What Should You Check Before Importing Customers From Your Old CRM?
Check three things before you import: phone numbers and emails that appear on many different people, what each record's status really was, and whether dates will survive the move. Most switching problems are not missing data. They are placeholder details and flattened history that quietly turn separate customers into one record.
Why do customers get merged together during an import?
Because most imports match records by phone number or email, and old systems are full of placeholder values. When a walk-in would not give a number, someone typed the store's main line to get past a required field. Import that file and every one of those walk-ins looks like the same person.
It is standard practice across the industry, and nobody did anything wrong. Required fields get filled with whatever is closest to hand. The dealership's own number, a row of the same digit, a made-up email address. Years later those values sit on hundreds of unrelated customers.
The quick test is to sort your export by phone number and look for repeats. Any number sitting on four or more different names is almost certainly a placeholder. The same goes for emails on the store's own domain attached to customer records.
What happens to lost leads when you switch systems?
In many imports, they stop being lost. A file of past customers gets loaded as a list of buyers, so every row becomes a sold deal, including the people who never purchased. Your new system then shows sales that never happened and loses the reason each of those customers walked.
This is the most expensive mistake in a migration because it is invisible on day one. Reports look healthy. Then someone runs a win-back campaign to past buyers and half the list never bought a car from you. The status column in the old export is the fix, if the import reads it.
A sold customer, a lost lead, and an open lead need three different outcomes. Sold becomes a delivered deal. Lost stays lost, with its reason. Anything else is still a live opportunity someone should be working.
Which dates should you verify after an import?
Verify sold dates, delivered dates, and lost dates on a handful of records you know personally. The common failures are dates shifting by a day because of a time zone conversion, and unreadable dates being replaced with the day of the import. Both make history look like it happened this week.
A sale stamped with the import date wrecks every time-based report you own. Your best month ever becomes the month you switched software. An empty date is honest. A wrong date is not, and it is much harder to find later.
How does bkd.ai handle an import from another system?
bkd.ai's import flags placeholder phone numbers and emails before anything is saved, including values the file puts on several different people. Those rows save under the customer's name alone, so nobody is merged. Each row's status decides the outcome: sold, lost with its reason, or an open lead.
You can map the old system's customer ID, so running the same file again updates records in place and never doubles a sale. Dates are read in the dealership's own time zone, and a date that cannot be read is left blank.
After the import, bkd.ai suggests a possible match when a name-only walk-in and a contact with full details share the same full name. A person decides whether to merge them or dismiss the suggestion. It is never done automatically on a name.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find placeholder phone numbers in my customer list?
Sort the export by phone number and look for any number attached to several different names. The dealership's main line, a desk extension, and numbers made of one repeated digit are the usual ones. Do the same for email addresses, especially any on your own store's domain.
Should I import lost leads into a new system at all?
Yes, as long as they arrive as lost leads. They are the list you revive later, and the reason each one walked is worth keeping. The risk is not importing them. The risk is importing them as buyers, which inflates sales history and confuses every campaign built on it.
Can I run the same import file twice?
Only if the import can recognise records it has already created. Mapping the old system's customer ID makes that possible, because each row can be matched to the contact it produced last time. Without it, rows that have no phone or email cannot be recognised and will be created again.