Migrating from One CRM to Another

Migrating between CRMs frightens people more than a first implementation, usually without cause: the risk is not failing to move the data, it is moving the wrong data. Here is the order of operations we use, and the places where things typically get lost.

Step 1. Decide what actually moves

The temptation to "move everything" is the main mistake. Years in the old system have left deals with no contacts, duplicates, test records and fields nobody ever filled in.

A practical rule: move contacts and companies in full, deals for a sensible period back (usually one to two years), and export the rest into an archive file kept separately.

Step 2. Export it and look at it

The export belongs before you start configuring the new system, not after. Opening the file and reading it is a mandatory step: this is where you discover that phone numbers come in four formats, half the contacts have no name, and the "source" field was filled in by hand and holds sixty spellings of three channels.

Data cleaning is separate work, and its size only becomes visible at this step.

Step 3. Map the fields

Build a table: field in the old system to field in the new one. This is where things that do not migrate automatically surface:

• conversation history — not always, and not in full; it depends on how the channel was connected;
• call recordings — usually stay with the previous telephony provider rather than the CRM;
• files and attachments;
• automations — never migrate; they are rebuilt from scratch.

Step 4. Test on a slice of the base

Fifty to a hundred records first, not the whole database. Check that non-Latin characters did not turn into question marks, dates did not shift by a day, and phone numbers kept their country codes.

Step 5. Cut-over date and a hard line

The most important decision. Running two systems in parallel is more dangerous than a short pause: while both are alive, some enquiries land in the old one and some in the new, and two weeks later nobody knows which is true.

The arrangement that works: pick a date, everything before it stays in the old system, everything after goes to the new one. The old system switches to read-only and lives on for a few months as an archive.

Step 6. Channels and telephony

A separate item because some steps here are irreversible. A WhatsApp number bound to the API cannot simply be "switched over": the move requires releasing it, and during that window the channel is down. Do not schedule this for Monday morning.

What to verify afterwards

• Contact and deal counts match the export.
• No deal lost its owner.
• A web form creates a record and lands in the right pipeline.
• A call creates a deal and is logged on the record.
• Reps have logged in and see their own deals, not somebody else's.

How long it takes

A typical migration including data cleaning fits inside a normal implementation window: 14–21 days. Most of the time goes not into the transfer but into field mapping and rebuilding automations.

What to tell the team

The technical side of a migration is predictable. The human side is not: reps see a CRM change as a threat, and not without reason.

What they actually fear. Not new buttons. That the new system will make visible how many enquiries went unhandled, and that fields they used to leave blank will now have to be filled. Transparency is the real source of resistance, and it is more honest to talk about that than about interface convenience.

What helps:

• Show the benefit to them, not to management. "You will stop hunting for a conversation across three phones" works better than "we will finally have analytics".
• Give them one of their own. One rep takes part in the configuration and then explains it to the others in their language. That person removes more resistance than any vendor training.
• Do not migrate the old mess. If the old system had forty mandatory fields nobody filled in, the new one must not arrive with forty-five.
• Name the shutdown date for the old system. While it remains reachable, part of the team will keep working in it.

What not to do. Launch a new CRM in high season while also changing the commission scheme. Two changes at once guarantee that any dip gets blamed on the system.

Timelines depend on the size of the database and on whether the old system offers a usable export.