The Complete Guide to Migrating from Salesforce to HubSpot ⭐

The Complete Guide of CRM Migration from Salesforce to HubSpot 

Is it time for a change? Are you considering a switch from Salesforce CRM to HubSpot? Migration is not a simple step, but there are tools and processes to help you transfer all your data, business automation, and reports between systems without losing quality. What’s more, you can leverage the migration itself, eliminate duplicates, and optimize redundant processes immediately, giving your CRM a fresh start.

An improper migration can cost you a lot of money and, what's more, damage your reputation in the eyes of customers. That's why we'll take a look at the process from start to finish:

• Reasons to switch to HubSpot CRM
• Preparing a plan and identifying all requirements
• Critical points in the migration process
• 3 basic ways to migrate
• The process from preparation to long-term optimization

Autoarti has helped a number of clients migrate their CRM systems, not only from Salesforce to Hubspot but also between other platforms. In this article, we'll summarize the most important things we've encountered during our projects.

Reasons to switch from Salesforce to HubSpot

Complete migration from one CRM platform to another is a challenging process full of traps. Before diving into the migration, you should be clear about the benefits of the new CRM system. And ideally, you should also be confident that the migration investment will lead to future savings or increased revenue.

First, let's take a look at the most common reasons why companies are leaving Salesforce and moving their CRM to HubSpot. What are HubSpot's strengths?

• HubSpot offers flexible pricing for small and medium-sized businesses, including free access for users not actively working in CRM
• Works in minutes and hours, as editing and developing new features is easier and faster
• Friendly UX/UI that is unified for all users across all Hubs
• Creating new APIs is generally easier and cheaper in HubSpot, a variety of integrations can be found in the Marketplace
• Offers intensive support and valuable materials for training new users
• Any data outside of standard objects like Contacts or Leads can be stored and used in automated processes through Custom Objects (only available with an Enterprise license)

💡 One CRM system for all teams? Yes, HubSpot brings together sales, marketing and support teams to access data through one system.

Typically, companies leave Salesforce when they realize at some point that the system is too robust and overwhelming for them. Expensive and challenging change requests needing lengthy development and complete analysis don't make sense in the eyes of agile companies and unnecessarily hold them back. As does the development of custom integrations. 

The biggest challenges of CRM migration from Salesforce to HubSpot

A proper migration is the one in which the company runs smoothly as usual; people only log into a different system one day. To avoid disruptions that would compromise the performance of the business and teams, the entire process needs to be carefully planned and unnecessarily painful risks avoided.

To ensure everything runs as efficiently as possible, you need to ask the right questions at the beginning. Ask your team the following questions before you start any HubSpot to Salesforce migration preparations:

• What other systems are connected to Salesforce and require API calls? How many API calls should HubSpot support per day?
• Will HubSpot be primarily used in a test environment (called a sandbox) or will it be placed directly into production?
• Who should be set up as the Integration User? Should they be the owner of the newly created Contacts, Accounts or Opportunity records?
• What objects exist in Salesforce?
• Will data synchronization between HubSpot and Salesforce be managed by rules and exclusion lists (Exclusion & Inclusion lists)?
• When a record is created or modified in HubSpot, should it be transferred to Salesforce? And vice versa? What if it is removed in one system, will the change be written to the other?

In any case, be prepared that the more complex your CRM system is, the more work you have to do and the more accurate planning you need.

We'll cover the three most challenging steps of the entire Salesforce to HubSpot migration in more detail in this chapter:

1. Transfer of business logic, automation, and customization

Every CRM system includes a whole bunch of tricky things. Salesforce and HubSpot work with slightly different underlying record structures (for example, in accessing Leads), and the business process logic used for automation differs as well. When importing, these issues must be uncovered and elegantly resolved so that everything can continue to operate.

What data typically needs to be imported from HubSpot into Salesforce?

Other objects need to be mapped individually, any business logic of Workflows and automated processes need to be transferred manually.

Although it sounds very simple, finding the right way is not possible without experience and a deep understanding of the integral principles of each platform. The most common dead-end is trying to fit existing workflows and 1:1 sequences into a new solution, even at the cost of intensive development and customization hours.

In the long run, however, these forced modifications are not sustainable and it is simply better to take a completely new path that elegantly fulfills the desired purpose.

2. Big data migration

The next step is to transfer the entire data history to the new environment. Each CRM system's database can contain several gigabytes of data about customers, all communications, inquiries and contracts. Simply transferring the data is not usually a problem, but it is useful to solve the traditional illnesses of most databases:

• Duplicate records
• Incomplete data
• Inconsistent formatting
• Outdated information and remnants of the past
• Training records

Migration is the perfect moment to weed out the entire database at once. Manual clean-up may not be possible due to the volume of data, so you'll need to look for automated tools or leave everything in the hands of experts. We'll talk about migration options in a moment.

