We’ve worked with hundreds of businesses to help set up Pipedrive, and we see the same common mistakes being made again and again.
The good news?
They’re easy to fix.
In this guide, we’ll walk through what deal scoring is, how it works in Pipedrive, and how we actually use it in our own business to decide when to persist, and when to move on.
If you avoid the five mistakes outlined below and follow our Pipedrive Golden Rules, your deals will be cleaner, your pipeline more organised, and you’ll be far more effective at closing deals.
Let’s get into it.
1. Not Using the Won and Lost Buttons Properly
One of the biggest mistakes we see is people creating pipeline stages like:
- Closed Won
- Closed Lost
I understand why people do this.
When you mark a deal as won, it disappears from the pipeline view. So instead, people create stages at the end to keep deals visible.
But this is not the correct way to use Pipedrive.
Here’s why it causes problems:
- You won’t get accurate reporting on how many deals you’ve won
- You won’t get reliable conversion rates
- You won’t be able to analyse lost reasons properly
When you win or lose a deal using the proper buttons, Pipedrive tracks this cleanly in your reports.
And if you want to see closed deals?
Use filters.
Deals don’t disappear. They’re just hidden by default because the pipeline shows open deals only. You can filter by status, search for the deal, or build a report.
Simple rule:
Always use the Won and Lost buttons. Never create “Closed” stages.
2. Moving Deals Between Pipelines
Another very common mistake is moving deals from one pipeline to another.
For example:
- Moving a deal from Sales to a Project pipeline
- Moving a deal to a Renewals pipeline after closing
Again, this usually comes from good intentions. People want to manage delivery or renewals inside Pipedrive.
But this breaks reporting.
If you move deals between pipelines:
- You distort your sales conversion rates
- You lose clarity on performance by pipeline
- Your reports become unreliable
Instead:
If you’re managing post-sale delivery, use the Projects add-on.
If you’re managing renewals, think carefully about how those are tracked without moving original sales deals.
Even if you don’t care about reports today, you probably will later.
We regularly have clients come to us saying:
“We’ve paid for this tool, but we’re not getting good data out of it.”
In almost every case, it comes back to setup.
3. Creating Duplicate Contacts and Organisations
Duplicates are another common source of frustration.
This most often happens when creating a new deal.
Someone types a contact name, sees the suggestion, but instead of selecting the existing contact, they hit return and accidentally create a new one.
Now you’ve got two records for the same person.
Over time, this creates:
- Messy data
- Fragmented activity history
- Confusing reporting
The fix is simple:
Type the name.
Select the existing contact.
If duplicates do occur, you can use the Merge Duplicates tool under Tools and Apps to clean things up.
But it’s far better to prevent the issue at the source.
4. Poor Activity Management
This is a big one.
When we log into client accounts, we often see:
- Red indicators for overdue activities
- Yellow warnings showing deals with no activity scheduled
Both are bad.
If there’s no activity scheduled:
There’s nothing reminding you what to do next. Deals fall through the cracks.
If activities are overdue:
You’re behind. The deal is likely going stale.
What does a clean pipeline look like?
- Green indicators for activities due today
- Grey indicators for future scheduled activities
- No red
- No yellow
The best way to use Pipedrive daily is to work from your Activities view.
Each day:
Your goal is to get your activities count to zero.
That means:
- Nothing overdue
- Everything due today completed
And the key habit?
When you complete an activity, schedule the next one immediately.
That’s how you prevent deals from being forgotten.
5. Allowing Free-Form Lost Reasons
Under company settings, you can configure lost reasons.
By default, Pipedrive allows free-form reasons.
In my view, this is a mistake.
If salespeople can type anything they want as a lost reason, your reports become a jumbled mess.
Instead:
- Turn off free-form lost reasons
- Create a defined list of reasons
- Force your team to choose one
If they need to elaborate, they can add notes.
Common lost reasons might include:
- Bad timing
- Pricing issue
- Went with another option
- No response
The goal is clean, structured reporting.
Final Thoughts
Most of these mistakes are easy to avoid once you know what to look for.
If you:
- Use Won and Lost properly
- Keep deals in the correct pipeline
- Prevent duplicates
- Stay on top of activities
- Structure your lost reasons
You’ll dramatically improve the quality of your data and your effectiveness as a sales team. To take the next step, take a look at our Five Golden Rules of using Pipedrive
If you’d like help auditing your Pipedrive setup, feel free to book an introductory call. We can review how you’re using Pipedrive and identify opportunities to clean things up.
Clean setup leads to clean data.
Clean data leads to better decisions.
And better decisions lead to more closed deals.