How to Migrate from Zoho and Zendesk to HubSpot

Switching to HubSpot from Zoho and Zendesk can transform your entire business operations. Let’s walk through every technical aspect of this migration, ensuring no data or functionality is lost.

Common Signs It’s Time to Migrate

Your tech stack often reveals when it’s time for a unified solution. Teams juggling multiple platforms encounter increasing friction as their business grows, from disconnected data to manual workarounds. What starts as minor inconveniences eventually evolves into significant operational bottlenecks that impact customer experience and team efficiency. It’s time to consider consolidation when your systems begin fighting against your growth instead of enabling it.

Here are the telltale signs that it may be time to migrate to HubSpot:

• Your teams waste hours switching between systems.
• Customer data lives in disconnected silos.
• Manual data entry has become a daily requirement.
• Marketing campaigns lack service context.
• Sales teams can’t see support interactions.
• Reporting requires multiple system exports.
• Integration costs keep rising.
• Automation workflows frequently break.
• Custom objects don’t sync properly.
• Support teams lack visibility into sales activities.
• Lead scoring ignores service interactions.
• API limitations cause frequent delays.
  

Pre-Migration Planning

A successful HubSpot migration demands meticulous planning. Start by assembling a dedicated migration team and documenting your existing system landscape. Your technical audit should examine every corner of  your current setup — from custom field dependencies to API relationships.

System Architecture Analysis

Document your current tech ecosystem’s architecture. Map out how Zoho’s CRM modules interact with Zendesk’s ticketing system. Examine custom fields, validation rules, and automation triggers. Pay special attention to any middleware solutions connecting your systems. Understanding these connections helps prevent disruption during migration.

Data Structure Review

Examine how your data flows between systems. This means documenting:

Database Architecture

Your existing database structure likely contains years of customization. Review all object relationships, field dependencies, and data validation rules. Note how Zoho handles parent-child relationships between records and how these will translate to HubSpot’s associations.

Integration Mapping

Create a detailed map of your current integrations. Each integration point needs examination:

Timeline Development

Build a realistic migration schedule that accounts for complexity. A typical enterprise migration might span 8-12 weeks, depending on certain factors, and may look like this:

Resource Allocation

Determine who handles specific aspects of the migration. Your team needs:

• Technical lead for API configuration
• Data analyst for mapping validation
• System admin for user setup
• Department heads for workflow approval
• End-user representatives for testing

Testing Strategy

Develop a comprehensive testing plan. Include the following:

• Unit testing for data migration scripts
• Integration testing for connected systems
• User acceptance testing for workflows
• Performance testing for automation
• Security testing for data access

This strategic groundwork ensures your migration proceeds smoothly while maintaining business continuity throughout the transition.

What You Need to Migrate

A successful migration also requires a meticulous inventory of your entire digital ecosystem. Zoho and Zendesk contain years of valuable data, custom configurations, and evolved workflows that power your daily operations. This isn’t just about moving data – it’s about preserving the intelligence and functionality you’ve built while ensuring nothing gets lost in translation. Your migration scope encompasses everything from essential records to complex automation, each requiring careful handling to maintain business continuity.

Here are the critical components you’ll need to migrate, with each requiring a migration strategy:

• Build a complete inventory of all contact and company records, including custom fields, validation rules, and hierarchical relationships that define your customer data structure.
• Document every sales pipeline configuration, including custom deal stages, probability settings, and automatic field updates that drive your revenue operations.
• Map out all marketing automation workflows, including lead scoring models, campaign triggers, and personalization rules that power your customer engagement.
• Catalog your entire service infrastructure, including ticket workflows, macros, and automation rules that maintain customer support quality.
• Identify all custom objects and their relationships, from product catalogs to contract templates, ensuring complex data structures remain intact.
• Review all knowledge base articles, internal documentation, and support resources, including their categorization and access permissions.
• List every integration touchpoint, from email marketing platforms to accounting software, documenting their data flow and dependencies.
• Compile all email templates, saved responses, and communication snippets, including their merge fields and conditional logic.
• Document every custom report, dashboard, and analytics configuration that teams rely on for decision-making.
• Catalog all file attachments and their relationships to records, ensuring no historical documentation gets orphaned during transfer.

Common Migration Mistakes to Avoid

Migrating multiple systems to HubSpot introduces complex technical challenges that can derail even the most carefully planned transitions. The interconnected nature of CRM data and differences in how each platform handles core functionality create potential failure points throughout the migration process. Understanding these challenges early helps you build appropriate safeguards and contingency plans for your migration strategy, preventing costly delays and data issues.

