If we don't have the Email Add-on installed, usually this is the "Send Mail" looks like under a Lead (or a Contact, in Account doesn't have "Send Mail" button).
The problem is: if you send an email to your customer (in lead, or in contact), and if the customer returns your email, it won't show that email in this Email section, so you don't know what's happened especially after couple of months later, also if you reply to the customer email in your email account (such as: Yahoo, Gmail, or OutLook), there is no way to record it in this Email section.
However, if we have Add-on, it will look like this:

As you can see:
1. There is a "Showing" dropdown control on the right side after you installed Add-on, it lets you select which Email address you want to use to send email. (In CRM account? or your ZOHO Email account?), in this case, we will use: ZOHO email account.
2. You can see the Sent email title.
3. Also, if the customer returns your email, it will also show here, that is the best part, because you know all the communications between you and the customer.
4. If you send email to a customer in your ZOHO email account (this is usually you do, because you check emails from there), then the title of the sent email will be inserted in the customer Lead => Email section.
Below just shows what the Zoho email account looks like, note: in the email account, you can setup POP and SMTP (just like MS OutLook) and link to your company email address.
Conclusion: If you are using ZOHO CRM, and you have a lot of email communications with your customers, the Email Add-on function is a must have. It is about $3.00/user/month.
Here is the ZOHO CRM link on: how to Configure Zoho Mail Add on
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