, and adding fields, you can also rearrange fields so that the fields you use the most are front and center or where your team prefers them to be.

Check out this 12 minute video on how to customize fields and page layouts in Zoho CRM

Field Customization Story

Let's take a look at how our example company, Corporate Cleaners, customized the lead record fields in their Zoho CRM account.

When Sarah first set up her company's Zoho CRM account, she noticed that there were some default fields in the lead records that weren't right for her business. She didn't need the "fax" or "industry" fields as her team never faxed anything and worked with all businesses, regardless of industry. She also found that there was information that she needed that didn't have a default accompanying field. So, she decided to customize her account to change the present lead fields.

Step 1: Removing unnecessary fields

Corporate Cleaners has had experience cleaning medical offices, marketing agencies, non-profits, and even laboratories. Because of this experience, they're equipped to clean all types of office buildings, regardless of industry. Therefore, they don't need to capture what industry their potential customer is in. They also never fax documents, so they don't need to have a field to store fax numbers. Sarah and her team agreed that having these unused fields still present in the lead record would clutter the screen and could potentially confuse future new hires, so they decided to delete them. They deleted the unwanted fields by navigating to Setup -> Modules and Fields -> clicked the Leads options -> and removed the unwanted fields.

Step 2: Adding required fields

Next, Sarah thought about any custom fields her team might want to add to capture information specific to their business. They figured that they needed a field to capture the square footage of a lead's office space because that would change the cost of their services. They also wanted a field to input how frequently a lead might want their office cleaned. So, they added a custom field titled "Office Size" and another field titled "Cleaning Frequency"

They added these fields by navigating to Setup -> Modules and Fields -> clicked the Leads options -> and then looked at the left side of the page to drag the new fields that they wanted into the layout.

Now, they have the exact fields they need in their lead records to store all of the relevant information to their business.

Editing Field Properties

In addition to adding, removing, and renaming fields, you can also edit the properties of your fields. When you edit the properties of a field, there are a range of available options that may be useful for your business. Here are some of those options:

• Make fields mandatory: Edit custom fields to mark them as mandatory fields, so that a user cannot save the record without entering a value.

• Do not allow duplicate values: Mark a field as unique. This allows you to prevent duplicate records in your CRM. For example, an email address is a unique piece of information that you can use to prevent duplicate records.

• Set field permission: Specify permissions for users at the field level. This allows you to specify Read/Write access to a particular field. For example, a sales manager may want to be the only one who updates a particular field but wants everyone to be able to see it.

• Create validation rules: Set validation rules for key fields to ensure that the CRM stops any unacceptable data from being entered into the CRM. For example, if you have fields for a project's Start Date and End Date, a validation rule would be that the date in the End Date field cannot occur before the Start Date. Or, using the same fields for another example, if you have a policy that a project has to end within 100 days of the Start Date, then you could have a validation rule that prevents the End Date from being 200 days after the Start Date.

• Mark fields containing personal data: If you have enabled GDPR compliance settings, this option can mark the field as containing sensitive data. Data from these fields will not be transferred or shared in the following instances: data export, API usage, and integration with other services of Zoho (Books, Finance, Campaigns, etc.).

Field Properties Story

When Corporate Cleaners first set up their CRM, they ran into issues with employees inputting bad information. Their original CRM setup allowed employees to enter almost anything in any field, which left data gaps, duplicates, and inconsistencies.

To ensure that only quality data was entered into their CRM, Sarah decided to customize field properties to control what data could get into their system.

One of the biggest issues they faced was with their custom field, "cleaning frequency." This field was created so that Corporate Cleaners could track how often a potential customer might want their office cleaned. But data entered into the "cleaning frequency" field was typed in a lot of different ways. Reps could type “weekly,” “wkly,” or “every 7 days," and this was making reporting a nightmare. To fix this, Sarah created a new "cleaning frequency" field, but set it as a "pick list" field so there were only a few preset options for reps to choose from. Now, all reps would be entering consistently formatted data into that field.

Another problem that Corporate Cleaners faced was duplicate records making it into their CRM. Sometimes, the same company was entered twice, which created confusion in their sales process.

To fix this, they navigated to Setup -> Customization -> Modules and Fields. They then clicked the "Leads" module, clicked the layout they wanted to edit, and then edited the "Company" field to not allow duplicate values. Now, when someone tries to enter a business that already exists in their CRM, it's immediately flagged. This keeps their database clean and reliable.

Customizing Page Layouts

Fields can be arranged into different layouts in your records. Layouts allow you to use different sets and arrangements of fields depending on the record. You can set layout rules to change the layout of a record based on the data entered into a field.

For example, the coffee company who sells directly to consumers may also sell to coffee shops. When adding a new contact, the business may have a field in their CRM instance that tracks whether a contact is a consumer who buys online or the buyer representing a coffee shop. If the field shows that the contact is a buyer for a coffee shop, they may want to use it as a trigger to show more fields to collect additional information about that person's job title, how long they have been in their role, and more.

Check out this 7 minute how-to video on page layouts
 

Check out this 5 minute how-to video on layout rules.

Page Layout Customization Story

Even though Sarah added the necessary fields and removed the unnecessary ones from the lead page layout, her work still wasn't done. She now wanted to organize the layout so that all of the most pertinent fields were near the top. That way, her team would have the most important info front and center, and wouldn't have to work to find any fields that they really needed.

When thinking about the lead record layout, she determined that the "lead name", "phone", "email", "company", "office size", and "cleaning frequency" fields were the ones that her team was going to interact with the most. So she navigated to Setup -> Modules and Fields -> Leads -> and then dragged the six fields to the top of the lead page layout.

Now, any time they open a lead record, those six fields are the first thing they see.

Viewing Records: Lists and Kanbans

Now that we have discussed how to make use of the right modules and fields, we can make it easy to view records based on different criteria contained in our records. In Zoho CRM, a list of records based on criteria is called a List View.

Zoho CRM comes with several default list views:

• Favorites: Any list view that you mark as favorite.

• Created By Me: Custom views created by you (the user).

• Shared With Me: Custom views shared with you.

• Public Views: Views that are accessible to everyone in your CRM account.

• Other Users' Views: Custom views created by fellow users.

You cannot modify these default categories, but you can create custom list views. For example, you can create an exclusive view for leads from a particular region or deals of a certain amount.

Check out this 6 minute video on how to create list views in Zoho CRM

Check out this help doc to learn how to create custom list views.

Similarly, you can create a Kanban View to categorize your data into an organized card-based display. The benefit of this view is that it allows users to drag and drop records from one category to another instead of clicking into records and editing them. For example, whenever a lead's status is changed from "Attempted to Contact" to "Contacted," you can simply drag and drop the lead to the appropriate category instead of changing the status from the lead's detail page.

Checkout this help doc to learn how to create custom Kanban views.

Viewing Records Story

As Corporate Cleaners grew, so did the amount of information in their CRM. And looking through all of these records to find the ones they were looking for was slowing them down. They needed a way to organize and filter their data so that they could focus on particular sets of records.

To organize their data, they started to create list views in CRM. One of the first views they created was for leads that needed follow-ups. This list is comprised of all of the leads in their CRM that haven't been contacted yet. To make this list, they navigated to the Leads module, and then clicked the drop-down at the top left of the page. They then clicked to create a custom view and specified the criteria as "Lead Status is not contacted." Now, they have a list of all of their leads who haven't been contacted so they know who to reach out to next.