A low-cost Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) includes a range of new capabilities, including team pipelines, toppings, and developer center, to help SMEs manage customer operations.

Global technology company Zoho Corporation has unveiled the latest version of Bigin, its CRM solution for small businesses.

"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 Zoho Africa regional  manager Andrew Bourne.

"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,” he asserts.

The latest version of the software includes the following new features:

• Team Pipelines: connects and streamlines various customer operations in one place, offering small businesses an easy way to manage day-to-day processes and a single source for analysing 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: new features across all platforms, including iOS, iPadOS, Android, and macOS and a new feature called Dynamic Display which allows users to customise the appearance of records in their pipelines. 
• Developer Center: Bigin has opened its developer platform to a network of global application developers and partners who can create custom solutions for unique business needs. Using various tools and components, developers can create new Toppings and monetise them in the Bigin Marketplace.

The new capabilities are designed to help SMEs go beyond sales to manage all types of customer operations.