The Backbone of CRM: Where the Magic Happens
Updated: Mar 14
Hi, I’m Jessica. Currently, I have the opportunity to contribute to a CRM project at my company. One of my first assignments back then was to redesign the Lead/Account Details page—a page that might look simple at first glance, but is actually the backbone of the entire CRM experience.
This is the story of how I approached it, why it mattered, and the thinking behind my proposed changes.
Why the Lead Details Page Matters
In any CRM, there’s one screen that quietly holds everything together: the Lead Details page.
It’s where sales teams spend most of their time, where managers go for clarity, and where every click can bring you closer to—or further away from—a closed deal.
It’s not glamorous, but it’s crucial. When the page is cluttered, confusing, or slow, productivity suffers. But when it’s clear, fast, and actionable, it becomes the sales team’s secret weapon.
When I joined the CRM redesign project, I found myself drawn to this page. As someone relatively new to CRM systems, I became curious about how different platforms designed it—and what lessons I could learn.
A Quick Tour: Lead Pages Across Platforms
HubSpot
The Good: Clean design, logical grouping of information, strong emphasis on timeline and activity logs. The sidebar summary makes it easy to glance at core lead info without losing context. I love how information can be shown within the page without any additional box appearing. The Expand all & collapse all button can be life changing
The Not-So-Good: Can feel overwhelming as activity history grows. Important details sometimes get buried under interactions. The page feel rich but sometimes users might feel lost.
Zoho CRM
The Good: Highly customizable. Users can tailor the lead page to their workflow, which makes it powerful for complex organizations. Their default layout is very clean, and fragmented. The activity list is like a story book, showing the timeline of the interaction with the lead periodically.
The Not-So-Good: Customization comes at a cost—interfaces often feel dense, inconsistent, and less intuitive out of the box. And eventho the design is clean, I realised that it's hard for user to know what they need to do. The page doesn't specak action but more like a data storage
The Good: Simple, visually engaging, great use of boards and widgets. The lead page feels approachable even for non-sales users. It's a pop up so it feels like easy to access and close anytime. However the page it self feel very limited. It's clean but there are a lot of unused space.
The Not-So-Good: Depth is limited. While it’s easy to understand, critical details for deeper sales processes may feel oversimplified.
What Triggered My Redesign
Exploring these differences made me realize something: there’s no one-size-fits-all CRM lead page. Each platform reflects its philosophy—HubSpot goes deep, Zoho goes flexible, Monday goes light. They all might be good for different company type/size/sales' team way of working.
But in the CRM I was working on, I noticed gaps:
Information was there, but not always where teams expected it.
The interface leaned more towards data storage than actionability.
The user journey felt fragmented—jumping between tabs, losing the narrative of the lead.
That triggered my redesign. I wanted to build a Lead Details page that feels like a storybook of the customer: clear, human, and actionable. A page where data isn’t just stored—it’s working with you.
Why This Matters for My Portfolio
For me, this project wasn’t just about tweaking UI—it was about rethinking the spine of the CRM experience. By analyzing existing giants, identifying pain points, and reimagining the structure, I set out to design a Lead Details page that balances clarity, usability, and intelligence.
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