Zoho CRM vs folk: Which CRM for agencies wins?

Agencies don’t struggle with “finding tools.” They struggle with keeping pipeline execution consistent while delivery stays on track. When prospect context lives across inboxes, calendars, and spreadsheets, follow-ups slip, handoffs break, and forecasting becomes guesswork. A CRM for agencies has to keep new business moving fast while preserving enough account history to support renewals, upsells, and referrals.

In this article, we will explore two prominent CRM solutions—Zoho CRM and Folk—that cater specifically to the needs of agencies. Zoho CRM is a robust tool designed to integrate seamlessly within the larger Zoho ecosystem, offering extensive features for pipeline management and automation. On the other hand, Folk leverages AI to streamline contact organization and communication, making it an attractive option for agencies seeking simplicity and effectiveness. Each platform approaches the CRM challenge from different angles, and understanding their unique strengths will help you determine which is the right fit for your agency's operational needs.

The right choice depends on process complexity, required customization, and how much ongoing ownership the agency can dedicate to setup and administration.

Why Agencies Need a CRM in 2026?

Agencies don’t lose revenue because of a lack of demand. Revenue leaks when lead context gets scattered across inboxes, calendars, Slack threads, and spreadsheets, and when follow-ups depend on memory instead of a system. A CRM creates a single source of truth for prospects, clients, partners, and renewals, so next steps stay visible and ownership is clear.

✔️ Pipeline visibility and forecasting without spreadsheets

✔️ Centralized prospect and client context across email, calls, and meetings

✔️ Standardized follow-ups, handoffs, and next steps across the team

✔️ Clear ownership on every lead, deal, and account to avoid drops

✔️ Performance tracking by source, service line, and stage conversion

In 2026, agencies run more channels, shorter decision cycles, and more stakeholders per deal, with clients expecting faster response times and tighter coordination. Without a CRM, proposals stall, warm leads go cold, renewals happen late, and referrals are handled inconsistently because the team can’t see the full history and the current plan in one place.

What is Zoho CRM?

Zoho CRM is a versatile customer relationship management tool that integrates seamlessly into the larger Zoho business software ecosystem. It's ideal for agencies seeking robust pipeline management, activity tracking, automation, and reporting capabilities, while also allowing connectivity to other Zoho applications as needed. With support for multiple pipelines and layouts, it caters to various service lines or sales processes. Marketplace extensions and integrations further enhance its functionality by connecting to external tools outside the Zoho suite. Agencies often select Zoho CRM for its extensive features and flexibility across sales, operations, and reporting.

What is Folk?

Folk is an AI-powered CRM designed to unify contacts, conversations, and deal contexts without the need for extensive setup. It caters to agencies managing numerous parallel relationships with clients, partners, and prospects, where relevant information is scattered across emails, calendars, and messaging platforms. Features like contact enrichment and deduplication ensure that records remain clean and actionable despite originating from various sources. Additionally, its structured pipelines and task management help track new business, renewals, and referrals effectively. This makes Folk a perfect choice for agencies seeking a simple yet effective CRM solution for coordination and follow-up, without the complexity of an intricate operational setup.

Feature comparison of Zoho CRM and folk

Multi-pipeline and Custom Stages

Zoho CRM allows for multiple sales pipelines, enabling teams to rename, add, remove, and reorder pipeline stages as their processes develop. Each pipeline can be linked to specific layouts, ensuring that different sales motions remain distinct while utilizing the same Deals module. Changes to stages are managed through pipeline settings, and any removed stages are still accessible in the stage builder. This feature is particularly beneficial for agencies that require unique stage logic for each service line or sales motion.

Folk empowers agencies to organize pipelines around various revenue streams, such as retainers, projects, partnerships, or hiring. Stages can be tailored to reflect actual handoffs and qualification criteria, ensuring the pipeline accurately represents the flow of deals. By maintaining separate pipelines, agencies can keep reporting organized by service line and avoid one process imposing limitations on the entire team. The lightweight updates ensure that the CRM evolves seamlessly with the agency's growth.