Here are the critical pitfalls to watch for and actively prevent during your migration:

• Account for timeline data fragmentation, as historical activities often lose context during migration, requiring custom scripts to preserve the complete interaction history, including email threads, call logs, and internal notes.
• Navigate property limitations strategically by identifying complex Zoho formulas or Zendesk custom fields that exceed HubSpot’s standard capabilities. Then, develop alternative solutions using calculated properties or workflow automation.
• Carefully manage API credentials, OAuth refresh tokens, and webhook configurations throughout the migration process to prevent authentication disruptions and ensure continuous data flow between systems.
• Monitor integration dependencies closely, particularly for custom objects that maintain relationships with multiple standard objects, as these connections often require special handling during migration.
• Address workflow timing issues proactively by analyzing trigger conditions and dependencies in both source systems, then recreating them in HubSpot with appropriate safeguards against unintended cascade effects.
• Manage user permission transitions carefully by mapping complex role hierarchies from both systems to HubSpot’s permission structure while maintaining appropriate data access controls.
• Systematically handles data type mismatches by identifying fields where Zoho or Zendesk handles data differently than HubSpot and creates appropriate transformation rules.
• Plan for API rate limit management by building intelligent throttling into your migration scripts and establishing monitoring systems to prevent workflow disruptions.

Data Mapping Strategy

Creating a comprehensive data mapping strategy requires a deep understanding of your current systems and HubSpot’s architecture. Your Zoho and Zendesk instances contain years of customized fields, complex relationships, and intricate automation requiring careful translation. Proper mapping isn’t just about moving data — it’s about preserving the intelligence and functionality you’ve built into your current setup while taking advantage of HubSpot’s enhanced capabilities. Let’s break down the critical components of your mapping strategy:

Technical Migration Steps

The technical execution of your migration requires careful orchestration of data movement, API handling, and system configuration. Before writing a single line of migration code, you must understand all three platforms’ API limitations and authentication requirements. HubSpot’s API implements stricter rate limiting than Zoho or Zendesk, which means building intelligent handling into your migration scripts. This includes implementing exponential backoff strategies and carefully monitoring your API quota consumption throughout the process.

Your migration architecture needs to account for data volume and relationships. Consider building a queueing system that can handle millions of records while maintaining referential integrity. This means implementing proper error handling, logging, and rollback capabilities at each step. 

Core Technical Components

API Authentication Setup

• OAuth2 implementation for each platform
• Token management and refresh logic
• Security certificate configuration
• IP whitelist management
• Rate limit monitoring systems

Data Migration Infrastructure

• Scalable database staging environment
• Error logging and monitoring tools
• Data validation frameworks
• Rollback procedures
• Progress tracking mechanisms

Migration Sequence and Considerations

Start with your foundation – contact and company records. These form the base of your CRM and require careful deduplication strategies. Build validation rules to ensure data quality during import, including email format verification and phone number standardization.

Next, move to dependent objects like deals and tickets. This phase requires maintaining relationship integrity while handling complex custom fields and stage histories. Your migration scripts need to preserve the complete timeline of status changes, owner assignments, and associated activities.

System Setup Requirements

Database Configuration

• Character encoding standardization
• Index optimization for large data sets
• Temporary staging tables
• Backup and restore points
• Performance monitoring tools

Integration Framework

• Webhook endpoint configuration
• Custom API middleware setup
• Data transformation layer
• Error notification system
• Sync status monitoring

Finally, reconstruct your automation rules and workflows. This requires careful testing to ensure trigger conditions match your previous logic exactly. Build comprehensive test scenarios that validate each automation path before enabling them in production.

Migration Best Practices & Tips

Successful migrations demand more than technical expertise — they require a structured approach to testing, validation, and team preparation. Before moving your production data, establish a comprehensive testing framework that validates every aspect of your migration plan. Your staging environment should mirror your production setup as closely as possible, allowing you to identify and resolve potential issues before they impact your business operations. This methodical approach helps prevent data loss, maintains system integrity, and ensures your team can continue serving customers throughout the transition.

Here are the critical best practices we’ve learned from managing hundreds of complex migrations:

• Set up a complete staging environment that mirrors your production system exactly, including all custom properties, workflows, and integrations that will be part of your final implementation.
• Implement a robust testing protocol that validates data integrity across all objects. Before migrating, ensure that phone numbers maintain proper formatting and that email addresses pass validation requirements.
• Create detailed rollback procedures that can quickly restore your systems to their pre-migration state if unexpected issues arise during any transition phase.
• Before beginning the migration, document every customization, integration, and workflow in your current systems, including screenshots and process flows that can serve as references during recreation.
• Establish clear communication channels between technical teams and business users, ensuring everyone understands their role in testing and validation throughout the migration process.
• Develop a comprehensive training program that includes hands-on practice in your staging environment. This will allow teams to familiarize themselves with new workflows before the production cutover.
• Build automated validation scripts to quickly compare record counts, field values, and relationship integrity between your source and target systems.
• Maintain detailed logs of all migration activities, including any data transformations, field mapping decisions, and configuration changes made during the process.

