CRM service
CRM integration
Your CRM connected to the systems that already hold your customer data, with the sync rules decided on purpose rather than by whichever tool happened to write last.
One customer, four versions of the truth
Sales has the deal in the CRM. Finance has the invoice in the accounting system. Support has the ticket in the helpdesk. Marketing has the email history somewhere else again. Each is correct inside its own tool, and none of them agree on the customer’s address, plan or renewal date.
Teams paper over that with exports. Someone pulls a CSV every Monday, someone else pastes it into a sheet, and a report gets built on a snapshot that was stale before it was taken. It holds up until the person who does it goes on holiday, or until two systems disagree in a way that reaches a customer, which is usually how anyone finds out it was fragile.
A good integration is mostly a set of decisions rather than a piece of code. Which system owns each field. What happens when both sides change the same record. Whether data flows one way or both. What happens to a record that fails validation at three in the morning. Settle those and write them down and the connection itself is straightforward. Skip them and you have built a very fast way to spread bad data to more places.
What is included
What an integration engagement covers
A system of record decision
For every shared field, one system wins. Written down, so nobody has to guess later why the CRM address keeps changing back.
Field mapping and transforms
Values translated between systems, including the picklists and date formats that quietly break syncs at the boundary.
Conflict rules
What happens when two systems change the same record in the same window, decided deliberately instead of by whoever writes last.
Native, iPaaS or custom
Built with the platform’s own connector where one is good enough, a tool like Zapier or Make where that fits, and custom code only where it is genuinely warranted.
Error handling and alerts
Failed records go somewhere a person will see them, instead of disappearing into a log nobody reads.
Rate limits and volume
Built to survive your busiest day and the API caps of every platform involved, rather than only an average Tuesday.
Historical backfill
Existing records reconciled at go live, so the connection is not limited to data created after somebody switched it on.
Documentation and monitoring
A written description of what syncs where, plus a check that tells you when it has stopped.
How it runs
How an integration is built
Inventory the systems
What holds customer data today, what already writes into the CRM, and which of those connections nobody remembers setting up.
Decide ownership
Field by field, which system is authoritative and which direction data moves. This is the stage that determines whether the rest works.
Build and test
Built against sandbox accounts using deliberately awkward test records, including the duplicates and the malformed ones.
Backfill and monitor
Existing data reconciled, alerting switched on, and the whole thing documented so a failure is diagnosable by somebody other than me.
CRM integration questions
Can you connect our CRM to a system you have not worked with before?
Usually, if it has an API or a supported export. The first thing I check is what the API actually permits, because vendor marketing and vendor documentation sometimes disagree on that point. If a clean integration is not possible, you will hear that before you pay for one.
Should we use Zapier or build something custom?
Whichever fails less often at your volume. Off-the-shelf connectors are cheaper to run and perfectly adequate for simple mapping. Custom code earns its cost when you need real error handling, high volume, or logic a no-code tool cannot express. Most setups end up using both for different jobs.
Will an integration slow our CRM down?
A well-built one will not. Trouble usually comes from a sync firing on every field change instead of batching, which burns through API limits and gets the account throttled. Designing around those limits is part of the build rather than an afterthought.
What happens when the sync breaks?
It will break at some point, because the other end will change something without telling you. What matters is whether you find out from a monitor or from a customer. Failed records get routed somewhere visible and you get an alert, so it is the first one.
Do you keep supporting it afterwards?
Optional, and billed monthly. Some clients keep me on because platforms change their APIs with little warning. Others take the documentation and handle it internally, which is a reasonable choice and part of why it gets documented.
Make it one record per customer
List the systems you are trying to join up and what keeps going out of sync. You get a written view on the approach that would work.