If your sales team is maintaining a parallel spreadsheet alongside your CRM, that's usually the first sign something doesn't fit. Other common signals include deals falling through the cracks because follow-ups aren't automated, reporting that takes manual work to assemble, and a sales process that's been bent to match the software instead of the other way around. A custom CRM isn't always the answer, but when these patterns show up together, it's worth evaluating whether an off-the-shelf tool is actually saving time anymore.