What I learnt after 300 hours on Zoom calls in the last 6 months

By Bruce Bignell, Founder of Evolve – Pipedrive Experts

If you’ve ever spent a small fortune on a CRM system, only to find your team barely using it, you’re not alone.

Across hundreds of conversations my team and I have had over the last six months, the same frustrations keep coming up: confusing systems, data chaos, and processes that seem designed to slow sales teams down rather than speed them up.

Business owners often believe the myth that more features mean more value.

The reality? Complexity kills adoption. You don’t need a tank when all you need is a bike to get to work.

The CRM market is full of enterprise tools like Salesforce and HubSpot – brilliant for bigger business with admin teams the size of an entire business. But for growing companies that need agility, these systems often become an expensive crutch.

At Evolve, we see it daily: leaders chasing sophistication when what they really need is simplicity, automation, and a CRM their team actually enjoys using.

Seven Pain Points Costing Businesses Growth

From my research and over 300 hours of client calls, here are the most common issues businesses face when it comes to CRM – and the impact they have on growth:

1. Data Chaos – Duplicates, incomplete records, and human error destroy confidence in the system. When reps stop trusting the data, they stop using it.

2. Workflow Overload – Overcomplicated steps and a lack of automation mean salespeople spend more time updating deals than closing them.

3. Integration Hurdles – CRMs that don’t play nicely with tools like Teams, Outlook, SimPro, or Google Sheets cause double handling and missed information.

4. Visibility Gaps – Without a clear, central view of deals and activities, forecasting becomes guesswork.

5. Legacy Tools – Many teams “upgrade” from Excel or Access but keep the same manual processes, defeating the purpose of modern CRM.

6. Training & Support Gaps – Staff turnover or poor onboarding mean features go unused and adoption quickly fades.

7. Tech Fatigue – When systems feel like work, people avoid them. And if your CRM isn’t being updated in real time, it’s not helping your business.

These challenges aren’t about technology; they’re about alignment. A CRM should match your Business requirements and workflows – not the other way around.

“Half of CRM projects fail because people don’t use them. And if your team doesn’t use it, your ROI is zero.”

Why Businesses Choose the Wrong CRM

The problem often starts at the buying stage.

Too many companies get swept up in feature comparisons instead of first asking, “What problem are we trying to solve?”

According to Pipedrive’s 2025 State of Sales Report, the most common buyer statements include:

• “I just need a simple way to track my deals and contacts.”

• “We’re doing too many things manually and wasting time.”

• “Our team isn’t following up consistently.”

Sound familiar? These are business pains, not technical ones. Yet, too often, decision-makers respond by choosing a CRM that’s too complex, too rigid, or too expensive to configure.

That’s why I say “No one gets fired for buying Salesforce… they also don’t get a promotion”. Buying for capability rather than usability, or out of a habit, because you know it and have used it before. You end up with powerful software that no one uses. And if adoption fails, even the best tech becomes shelfware – more on software that people don’t use another time, the stats are eye opening!

Simplicity That Scales: Why Pipedrive Works

Pipedrive approaches CRM differently. It was designed by salespeople, for salespeople.

It’s intuitive, visual, and activity-based – As StJohn, database lover and organiser of the “Notion Devotion” MeetUp reremarked when I first showed it t him… “oh, it’s like the Apple of CRMs!”. It’s simple UX and tracks what really drives deals forward: the actions your team takes every day.

Here’s why it resonates so strongly with small and mid-sized businesses:

• Fast to implement: up and running in weeks, not months.

• Automation made easy: repetitive admin like follow-ups, reminders, and data entry can be automated without a single line of code.

• AI assistance: features like AI Sales Assistant and automatic insights help teams prioritise the right actions.

• Full integration: it syncs seamlessly with Outlook, Teams, Google, Zapier, and Make.com. The Evolve team can build out custom apps within Pipedrive to connect your other apps that do not connect with No-code software.

• Affordable scalability: whether you’re two users or two hundred, it grows with you – without enterprise-level overheads.

Team Human: Solving Adoption where your team works

Even the best CRM needs buy-in from its users. That’s why we built the Evolve Pipedrive Sidekick (EPS) or as will soon be known… Evolve Process Sidekick… our AfterCare innovation designed to make CRM adoption effortless.

EPS sits right inside your Pipedrive workspace (or any other browser tab, where you work), offering real-time guidance and answers when you need them – not hidden in a PDF or buried in your company drive.

With features like Ask Eve (an AI-powered assistant) and in-app tutorials from Evolve (or your own SOPs) meaning your team can learn as they work – where they work.

For CRM admins, EPS is a game-changer. You can build and customise your own guides, define company-specific terminology, and reduce repetitive questions.

The result: faster onboarding, higher confidence, and happier users.

“We built EPS because training decks get forgotten, but help inside the CRM gets used.”

Choosing CRM That Works for Humans

Technology won’t fix your business problems,  but the right implementation can.

Every CRM project should start with three pillars: People, Systems, and Technology.

• Understand your people — how they sell, what slows them down.

• Map your systems — the workflows that drive customer value.

• Then choose technology that enhances those systems, not complicates them.

At Evolve, we help businesses at two stages:

1. Those with no CRM at all, tired of spreadsheets and missed follow-ups.

2. Those already using Pipedrive who want to maximise its potential through automation, reporting, and continuous improvement.

Our goal is simple – help businesses choose easy to use SaleTech that they actually want to use to grow their business.

Do you want more from your CRM in 2026?

In 2026, the winners won’t be the businesses with the most technology, it’ll be the ones whose teams actually use it.

Simplicity drives adoption.

Adoption drives results.

How to contact Evolve

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Or you can reach us at hello@weevolvebusiness.com or call

+44 (0)1273 011187.

You can also find us on the Pipedrive Partner Marketplace.