CRM Migration Services

What a CRM migration involves

Changing CRM is often the right decision — to reduce costs, get better features or consolidate after a merger — but the data is the hardest part. Years of contacts, companies, deals, notes, emails, files and custom fields must arrive in the new system correctly linked and usable from day one.

A careful migration also cleans the data on the way: removing duplicates, fixing formats and archiving what nobody needs, so the new CRM starts in better shape than the old one.

Problems we solve

• Moving from spreadsheets or a basic CRM to HubSpot or Salesforce
• Consolidating several CRMs after a merger
• Leaving a CRM that has become too expensive or too limiting
• Custom objects and fields with no obvious equivalent
• Fear of losing history or disrupting the sales team

What’s included

Our migration process

1. Audit & plan1–2 weeks

   Scope, mapping, cleansing rules and cut-over plan agreed.

2. Trial migration1–2 weeks

   Full migration into a sandbox; your team checks real records.

3. Fix & repeatDays

   Mapping and scripts adjusted until results are right.

4. Cut-overA weekend

   Final migration, delta sync and integrations switched over.

5. Hypercare2 weeks

   Support, fixes and training as the team settles in.

Preserving relationships and history

The difference between a good and a bad migration is relationships: contacts linked to the right companies, deals linked to contacts, activities and files attached to the right records, owners and created dates preserved. We migrate in dependency order, keep a mapping of old to new IDs and run automated checks comparing counts and samples between systems.

Timeline and budget

Typical ranges to help you plan. Your written estimate comes after a free discovery call.

What to migrate — and what to leave behind

A migration is the best chance in years to clean your data. Moving everything as-is simply moves the old problems to a new system.

Migration plan

1. Audit

   Inventory objects, fields, automations, integrations and data quality.

2. Map

   Field-by-field mapping and transformation rules, agreed with users.

3. Test migration

   Full trial run into a sandbox; users validate samples.

4. Rebuild

   Pipelines, automations, reports and integrations in the new CRM.

5. Cut-over

   Freeze, final delta migration, verification and go-live.

6. Support

   Training and quick fixes in the first weeks.

Avoiding common pitfalls

• Record owner and created dates preserved where the platform allows
• Relationships between contacts, companies and deals kept intact
• Integrations and forms re-pointed before old system is switched off
• Old system kept read-only for a defined period
• Reports rebuilt and compared against the old system

Timeline and effort

Small migrations with clean data and few integrations typically take a few weeks. Migrations involving several years of history, custom objects, many automations and integrations typically take two to four months. The biggest variables are data quality, the number of integrations to rebuild and how quickly decisions are made on field mapping. Scheduling the cut-over outside quarter-end or peak sales periods reduces disruption for the sales team.

See also CRM integration and CRM vs ERP.

Questions to answer before you start

These answers determine the migration scope and timeline:

• How many records of each type exist, and how old is the data?
• Which custom fields and objects are actually used?
• Which integrations, forms and automations depend on the current CRM?
• What is the latest acceptable cut-over date?

Migrating between common CRMs

Validating the migrated data

A migration is not finished when the import completes; it is finished when the business confirms the data is right. We validate at three levels:

1. Counts

   Record counts per object match between source and target, with every difference explained.

2. Samples

   Sales and service users check a sample of their own accounts, deals and histories.

3. Reports

   Key reports — pipeline value, open deals by stage, customers by segment — produce the same totals in both systems.

Training and adoption after the switch

The best migration still fails if people keep using the old system or a private spreadsheet. Adoption needs as much planning as the data.

• Role-based training for sales, marketing, service and managers
• Short reference guides for the five most common tasks
• Champions in each team who answer day-to-day questions
• The old CRM switched to read-only after cut-over
• Dashboards that managers use in pipeline meetings from week one
• A feedback channel and a list of quick improvements for the first month

Once users are settled, CRM automation and CRM integration usually deliver the next round of gains.

Cut-over options

Most migrations we run use a big-bang cut-over after one or two full rehearsals, because it is simpler for users and avoids long periods of double entry.

Cleaning data during the migration

A migration is the best chance you will get to fix years of data problems. We profile the source data first, then agree rules with the business: which duplicates to merge, which inactive records to archive, how to standardise job titles, countries and industries, and which empty or unused fields to drop. Cleaning before loading is far cheaper than cleaning inside the new CRM later.

Rehearsing the migration

We run at least one full rehearsal of the migration into a sandbox before the real cut-over. The rehearsal measures how long each load takes, exposes data that fails validation and gives users an early chance to check their records. Problems found in rehearsal cost hours; problems found after cut-over can cost weeks.

Related services

Part of CRM development. After migrating, see CRM automation and CRM integration.

This page is part of CRM Development Services — see the full overview for related services, approach and pricing.