Client and Deal Activity Tracking

Activity tracking in Zoho CRM revolves around tasks, events, and calls, all of which can be easily reviewed within CRM views and record-related lists. The activity views in Zoho CRM are organized by creation time, enabling users to open an activity to access related details such as notes, history, attachments, upcoming actions, and email conversations. Additionally, Closed Activities lists showcase completed tasks, calls, and meetings associated with a record, providing a clear log of past events and future plans.

Folk ensures that relationship context remains tied to the appropriate contact and deal by syncing communication history and activities into a unified timeline. This visibility of notes, tasks, reminders, and past interactions within the team's workspace minimizes “where is the context” moments during handoffs. Such organization supports agency workflows where multiple team members engage with the same account throughout sales, onboarding, delivery, and renewals. The ultimate aim is to provide quick access to what has occurred, what is important, and what actions lie ahead.

Automation and Workflows

In Zoho CRM, reporting features include standard reports organized by module, as well as customization options tailored to specific business needs. Users can leverage dashboards and analytics tools to monitor their sales pipeline and compare key metrics, including forecast reports outlined in Zoho's analytics resources. For comprehensive reporting, Zoho Analytics can link to Zoho CRM data, enabling the creation of additional reports and dashboards, along with customizable sharing and scheduling options. The visibility of the pipeline is influenced by the configuration of deals, stages, and activities.

Folk enhances productivity through automated follow-ups and seamless internal handoffs via workflow rules and connectors, which trigger actions based on specific stages or activities. Agencies can streamline repetitive tasks such as assigning owners, creating tasks, sending reminders, and updating fields as deals progress. This minimizes administrative workload and ensures consistent execution among team members. Workflows are designed to enhance efficiency, allowing automation to expedite processes without adding unnecessary complexity.

Reporting and Analytics

Reporting in Zoho CRM offers standard reports by module, along with the flexibility to customize reports to meet specific business needs. Utilizing dashboards and analytics features allows users to monitor the sales pipeline and compare key metrics, including the forecasting concepts outlined in Zoho’s analytics resources. For more comprehensive reporting, Zoho Analytics can integrate with Zoho CRM data, enabling the creation of additional reports and dashboards, complete with sharing and scheduling options based on user preferences. The visibility of the pipeline is influenced by the configuration of deals, stages, and activities.

Folk enhances pipeline visibility, enabling tracking of deal progression, stage performance, and overall momentum, allowing leaders to identify risks early. Agencies can analyze conversion patterns and cycle durations at a macro level, then delve deeper into specific bottlenecks and their causes. Reporting fosters discussions around forecasting, capacity planning, and performance evaluation by source or service line, maintaining a focus on clarity and informed decision-making rather than overwhelming dashboards.

Integrations and Data Hygiene

Zoho CRM offers integrations through the Zoho Marketplace and its integrations layer, showcasing connectors and extensions categorized by use case. It features robust duplication management tools, including duplicate checks, merge capabilities, and an auto-merge de-duplicate tool that identifies and merges exact matches, with options for manual conflict resolution when necessary. Additionally, Zia data enrichment can enhance records by adding company context fields based on configured mappings, depending on the enabled features. These tools are designed to minimize duplicates and enhance record completeness over time.

Folk prioritizes clean records by facilitating enrichment, deduplication, and structured fields, which significantly reduce the need for manual data entry. Integrations streamline connections with common agency tools, ensuring that contact and activity data remains consistent across channels. This approach helps mitigate the common issue of CRM decay caused by duplicates, outdated information, and missing context, which can compromise reporting accuracy. A cleaner database not only makes automation more reliable but also sustains the usability of the pipeline at scale.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while Zoho CRM excels in extensive features and robust pipeline management within its ecosystem, it may overwhelm agencies with complex setups. Conversely, folk simplifies coordination with AI-driven contact organization and communication, making it ideal for teams seeking efficiency without the hassle. Folk's emphasis on clean records, unified relationship contexts, and seamless task management positions it as the best CRM alternative for agencies looking to enhance pipeline execution and maintain consistent revenue growth.

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