5 lessons from switching Pipedrive and Intercom to HubSpot

“How you gather, manage and use information will determine whether you win or lose.” – Bill Gates

Bold assumption: All companies face information asymmetry within their company. Departments, designed to work together, have access to different information. In the best-case scenario, this creates minor inefficiencies. In the worst case, it impacts external communication and hurts credibility.

A defining factor in information availability is where customer and prospect data is stored and who has access to this database. While there are incredible software solutions tailored toward a department's unique needs, synching data between those systems can be a major difficulty. One, we at snapADDY , decided to eliminate in 2022.

Leading up to this project, we had been using Pipedrive as a customer-relationship-system (CRM) for roughly six years, Intercom as a customer-support-system (CSS) for a similarly long period, and HubSpot as a marketing automation (MA) for about a year.

Our goal in merging both Intercom and Pipedrive into HubSpot was to increase collaboration between Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success. Ultimately, making all departments more effective and driving revenue.

While it's still too early to evaluate the project's impact, based on an anonymous survey six months after the switch, the entirety of our team a) understands the reasoning behind the switch, b) would do the switch again, and c) feels like the switch had no negative impact on this year's performance.

For anyone facing a similar situation, here are five lessons learned.

1) Goals over features - Evaluating systems

Meaningful change is only possible if you know what and why you are changing. For change to be successful, you need to have a vision, measurable goals, and an understanding of your current status.

Looking at each individual system, neither lacked any features for their respective department. Pipedrive is a great CRM system. Intercom is a great CSS system. HubSpot is a great MA. However, them being separated databases clashed with our goals.

The decision to move CRM systems was not taken over a lack of features but because we envisioned processes that allowed for collaboration between marketing, sales, and customer success. Synchronizing data between the different systems didn't work: It made processes unnecessarily complicated, creating delays and errors.

With the HubSpot migration, we handled two separate issues:

1. Changing internal processes to allow for closer collaboration between departments
2. Merging our databases to increase automation and enhance reporting

Well defined processes, ranked by importance, give you an idea of the features you need. They do not tell you, however, why these processes exist in the first place. When creating your feature list, reserve an additional column: Goal. If you cannot link a feature to a goal, you don't need that feature. Additionally, think about goals that are independent from features. Add them to the list.

Many companies delay software introductions or ultimately decide to build their own solution because their specific processes cannot be reproduced in any system on the market. If a tool cannot model one of your processes, look at the goal you want to achieve. Chances are the system can help you reach your goal, but its approach is different than yours. Looking at different software solutions enables audits. Do not get stuck in your bubble and resistant to change.

Your question must be: "Which system helps me achieve my goal best?"

It must not be: "Which system models my current processes best?". Chances are that's your current system.

2) Get every stakeholder on board

This one ties up neatly with the previous one; and it's the largest mishap we had planning this migration.

I didn't consider that our finance department would be affected by the change!

I didn't know that some developers need access to our CSS and CRM to help our customer support!

As a result, both stakeholders weren't considered making the switch. Even worse, developers weren't informed until the day of the switch. Luckily, our team knows CRM systems well, especially HubSpot, and no developer had an issue switching. It could, however, easily have ended up in chaos.

Regarding finance, having made the switch and not considering them, led to many ineffective processes; plugged in without much planning. It's also the only team with members saying that they do not understand the switch nor would make it again.

This resentment could have been prevented if we had defined processes more thoroughly and, kicking the project off, talked them over with all department heads. That meeting would have revealed that finance is a relevant stakeholder and needs consideration. We could have tweaked general processes, build specific ones, and get all finance employees on board from the beginning.

3) Move everything. Clean-up live.

This is a quick one: There is no reason to leave any data behind or to manipulate it before moving.

You may want to leave old leads behind. Or lost deals. Or everything that happened before a given date. Or exclude certain properties you deem unnecessary. Don't!

