An import is where most CRM projects quietly fail. We take your customer, site and equipment records from wherever they live today, clean them, match them to the correct service address and load them so that reminders, history lookups and reports work from day one.
What the service includes
The import covers four kinds of data, each handled differently.
- Customers. Names, phones, emails, billing addresses, contact preferences and source where known. Phone numbers are standardised to one format so call tracking can match them.
- Service sites. Many customers have more than one: a rental, a cottage, a parent's house. Equipment belongs to the site, not the person, so sites become their own records.
- Equipment. Type, fuel, brand, model, serial, approximate install year and warranty notes. Free-text notes such as "furn 2014 lennox basement" get parsed into fields where the meaning is clear.
- History. Past visits, agreements and quotes. Recent, useful history imports as records; older history may go in as attached summaries to keep the new system fast.
We also produce a short data dictionary so your team knows what each imported field means.
Who it's for
This suits any HVAC company moving to a new CRM, merging two systems after an acquisition, or replacing a spreadsheet that has grown into a database. Signs you need help:
- the same customer appears several times with different spellings;
- equipment is recorded in notes, not fields;
- you can't produce a list of every furnace older than 15 years;
- maintenance agreement dates live in a separate spreadsheet.
The more years of history you have, the more a careful import is worth.
How the import runs
- Inventory. We list every source: software exports, spreadsheets, accounting contacts, agreement lists. We note the row counts and what each column means.
- Mapping. Each source column is matched to a field in your CRM blueprint. Anything that doesn't fit is either dropped by agreement or attached as a note.
- Cleaning. Addresses are normalised (street type, unit numbers, postal code format), phones are standardised, and obvious junk rows are removed.
- De-duplication. Records are matched across sources. Clear matches merge automatically; borderline ones go on a review list.
- Test load. A sample, often a few hundred records, goes into the CRM first. Your office spot-checks it against the old system.
- Full load and reconciliation. Everything loads, then we compare counts: customers, sites, equipment and agreements in versus out.
Project length depends mostly on how many sources you have and how messy they are. Your proposal lists the phases and dates.
How success is measured
A good import is invisible: people simply find what they search for. We check it with numbers:
- record counts reconcile between the old sources and the new system;
- duplicate rate on a random sample after the load;
- share of active maintenance customers with at least one equipment record;
- share of equipment with an install year, which drives replacement and reminder timing.
What we need from you
An import moves fastest when a few things are ready before we start:
- admin access, or a temporary user, in the old system so exports can be pulled in full;
- one person in your office who knows the history and can answer "is this the same customer?" questions;
- a list of active maintenance agreements, even if it is a spreadsheet;
- a decision on how far back history should go, such as the last five or seven years as full records and older work as summaries.
Mistakes to avoid
- Importing before the blueprint exists. You end up moving junk into tidy new fields.
- Treating the customer as the site. Landlords and multi-property owners get their equipment mixed up.
- Bringing over every old status. Fifteen legacy job statuses become five agreed ones, or the new system inherits the old confusion.
- Skipping the test load. Ten minutes of spot-checking can catch a column mapped to the wrong field.
- Leaving export files in personal inboxes. Customer lists are personal information; store and delete them deliberately.
The equipment history import guide shows the cleaning rules step by step. Once records are in, the maintenance reminders service can start using agreement and install dates. Questions about scope go on the contact page.
Frequently asked questions
What can you import from?
Usually exports from old dispatch or field-service software, accounting software, spreadsheets and contact lists. If the old system can produce a CSV or spreadsheet export, we can work with it. Paper records can be included if someone keys them in or scans them first.
How do you handle duplicate customers?
We match on several signals at once: normalised address, phone number, email and name. Likely duplicates are merged by rule, and uncertain ones go on a review list your office confirms before anything is loaded.
Will we lose our old job history?
Not if we plan for it. Some history imports as structured records, and some is better attached as a summary note or file. We agree up front which is which, and you keep the original exports.
What about privacy?
Customer records are personal information under Canadian privacy law. We work inside your accounts, keep copies of exports only as long as the project needs them, and agree in writing how files are handled and deleted.