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Recipe

Prepare for a sales call with Zoho CRM

For anyone about to talk to a customer: Zoho CRM, your inbox and Zoho Books, read into one brief in the time it takes to make coffee.

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In ten minutes you are on a call with a customer. What did they buy, what did they last say, what is open, do they owe you anything? The answers are spread across Zoho CRM, your inbox and Zoho Books. In this recipe the agent pulls them into one page-long brief while you make coffee.

What you need

1. Open the account

Open the account, contact or deal in Zoho CRM in the chat’s browser panel. With no other details, the agent works on the record you have on screen. Open Mail in the same chat too (View ▸ Mail ▸ All Mail).

2. Ask for the brief

I have a call with this account in ten minutes. Brief me: who they are and who I’ll be talking to, their open deals and where each stands, the last few notes, any open tasks, the last three email threads with them and what was left unanswered, and whether they have unpaid invoices in Zoho Books.

The agent reads the CRM record with its notes, open activities, contacts and deals, searches your mail for the account’s people, and looks the customer up in Books. Reading CRM and Books never asks. Mail asks before each step, unless you have allowed reading mail in this chat.

3. Keep it on screen

Ask the agent to put the brief in a new document, so it sits beside you during the call. Add your own notes to it as you talk.

4. After the call

Hand the notes straight to Log a meeting in Zoho CRM: a note on the record, and the follow-up tasks.

Where this recipe stops

  • It reads; it doesn’t change. Making the brief changes nothing in CRM, Books or your mail.
  • Only what you can see. The agent works as you, through the CRM and Books pages you are signed in to.
  • The latest, not everything. A record comes with its 20 most recent notes. For more, ask for the older ones.

Read more

  • Page tools: how the agent works in a site you have open.
  • Documents: the word processor the brief goes into.

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