💡 Steps leading to data cleanliness should be a matter of course in every company. The more careful you have been about prevention during the CRM operation and the more you have taken care to prepare your data for imports, the smoother your migration will be. 

3. Phase of simultaneous operation of two CRM systems

The final phase of the migration is when both systems run simultaneously. Historical data are uploaded in the new CRM and all new records are already tracked in both the old and new CRM. However, the company is still working in the old one, through which it continues to communicate with customers.

This allows the migration team to verify everything is working correctly and debug any gaps.

Once everything fits, all that is left to do is to make the final changes – move employees to the new CRM system, activate connections to email inboxes and other outbound communication systems, and turn off these options in the old CRM. After that, there is nothing to prevent the permanent shutdown of the old CRM system.

3 most common ways of CRM migration

There are several ways to migrate from one system to another. Choosing the right way depends on the volume of data, the automations complexity, and the budget dedicated to the whole process. 

• HubSpot App Marketplace – Salesforce integration

• Synchronization available directly in the HubSpot App Marketplace enables bi-directional data transfer between HubSpot and Salesforce systems.
• It can be used to migrate out-of-the-box CRM systems where there is not much customization, custom entities, and automation.
• It's useful for migration and long-term synchronization of hybrid environments if, for example, finance has temporarily remained in Salesforce.
• It can only sync limited items: Contacts, Companies, Deals, and Tasks.
• Easy to use, set up in a few minutes.
• Completely free

• Third-party tools like Trujay, Import2 or CSV Loader

• Tools developed by third parties to migrate data between CRM systems. For example, Trujay, Import2 or CSV Loader.
• They can do more than the native sync in the HubSpot App Marketplace but often fail to clean and realistically deduplicate the data.
• More advanced options for setting up migrated data, can map and migrate most custom fields, but can't handle business logic in automations and more complex customizations.
• The setup can't be done without experience; it usually starts with creating a sample, according to which the migration is subsequently priced and implemented.
• Price from €1,000

• Personalized migration with data cleansing and deduplication

• Engaging a migration partner to take care of semi-manual data cleansing and deduplication, including automation transfer and process optimization.
• Highest possible data transfer success rate depending on the technical parameters of the CRM systems.
• Total control over data quality and cleanliness, including the possibility of retrospective corrections.
• The migration partner will guide you through the entire process.
• Price from €3,000

🔎Looking for a CRM migration partner? 

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Successful CRM migration in 6 steps

There is no one-size-fits-all recipe for migrating from Salesforce to HubSpot; the individual phases differ depending on whether the client is migrating on their own or leaving most of the work to a migration partner. Either way, a precise organization is an essential part of a successful migration that doesn't compromise the business performance.

At Autoarti, we specialize in expert migration assistance. This is what our typical itinerary looks like, including time estimates for small and medium-sized companies: 

• Initial analysis (3 days)

Assessment of database size, automation complexity and custom development.

• Process optimization and mapping preparation (3 to 10 days)

The most comprehensive step involves the migration of business processes and automations, including their optimizations. At the same time, the preparation of data field mappings in collaboration with the customer is also carried out. There are fundamental differences in CRM systems' functioning, so a migration partner's added value is irreplaceable at this stage. Thanks to optimization, the new CRM may work even better than the old one.

• Export and import test for account debugging (5 to 10 days)

A testing round of exports to ensure that the data is sufficiently ready for migration and to prepare the new CRM system for subsequent import.

• Final migration (2 to 5 days)

After going through the previous stages, all that is left is to make the final transfer of the data to the new system.

• Post-migration tuning (min. 5 days)

As the new CRM system comes together, adjustments that could not have been made beforehand without the data need to be completed and any issues resolved.

• Onboarding the team into HubSpot CRM (min. 5 days)

The team's onboarding into the new CRM system can run alongside the migration, with the final onboarding along with the official handover of login credentials coming at the very end.

In a nutshell

Migrating from Salesforce to HubSpot is sometimes the only right decision. The challenging process can be handled without sacrificing sales and marketing team productivity and with a high data transfer success rate. The key is to consider everything carefully, start training the team on the new system early and create a detailed migration plan to transfer data and business logic between systems.

Before the actual migration, test the correctness of the setup by transferring a small sample and reviewing it with the team. Only then you are good to proceed with the final migration, which you then evaluate too.

The easiest option is using the HubSpot Marketplace's free app to sync both CRM systems. It's a quick solution available for free, but it can't handle data deduplication or automated processes.

Specialized third-party tools are more expensive but will offer useful additional features. 

Personalized migration in collaboration with an experienced partner is then the solution for demanding customers who want to combine migration with data cleansing and deduplication, process optimization and don't want to risk any accidents along the way.

At Autoarti, we specialize in CRM system migrations and are happy to help you make a decision or answer more detailed questions. Just schedule a non-binding meeting with our experts.

Consultation with our specialist 📆

Source: HubSpot