Bigin, Zoho’s CRM for Small Businesses, Grows 74% YoY, Introduces Team Pipelines

New capabilities, including Toppings and Developer Center, go beyond sales to manage all types of customer operations, redefining the small business CRM market.

Zoho Corporation, a leading global technology company headquartered in Chennai, 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 micro and small businesses by providing them the tools and insights they need to maintain and grow meaningful relationships with customers in a challenging economic environment.

According to the World Bank, small businesses account for 40% of the GDP of an emerging nation, and provide more than 50% employment worldwide. Recent macroeconomic conditions have made digital customer experience a necessity to retain clients and grow, especially for small businesses. However, the digital path is not always easy while running a small business, given the multitude of operations at hand. Most CRM solutions only focus on sales funnel. Bigin is aimed at redefining the CRM experience for small businesses with new enhancements that bring all the necessary customer-facing functions into a single unified solution.

“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,” says Mani Vembu, Chief Operating Officer, Zoho Corp. “Bigin is the only solution that brings together all customer operations like sales, onboarding, delivery, training, advocacy, and is more like 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.”

Since Bigin’s launch in 2020, it has stood out as a robust, easy-to-use, and welcoming CRM solution that can be set up in just 30 minutes.The product already serves 20,000 customers globally and continues to help small and micro businesses manage all of their customer-facing operations within a unified platform.

In India,  the second fastest growing market for Bigin, the CRM has grown 74% year-on-year in 2022 with the growth being driven by Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.  Around 70% of Bigin’s customers in India had never used a CRM previously, making it the ideal choice for business owners who were looking to move away from spreadsheets. Bigin is seeing increasing adoption from education, IT Services, real estate and financial industries. To support growing businesses, Zoho also offers Bigin customers an easy migration to Zoho’s full-fledged CRM solution.

Bigin’s latest version introduces 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.

Key Product Updates

• Team Pipelines: The most significant addition to Bigin, Team Pipelines brings together various customer operations into a single 360-degree view. Businesses can connect key customer processes such as deal management, onboarding, delivery, training, ticket management, refund requests, customer testimonials, etc. thereby ensuring small businesses manage their day-to-day processes in an easier way. Businesses can now enjoy a complete CRM that goes beyond sales management and offers them a single source of truth for analyzing customer data.

• Connected Pipelines: This feature helps businesses automate the movement of customer data across various pipelines, enabling them to deliver seamless end-to-end customer experiences. For example, once a deal is won, sales teams can automate the creation of a connected record in the customer onboarding pipeline. This way, businesses spend less time entering repetitive customer information and have more time to focus on actual customer conversations.

• Toppings: Additional functionalities and third-party integrations can be added on-demand to address business needs that go beyond the standard offering. For example, the ‘Email-In’ topping ensures emails sent to different email aliases in an organization are automatically mapped to the relevant customer records in each pipeline. Similarly, the ‘File Cabinet’ topping automates the process of file collection where customers can manage all their documents through unique, secure links.

• Mobile Capabilities: In response to the increased adoption of Bigin’s mobile app, Zoho is ensuring all new features are available across iOS, iPadOS, Android, and macOS. This makes for seamless employee experiences and is further enhanced with a new Dynamic Display, which helps users customise the look, style, and visibility of records in their pipelines. Bigin also recently updated its apps for the Apple’s iOS16 and 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 that can be monetised in the Bigin Marketplace.

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Pricing

Bigin by Zoho CRM starts at ₹400/user/month (billed annually) for the Express edition and goes up to ₹720/user/month (billed annually) for the Premier edition. A free edition is also available.

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About Zoho

With 55+ apps in nearly every major business category, Zoho Corporation is one of the world’s most prolific technology companies. Headquartered in Chennai, India, Zoho is privately held and profitable with more than 12,000 employees. For more information, please visit: www.zoho.com/