How Long Does Crm Data Migration Take On Average

People decide to migrate their CRM for a number of reasons. Mayhap it'southward due to their current CRM software'due south depression performance, high maintenance costs, lack of software integration with third-party sales and marketing services, or data loss.

Whatsoever your reasons are, losing all your information, client data, and contact information you have in your electric current (a.thousand.a. legacy) Customer Relationship Direction CRM is a huge loss. Migrating from one organization to another is non as unproblematic as moving the files on your estimator from one folder to another. Information technology is a complex process that involves a lot of preparation and analysis to brand sure no data is lost during your migration.

Migrating your CRM solution is not a piece of block. Let's dive into what it means, how to migrate CRM , how to gear up for the procedure, and how to deal with the main challenges that you may face up during the process.

What Is A CRM Migration?

A CRM migration refers to migrating the information your legacy CRM solution contains to a new CRM tool.

When you demand to migrate to a new CRM platform you lot should clarify which data y'all want to proceed unchanged, reorganize, update, or even delete. Almost CRM systems are modular, which means y'all demand to figure out how you lot want to organize your information and contact information to choose the modules and customize them if needed.

How to Migrate to a new CRM

Why Migrate To A New CRM?

The CRM migration process is a dull procedure that requires an appropriate amount of fourth dimension and attending. Here are six master reasons why companies decide to migrate from ane CRM to another:

Lack of scalability
High maintenance costs
Lack of configuring capabilities
Limited range of supported applications
Lack of cloud-based storage functionality
Limited number of integrations with third-political party services

The master reason for migrating your data instead of starting with a clean slate is obvious; your customer information database is the core of your business' success. Losing it ways giving up important data on your existing customers and potential customers.

Keeping the data in an annal somewhere in cloud-based storage is also unwise – what if you need to rapidly access sure data? You'll have to waste material time looking for it in the archive. If y'all want to admission reliable insights thanks to the new CRM organisation analytics tools, you lot demand to incorporate your previous data into the analysis.

What Should You Migrate Over to a New CRM?

Now that we have discussed the 'what' and 'why' of CRM software migration, let'due south take a closer look at what you need to initiate the migration procedure. As we have mentioned above, there are two principal things to consider migrating over to a new CRM solution:

The customer information and sales process data itself
The data structure

The information itself includes all the data related to your customers (contact information, demographic data, preferences, customer interaction history, tracked phone calls, etc.), purchases history, sales cycle updates, marketing campaign outcomes, employee information, social media insights, customer service data, and more.

Data structure refers to the ways you organize, manage, alter (this includes permissions and access levels), and store your client information and sales cycle information. Raw unorganized data is almost useless, so it is vital that you migrate your data construction also. There is a groovy probability that your electric current data construction is impossible to be migrated without amending, then be ready to conform it.

Best Practices for a Successful CRM Migration

By and large speaking, there are iii approaches that you tin choose from:

1. Uploading an archive through the legacy CRM tool's user interface

Download all the data from your legacy system and upload it into the new CRM tool. While this sounds uncomplicated, the success of this method depends on whether the files are compatible with the new CRM arrangement and whether the data structure is like.

2. Using tertiary-party CRM data migration solutions

Install a new application to do the footwork of the migration for you lot. This method will piece of work only if the two systems are similar, which is rarely the case.

3. Using a custom script or tool

This is the almost efficient way to migrate your data, as it allows y'all to transfer third-political party integrations as well. In this case, information migration is done using API calls. This arroyo also implies that you customize your target CRM. The only thing yous may consider is that you are likely to need the assistance of qualified developers.

How To Prepare For Your CRM Migration

Whichever arroyo yous opt for, you need to plan ahead and ready for the migration process properly. Here are seven steps y'all need to take :

one. Ready Stakeholders For CRM Migration

Before yous kickoff working on the technical aspects of your migration, you should bring together the CRM end users and decision makers. Together, you tin can make up one's mind what exactly yous expect to achieve with the new CRM system. Discuss what needs to be improved, what information is disquisitional to proceed, and what information can be deleted.

two. Compare Legacy & Target CRM Systems

Make up one's mind what types of information and fields tin can be used in the target CRM. Then, take a look at your current organization and analyze whether all its data and field types can be transferred into the new one. If you lot accept customized fields (and chances are you practice), come across if the new CRM can be customized in the same way to make the migration possible.

