Migrate to Another CRM Vendor: Switch Playbook

List what lives in the source CRM and what the destination expects: companies/contacts, open opportunities, custom objects, notes/emails/tasks, files, reports, automations, and live integrations (email, calendar, billing, support, marketing). Rank each as migrate live, archive export-only, or retire. Vendor switches fail when teams only inventory “contacts and deals.”

Example: Harbor Advisory, a 28-person B2B firm leaving Vendor A for Vendor B, inventories open deals and contacts plus: Gmail sync, Stripe customer IDs on companies, Zendesk ticket links, three Zapier flows posting Slack alerts, and seven shared “team” seats that are not people. They mark Zendesk links as reconnect-after-cutover, retire two unused Zaps, and treat closed-won older than the agreed window as archive-only.

Do not map dirty open work into a new vendor. Dedupe, assign owners, require next-step dates, archive inactive records, and fill day-one required fields. Then build three maps: (1) fields — source → destination → transform → rule owner; (2) users — old seats → new seats/roles, including leavers; (3) integrations — reconnect, replace, or retire. Pair with Data Cleaning and Field Mapping; use generic Data Migration for the shared inventory→pilot pattern, but keep vendor risks explicit here.

Example: Harbor’s ops lead Sam runs a cleaning week on open retainers, then maps Sheet/CRM owner conflicts (sheet wins for account owner; Vendor A wins for open stage). User remap sends two leavers’ open deals to a named AE; the “Sales shared” inbox becomes a queue user in Vendor B. Stripe ID maps to a custom company field; Zendesk stays on the reconnect list, not the first import.

Import a bounded segment into a sandbox or clean destination org. Validate company links, owners, stages, and a sample of notes/emails/tasks if those migrate. Have ops and a frontline lead walk records together. Fix maps before scaling. Historical activity is a vendor-switch risk: some tools export threads poorly; decide what must be live vs archive before promising “everything moves.”

Example: Harbor pilots 40 retainer accounts for AE Nina. Three companies split on nickname matches; two deals land under leavers until the user map is fixed; email bodies for older threads stay archive-only after a sample shows incomplete exports. They re-import the pilot, document “live notes = last 12 months of open accounts,” and only then schedule firm cutover in the Migration Planner.

Announce when Vendor A edits stop, who runs the final export, and when Vendor B becomes the only place for new notes and stages. Keep the freeze short. Validate critical counts and spot-check remapped users before the go-live email. After cutover, run hygiene: merge stragglers, fix orphan contacts, require next steps, confirm leavers’ seats are gone, and reconnect integrations on the owned sequence. Pair Implementation Planner for post-cutover expand.

Example: Harbor freezes Friday 4pm on Vendor A; ops exports; Saturday import and validation; Monday 8am sellers open only Vendor B. Gmail sync reconnects Monday morning under Sam; Stripe ID spot-checks pass; Zendesk reconnect waits until Wednesday. For ten business days Sam posts a hygiene board — duplicates, deals missing next step, users still on Vendor A bookmarks. Switch is done when Friday pipeline review no longer opens Vendor A.