Setting Up Your New HubSpot Infrastructure

Building your HubSpot environment requires thoughtful architecture and consideration — especially depending on which HubSpot platform and associated processes you are working with. Consider these ideas for Marketing, Sales, and Service Hubs:

Marketing Hub Implementation

Your marketing infrastructure requires careful reconstruction to leverage HubSpot’s unified platform capabilities. Moving from Zoho’s marketing tools means rebuilding your lead nurturing engine while incorporating valuable behavioral data that was previously scattered across multiple systems. The key is creating a more sophisticated marketing engine that uses HubSpot’s native integrations with sales and service data.

Essential Marketing Hub Components

• Configure lead scoring models that incorporate explicit data points from Zoho and implicit behavioral signals from customer interactions, including service history that was previously isolated in Zendesk.
• Build comprehensive campaign architectures that automatically segment audiences based on sales pipeline status and customer service history, ensuring more targeted marketing efforts.
• Establish marketing automation workflows that trigger based on combined data points from both sales activities and support interactions, creating more personalized customer journeys.
• Develop robust form strategies that include progressive profiling while maintaining all custom fields previously spread across your tech stack.
• Create email templates and sequences that leverage HubSpot’s smart content capabilities to adjust dynamically based on sales stage and service history.

Sales Hub Configuration

Transitioning your sales operations means rebuilding your pipeline with enhanced visibility into both marketing and service activities. This unified view lets sales teams access customer service history and marketing engagement data directly within their deal records, enabling more informed conversations and strategic outreach.

Vital Sales Hub Elements

• Design custom deal pipelines that incorporate traditional sales stages from Zoho and relevant service milestones previously tracked in Zendesk.
• Establish automated deal rotations and assignment rules that account for both sales territory mapping and customer support history.
• Create sequence templates that automatically adjust based on previous support interactions and marketing engagement levels.
• Implement deal stage automation that triggers based on both sales activities and service interactions, ensuring deals progress appropriately.
• Configure custom sales properties that display relevant support history and marketing engagement directly within deal records.

Service Hub Setup

Your service infrastructure demands precision in maintaining support quality while enhancing capabilities. The goal is to preserve your team’s efficient workflows while adding value through integrated sales and marketing data. This means carefully mapping your current support processes while identifying opportunities for enhancement through HubSpot’s unified platform.

Key Service Hub Foundations

• Develop ticket pipelines that mirror your existing Zendesk workflow while incorporating sales stage awareness and marketing engagement history.
• Build knowledge base structures that directly connect relevant sales collateral and marketing content to support articles.
• Create automated ticket routing rules that consider both customer status in the sales pipeline and previous marketing interactions.
• Establish service level agreements that dynamically adjust based on deal stage, customer tier, and marketing program participation.
• Configure customer feedback workflows that automatically trigger based on both support interactions and significant sales or marketing events.

Case Study: Ensemble Travel’s Migration Success

Ensemble Travel’s migration, successfully completed by our team, showcases the complexity of multi-system consolidation. Their initial challenge involved three disconnected systems: Zoho managing their partner relationships and marketing, Zendesk handling support tickets for multiple travel agencies, and Smartsheets tracking inventory and projects.

The transformation began with data normalization. They standardized contact records across systems, merging duplicate partner agencies and consolidating interaction histories. Their custom objects for travel packages needed careful reconstruction in HubSpot, preserving relationships with both agencies and end customers. 

The real triumph came in automation rebuilding. Previous manual processes, like updating inventory across spreadsheets or notifying partners of marketing campaign results, became streamlined workflows in HubSpot. Their support team’s response time improved through unified access to customer data, while sales teams gained visibility into service interactions.

We also built custom HubSpot solutions to go along with their new consolidated tech stack, which you can read about here: From 3 Disconnected Systems to 1: Building a Custom Inventory Management Solution & More for Ensemble Travel.

Want to Transform Your Business?

Moving to HubSpot requires technical expertise and careful planning, but the resulting unified system provides unprecedented operational efficiency. 

Our team at Lynton specializes in complex migrations, bringing technical depth and practical experience to ensure your transition succeeds. Reach out today if you’re ready to start your migration project.