What's really going on

Two people editing one cell means every interaction erases the last one. That's not a CRM problem, that's a data model problem — a sheet gives you one row per client, but you need one row per *activity*. You can't see when you last called someone. You can't tell who spoke to them. That's the exact moment a real pipeline tool starts paying for itself.

What to do instead

1. Pipedrive (~£13-15/user/mo, check current pricing) — its Activities log gives you a dated, stacked history per deal instead of one squashed cell. Two seats, small money.
2. HubSpot Free CRM (free) — if you'd rather not pay yet: unlimited users, contact timeline, notes and calls logged separately. Cap is you'll get nudged toward paid Sales Hub eventually.
3. First move today: open Pipedrive's trial or HubSpot Free, import your Customer tab as contacts, and rebuild your dropdown as pipeline stages. One afternoon of work for one person.

What you're being oversold

Nobody's likely pitching you Salesforce yet, but if they do — ignore it. For 2-3 people it's a five-figure mistake. Watch also for HubSpot's paid tier upsell before you've hit its free-tier limits. Doing nothing costs you the deals where someone thinks "did we follow up in March?" and nobody can answer — those go cold quietly.

When to revisit this

The day one of you says "I don't know if I already called them."

The part worth getting right

Here's the fork: do you two mostly work the *same* deals together, or do you each own your own patch? If you share deals, HubSpot Free is fine — the shared timeline is the whole point, and free stays free at your size. If you each run your own pipeline and need clean "mine vs yours" filtered views, forecast numbers, and stage automation, Pipedrive earns its £30-ish a month fast. Pick wrong and in six months you're migrating again, re-importing the same contacts, re-teaching the same habits.