Zoho Launches Vertical Relief Plan

Zoho is introducing a Vertical Relief Plan (VRP) with programs and tools to assist nonprofits, government entities, and retailers severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We are so grateful to all the workers who are helping us weather this storm," said Sridhar Vembu, Zoho co-founder and CEO, in a statement. "Beyond those on the front lines, there are workers in industries who are struggling, who are persevering, who are inventing new paths forward. The Vertical Relief Plan is a way to support those people, whether they be teachers, government workers, or retailers, who are entirely committed to helping others and returning the world to solid ground."

The VRP offers the following components:

• Zoho Creator COVID-19 App Program, to help nonprofits, government bodies, and communities that are working on  programs like patient monitoring or food distribution to execute their mission more efficiently. These organizations can place requests and Zoho will build web and mobile apps for free using  the Zoho Creator low-code application development platform.
• Zoho Desk: For government agencies and departments, Zoho is offering free software licenses of Zoho Desk, the company's help desk software.
• Zoho Social, to help nonprofits turn to social media to drive donations and manage distribution pipelines and to help governments use social media to spread awareness and communicate breaking developments. Zoho is opening up its advanced edition for free for six months.
• Zoho Checkout: For nonprofits, Zoho Checkout is available for free, enabling them to collect online donations.
• Zoho Commerce: Retailers, shuttered due to the crisis, can build out an online presence using the Zoho Commerce Starter Plan for free, up to 60 days. For existing Zoho Commerce customers, the company is raising the transaction fee threshold to $3,000 in sales for the Starter Plan and to $8,000 for the Pro Plan for the next three months. Zoho is also offering free training and rapid onboarding of Zoho Inventory, Zoho's order management software.

Zoho is providing workers and companies additional support across several business categories.

Zoho Survey is now available at a 50 percent price reduction to allow businesses and team leaders to prepare surveys and questionnaires. The company has also provided several crisis-related survey templates to help organizations jump-start the data collection process. Furthermore, Zoho Campaigns now offers crisis templates to assist with outreach and communications.

Zoho has increased the storage limit for businesses using WorkDrive to 1 terabyte of shared storage for the Starter plan and 3 terabytes of shared storage for the Team plan. After 10 users, Zoho will give an additional 100 gigabytes of storage for the Starter plan and 300 gigabytes for the Team plan for every new user.

Zoho is offering several development programs through Zoho People, including unexpected change management training, privacy and security training, stress management training, new technology training, onboarding training, communication and collaboration training, and role-change training.

Zoho is rolling out free Zoho Recruit video credits until the end of June. Zoho Recruit has integrated with Zoho Meeting to make the video interface possible. The application will help recruiters provide timely, positive, virtual candidate experiences for those companies who cannot staff fast enough due to the crisis. Additionally, Zoho Meeting is now free with Zoho Bookings, making virtual appointment scheduling seamless.

Zoho has created numerous additional resources, including a live COVID-19 impact dashboard, financial planning and recovery advice, a remote working help center, and virtual user groups.