3. Analyze & Fix The Data

This is the nearly crucial footstep. You need to analyze what data your legacy CRM contains, its formats and types, how it is organized, and what CRM data you lot need to migrate. This is also when yous should get rid of any duplicate data. Once you've washed this, you should create a data map which describes what data goes where.

four. Backup Your Data

Considering how important this CRM data is for your business, you should definitely create a fill-in in case something goes incorrect. Yous can residuum assured that you won't lose whatever information. If you turn to another company to migrate your data and they don't mention backing upwardly your data, cooperating with them is not a expert idea.

5. Customize The Target CRM

We've already mentioned customized fields. Now it's time to customize the target CRM system to make migrating information from customized field possible. Besides, y'all tin get rid of the fields you are not going to use.

six. Create The Migration Script Or Tool

This is the well-nigh technical part of the whole process. It tin can exist a script or a tool that does all the work for you lot. Unless you accept a CRM data migration specialist on your team, nosotros strongly recommend y'all to turn the visitor that provides such services. A unmarried fault in the code may cost yous gravely, so it'due south not something you should try to save on.

7. Test Before Migration

Testing is always of import when you create new tools, and CRM migration tools are no exception. You should attempt transferring ane or several pieces of data to come across if the tool works the way it should and whether you lot have prepared your data and its structure properly. This is when you may see that some data gets lost or its format is incompatible with the target CRM.

data migration to new CRM

Tips For A Successful CRM Migration

There is a lot that can become wrong when you lot migrate your data to the target CRM. The most frequent issues people tend to run into are missing pieces of information or issues with customized fields. Here are four things you tin can practise to counter CRM migration challenges :

1. Pay Attention To Customized Fields

Make certain you lot know how your target CRM should be customized, what fields yous'll demand, and what information they'll contain. However, if a customized field in your legacy system was used only a couple of times, consider getting rid of it.

two. Accept Care Of Attachments

If your current CRM contains attachments, make sure y'all don't overlook them and migrate them properly. If attachments are stored in dozens of different folders, yous need to bring them together in one centralized location first. You demand to make up one's mind whether yous are going to store the attachments locally or in the cloud and if it's the latter, which cloud storage service you are going to choose.

iii. Double-Cheque Everything

This may be obvious, merely yous have no thought how many times business owners forget to drift a contact list or something else to the new CRM postal service factum. Double checking what data yous migrate is peculiarly important if y'all want to transfer information from another software solution or a spreadsheet.

4. Choose Reliable Experts

CRM customization and data migration are either done by experts or not done at all – this is the golden dominion. Handling such sensitive data should exist done past those who know their way around all the nuances of the process, both from the technical and business points of view.

new CRM data migration

Source: Velvetech

How to Migrate to Nimble

Nimble makes it easier than ever to migrate your legacy CRM to a smart, unproblematic, deject-based solution. Information technology takes 3 simple steps:

Step 1. Find your current service

Export your contacts into a CSV file from your current service such as Salesforce, Hubspot, Insightly, Zoho, Copper, Base CRM or Pipedrive.

Footstep 2. Organize Your CSV file

Now that your contacts have been exported to a CSV file, it's a good idea to organize and prioritize your contacts before importing to Nimble. Information technology is best to practice this while all the same in the CSV file to start off with a clean database.

You may consider doing the following:
Remove unwanted columns and fields
Delete one-time leads/contacts
Update emails, telephone numbers, addresses, etc.

Footstep 3. Use our "Import Wizard" to upload these records

The CSV Import Wizard for Nimble is an in-app utility that allows you to load any CSV file into Nimble, and so match the fields for a smarter, faster import. Upload the file into Nimble, match the fields, and permit the Import Wizard do the rest.

That'south information technology! Your contacts should now be in Nimble. If you'd similar to get started for free, only click on the banner beneath.

What you should know:

Nimble automatically merges on email address. If your records are missing email addresses, you'll see the choice to merge on "First and Last Proper name if the email is not present". This pick is available on the third page of the import process.
Any custom cavalcade headers in your CSV file tin can exist added to Nimble as custom fields. This can be setup during the import process or beforehand. Acquire more than nigh custom fields here: Custom Information Fields

The Bottom Line

Starting to use a new CRM plaform instead of your electric current one is akin to getting out of your comfort zone – information technology is scary yet rewarding. CRM systems are decumbent to getting outdated or unsuitable for your business concern as much as any other software solution.

Therefore, migrating to a new CRM organization is inevitable for nearly businesses. And so, no need to prolong the inevitable – yous should make sure you do it properly once to exist done with it for good. The number of things you have to take care of may be overwhelming, so make certain you dedicate enough time and attention to this procedure and have reliable experts past your side to guide you through it.