BLOG: A Word of Caution: CRM Migrations Through a Data Lens
We all know investing in a new CRM is one of the biggest investments a membership organisation can make. Not just in terms of cost, but in time, effort, disruption, risk – the list goes on…
It’s an immense undertaking. The new system promises more efficient processes, improved member experience, better reporting, more features, more integrations – all the bells and whistles! The business case makes sense, and the expected benefits are huge. But… there’s often a critical piece of the CRM implementation that gets overlooked. One that can inhibit your ability to ever realise those expected benefits.
Data.
Don’t migrate the problem
However fancy your new CRM is, it’s only as good as the data you’re importing into it. Unfortunately, it’s not simply a case of moving information from one system to another. Membership organisations hold years, if not decades, of information about their members. The quality and accuracy of this data can make or break a project. Over the years, new processes are introduced, new fields are added, old fields become redundant, teams change, roles change and the ways members update their information evolve.
Baggage accumulates.
This can leave you with:
Contacts which are no longer relevant
Duplicate contact and organisation records
Incomplete contact preferences and interests
Incomplete and inconsistent records
Outdated contact information
Contacts incorrectly linked to organisations
Free-text fields which should be structured
Fields no one uses or understands anymore
Moving this information to your new CRM doesn’t fix any of this.
It simply moves the problem from old to new.
Key questions to ask when reviewing your data
1. Migrate it? - If it’s important and confidence in its quality is high, bring it over.
2. Cleanse it? - If it’s important information but confidence in its accuracy is low, clean it.
3. Archive it? - If it’s important but not required in the new system, store it appropriately.
4. Leave it behind? - If it no longer serves a purpose and there’s no requirement to retain it, don’t bring it with you.
Having these questions in mind can substantially improve the quality of – and confidence in – the data worth moving across.
Why is it important?
The quality of the data you import into your CRM directly impacts your ability to achieve the system's expected benefits and provide a return on investment. Want to take advantage of your new ability to segment members and provide personalisation?
Accurate member data is essential.
Want better visibility and reporting? - Your data needs to be consistent and trusted.
Want to implement automation to improve processes? - Nothing breaks automation faster than inaccurate statuses, dates and classifications.
Want to better understand member engagement? - You need reliable information about who your members are and what they're engaging with.
Want to take advantage of AI and other emerging technologies? - You need data you can trust.
The technology provides the capability. Your data determines how effectively you can use those shiny new features.
Don't just think about the data you have today
A CRM migration shouldn't only be about looking backwards. It's also an opportunity to think about what you want to know in the future. What questions do you want your new CRM and reporting to help you answer?
For example:
Which members are most engaged?
Which members are at risk of lapsing?
Which benefits and services are members actually using?
How does engagement differ between member segments?
Which activities are associated with better retention?
Can we accurately understand the relationship between individual members and their organisations?
Are we on track against our membership targets?
Can our leadership team easily see the metrics that matter?
If these are questions you want to answer in two or three years' time, you need to make sure you're capturing the right information, in the right way, from day one.
A CRM migration isn't just an opportunity to clean up yesterday's data. It's an opportunity to make sure you're collecting tomorrow's data properly.
Don't leave data until the end
Data migration can sometimes feel like one of the final stages of a CRM implementation. Build the system. Configure the processes. Develop the integrations. Then worry about moving the data. But the later you discover problems, the harder and potentially more expensive they become to resolve. The last thing you want a few weeks before migration is to discover thousands of duplicate records, poorly populated critical fields, inconsistent organisation relationships or historical information nobody can explain. Suddenly, data cleansing becomes part of the critical path to go-live.
The sooner you understand the condition of your data, the more options you have.
Starting early gives you time to understand what's there, identify the important problems and decide what genuinely needs to be fixed before migration.
Your implementation partner can't make every decision for you
Your CRM implementation partner will play a critical role in getting you from your old system to your new one. They understand the technology. They'll help configure the platform, build integrations, map fields and ultimately get your data into the new system.
But there are some questions that only your organisation can really answer.
What does an "active member" mean?
Which historical information is genuinely valuable?
Which member characteristics do you need for future segmentation?
Which relationships between individuals and organisations matter?
What information does your leadership team need to report on?
What does an "engaged member" look like?
These aren't simply technical migration questions. They're business questions. Your implementation partner can help you implement the answers, but your organisation needs to understand what those answers should be.
And what happens after go-live?
There's little point spending months cleansing your data before migration if, six months after launch, you're back where you started. Good data needs looking after.
That means thinking about ownership and governance as part of the implementation.
Who owns your member data?
Who is responsible for its quality?
Which fields should be mandatory?
Who can create or change particular information?
How are duplicates identified?
Who decides when a new field should be introduced?
Are key terms and metrics consistently defined across the organisation?
Data quality shouldn't be something you think about once every ten years when you replace your CRM. It needs to become part of how the organisation operates.
Less can be more
During a CRM migration, it’s natural to want to bring over all that legacy data "just in case". But as we often see, less can be more.
A CRM migration is a rare opportunity to stop and look at your data and ask:
Do we use it?
Do we need it?
Is it reliable?
Does it support what we're trying to achieve?
Will we need it to answer important questions in the future?
If the answer is no, then it’s worth questioning whether it should move across to your new system. Don't migrate data simply because you have it.
Protect the investment you're already making
This is perhaps the most important point.
If you're investing tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds in a new CRM, spending time and budget understanding and preparing the data that will sit within it shouldn't be seen as an unnecessary additional cost.
It's about protecting the much bigger investment you've already decided to make.
Your new CRM might give you better functionality.
Better integrations, automation, reporting, greater member experiences. But those capabilities rely on the information sitting underneath them.
A new CRM can provide better technology. It doesn't automatically give you better data.
So before you migrate, understand what you've got. Decide what you need. Clean what's important. Archive what needs retaining. Leave behind what no longer serves a purpose.
And think about the information you'll need in the future, not just the information you've accumulated in the past.
Treat your data like the organisational asset it is, and give your new CRM the foundations it needs to deliver the benefits you invested in it for.