It's very time-consuming trying to accurately evalute what data is necessary. It's even more time-consuming to change it. Cleaning your old system delays your project. You waste time that everyone could be spending on getting to know the new system. Old data doesn't bother anyone. It didn't in the old system, why would it now?

Moving everything allows you to evaluate things live. Neither you nor your colleagues will be experts of the new system before you move. Even if you know the system you cannot account for every idea or problem your users may have. Cleaning your data should be done inside your new system. And only after everyone's settled in, allowing an accurate assessment of what's useless information.

Tip: Move your old IDs and create a data backup of your old system. This way, it's easy to reenter archived values that turn out to be useful at a later point. It also helps in evaluating the migration as it allows you to compare values on a 1:1 basis given the unique IDs.

4) Move fast: Everyone hates transitions and there will never be a good time.

We wanted the CRM switch to be done fast. Asking the different departments for a good time didn't yield any results. Listening to them, there simply was no good time: Trade fairs are all-year round and, asking sales, there is always a hot deal or prospect around. Ultimately, we set a rather arbitrary date and went with it.

Communicating we would move end of May ended in agitation. Noone understood the timing. Sales was busier than ever and support would have to deal with customers visiting the Logimat. One colleague told me at the time: "You couldn't have chosen a worse time!".

Before Christmas I sent around a survey trying to evaluate the project's success. One question read: "How happy were you with the timing of the switch?". The average reply was 4 out of 5, with 5 being "super happy". Noone chose a value below 3. Timing didn't seem so bad after all.

Perfect timing doesn't exist. Neither does perfect planning. Set a date and weather the storm (if it hits you at all). Timing is no problem if your planning and execution are good.

5) Exploration: Give your team the opportunity to experience the system on their own.

You can give people all the workshops in the world. You can have them watch HubSpot academy. Prepare PowerPoint, build cheat sheets...Whatever. I made the huge mistake of thinking that if I show something while the team clicked along, it would make them understand it.

Here's how you get them to actually understand and follow your desired processes:

1. Define the desired outcome and explain the reasoning behind it
2. Give a workshop showing how the desired outcome is to be achieved
3. Build reports that help the team self-correct

Here's an example: With the transition from Pipedrive, we redefined the moment a prospect turns into an opportunity. Technically, this is marked by the creation of a deal in HubSpot. With the new definition, a deal was to be created as soon as its size had been discussed (i.e. number of licenses) and its closing date was forecastable. Meaning, no deal was to exist without associated line items or close date. Deals that miss either, show up in a report that is discussed on a weekly basis.

Following this procedure enabled us to a) control desired outcomes, b) discuss deviations from the desired outcome, allowing us to redefine the process in the first place, and c) have our team members explore the system on their own because they were given direct feedback.

Make your CRM system and its reports the only accepted truth. A meeting that isn't tracked never happened. A deal that isn't booked was never closed. Forecasts that were wrong because deals hadn't been maintained correctly, are missed. Giving your team the ability to self-correct and hold them accountable with shared reports and dashboards. It makes them learn new processes faster than any workshop or cheat sheet could.

Conclusion

Looking back, it is still hard to fathom how successful this project was. Offering a SaaS solution ourselves, I know how time-consuming software introductions can be. Getting all users on board and satisfied with the new system is especially challenging. We switched CRMs in a mere 4 months and had users back to their productivity levels (based on their own subjective assessment) within a month.

Many factors benefited our HubSpot project to be a success: We are a small team, handling data in MA and CRM systems is our business, we already had a CRM in place, and we do not have many additional systems in our IT infrastructure (e.g. ERP or HR).

Nonetheless, no one at snapADDY had worked with HubSpot's Sales or Service Hubs before. Additionally, I didn't have any project management experience, much less any experience with change management.

I'm super proud of our entire team. At times, the switch was chaotic but everyone adapted incredibly fast. Sorry for making this harder than it needed to be.

I'm super thankful for your help, _Marcus _Klapprodt , and your trust, Jochen Seelig .

I hope this piece had some valuable information that will help you with similar projects.