A CRM is one of the most widely used tools in companies, alongside the classics such as e-mails, databases or Microsoft Office or the Google suite. More than a third of all companies use a customer relationship management system, and the larger the company, the more use it. A CRM can become the heart of entire processes: Customer data is needed and used in many different areas and can provide valuable insights into the business relationship.
But what if the CRM you have been using up to now no longer meets your requirements? Another software could have more or more suitable functions or simply be better suited to the growth of your company.
With the decision for a new CRM, a CRM migration is then naturally on the agenda. But precisely this CRM migration can seem like a mammoth task. Structures and data have often grown over the years and are therefore sometimes unclear or outdated.
The CRM migration can also be seen as an opportunity to structure the data in the new system differently and better adapted to one's own needs. But that only means more effort.
Wrong. Because CRM migration certainly requires planning and structure, but the data migration itself can be significantly accelerated thanks to automation. We will show how CRM migration can be successful with the help of two examples. It doesn't matter whether you use Pipedrive, Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho CRM or Copper.
Pipedrive and HubSpot are two of the best-known and most popular cloud CRMs for small and medium-sized enterprises. They offer an enormous number of functions at a reasonable price. Nevertheless, HubSpot offers a few (important) functionalities more, for example a ticketing system or a CMS.
The former was one reason why a client in the service industry wanted to migrate from Pipedrive to HubSpot with our help.
Over time, a complex structure had emerged in Pipedrive that included all clients, companies, deals, products and even invoices. All interconnected and dependent on each other. Over 5,000 contacts, more than 1,600 deals and around 300 companies were to be moved from Pipedrive to HubSpot.
CRM migration can be an excellent opportunity to review and (re-)structure the data. The architecture in the new CRM should be well thought out and lessons can be learned from past mistakes. This was also the reason why we built in an intermediate step in the case of this client company:
First, we created the future structure for HubSpot in a database, in Airtable to be precise. Using various tables that are linked to each other, it became clear what the structure will look like in the future. This structure was then approved by the client.
With this intermediate step, we were able to ensure that the requirements were correctly fulfilled in HubSpot afterwards. In addition, an Airtable is usually created and adapted more quickly than HubSpot.
After the architecture of the database was in place, we migrated the data from the CRM Pipedrive into the database. Minor errors and duplicates were still visible there. The data migration itself took place via Make.
Make is an automation platform. It links different applications, in this case Pipedrive and Airtable, so that they can automatically exchange data. Through defined triggers, functions, filters and conditions, we ensure that the right data is transferred to the right place at the right time. And that is precisely the core of the CRM migration.
Once the structure was in place, the data migration only took a few minutes.
The last step was to set up HubSpot according to the structure in Airtable. This was the template so that HubSpot could be quickly filled with data as a new CRM.
Of course, a CRM migration is not done in one day, that would be utopian. Much more often there is a transition phase in which two parallel systems sometimes exist. This phase of the CRM migration can also benefit from automation: By automatically transferring the data from the old CRM to the new CRM around the clock right from the start, we ensure that there are no duplicates or outdated data records.
In this way, the CRM migration can also succeed over days, weeks or months.
We recently went through a CRM migration similar to the one above ourselves. After switching from HubSpot to Pipedrive just a few months ago, it became clear that HubSpot was a better fit for us. Among other things, because HubSpot offers a ticketing system. But this also meant that we had to migrate from Pipedrive to HubSpot again.
In addition to a CRM, we also use an Airtable database in which we map further information and actions. It was therefore important to also include this in the migration process in order to really have all data available in the new HubSpot CRM without duplicates.
This is how we first created the new structure in HubSpot, which we slightly modified compared to Pipedrive. Again, the data migration was done via Make. Our Airtable database was integrated into this process. This resulted in the following scenario:
With this one process we were able to transfer 1,700 contacts and around 100 deals in just a few minutes.
Especially for larger companies, Salesforce is one of the most attractive CRMs. It is by far the most popular CRM, far ahead of SAP or Oracle https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/262328/umfrage/marktanteile-der-anbieter-von-crm-software-weltweit/. But the decision for Salesforce as a CRM is usually made over time, when your organization grows and you need a powerful CRM that you can sustainably benefit from. The process of CRM migration to Salesforce is similar: First, the structure and set-up in the new CRM is determined. Then either a database is interposed or some test data is migrated from HubSpot, Pipedrive or any other CRM to Salesforce. This way we can make sure that everything is really in the right place.
CRM migration to Salesforce is also so easy because Salesforce has a powerful interface. This allows us to automatically transfer data from other programs and is largely responsible for the success of a CRM migration.
If you want to migrate from one CRM to the other, the data migration itself should not take up most of your time. It is much more important to think about the data structure and architecture in the new CRM. This way you can use the CRM migration to improve structures and create a logic that meets your needs.
The rest is a matter of minutes - thanks to automation and Make.
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