The Complete Guide to Migrating from Help Scout to Kustomer

Moving from Help Scout to Kustomer is a significant step toward a more unified view of your customer journey.

Making the switch requires careful planning, a bit of technical logic, and a solid understanding of how data flows between these two distinct systems.

Define Your Migration Scope

Before you begin moving data, you need to decide exactly what makes the cut. A successful migration is as much about what you leave behind as it is about what you bring with you.

What to Migrate via the API

Most of your core data will travel through the API to ensure accuracy and speed. This includes your customer profiles, company information, and the full history of your conversations.

Internal notes and file attachments are also supported through API methods, allowing your team to maintain context on complex cases.

Furthermore, your Knowledge Base articles and categories can be migrated programmatically to keep your self-service resources intact.

What to Configure Manually

Some elements are unique to the way Kustomer operates and cannot simply be "mapped" over.

You will need to manually recreate your automation logic, such as workflows and routing rules, because the underlying triggers and branching logic differ between platforms.

Business schedules and specific brand settings also require a manual touch to ensure your service level agreements are calculated correctly from day one.

What to Archive

Not everything needs to live in your new active environment. Historical satisfaction ratings from Help Scout do not have a 1:1 functional map in Kustomer's active survey tool, so these should be archived as custom attributes on the conversation timeline instead of being imported into the satisfaction resource.

You might also take this opportunity to archive old, redundant tags or customers who have not interacted with your brand in several years to keep your new workspace clean.

Prepare Kustomer for Data Import

You must lay the groundwork in Kustomer before the first piece of data arrives. Think of this as setting up the infrastructure so that when your information lands, it knows exactly where to go.

• Define Users and Role Groups: Set up your agents and administrators first so that conversations can be assigned to the correct owners during the import.
• Establish Teams: Recreate your internal departments as Teams in Kustomer to maintain your routing structure.
• Configure Brands: If you manage multiple email signatures or help centers, define your Brands early.
• Create Custom Attribute Metadata: This is arguably the most important step. You must define the "slots" for any custom data coming from Help Scout, such as legacy IDs or specific customer preferences, before you can import that data.
• Set Up Business Schedules: Define your operating hours to ensure that conversation timestamps and metrics are handled accurately.
• Initialize Knowledge Base Structure: Create your Knowledge Base and its associated themes so the articles have a place to live.

Migrate Objects

The order of migration is critical. You cannot link a message to a conversation if the conversation container doesn't exist, and you cannot link a conversation to a customer if the customer profile hasn't been created yet. Follow this logical sequence for a smooth transition.

The Foundational Objects Start by moving your Organizations and Users. In Kustomer, Help Scout Organizations become Companies.

Once the companies are in place, you can import your Customers. It is a best practice to store the original Help Scout Customer ID in an external ID field in Kustomer; this acts as a permanent link between the two systems.

The Knowledge Base Next, move your help content. Help Scout uses a hierarchy of Collections and Categories.

Since Kustomer Knowledge Bases focus on Categories, a common workaround is to turn your Help Scout Collections into top-level Categories in Kustomer and nest the original Categories beneath them.

Once the categories exist, you can migrate the Articles themselves.

The Interaction History Now you can move the bulk of your data. First, create the Conversation containers.

Once these exist, you can begin importing Threads as Messages and internal Threads as Notes. Attachments can be linked to these messages using Kustomer’s attachment resource, which provides a temporary policy for secure file uploads.

Finally, apply your Tags to the conversations to ensure your reporting remains consistent.

Post-Migration Configuration

Once the data migration is complete, you are not quite at the finish line. You need to activate the "brain" of Kustomer to make that data useful.

• Rebuild Workflows: Manually create your automations to handle incoming mail, tag conversations, or notify teams. Use conditional branching to replace Help Scout’s linear workflow logic.
• Establish Queue Rules: Define how new conversations should be distributed to your agents using the Queue and Routing tools.
• Define Routing Criteria: Set the specific conditions that determine which team or agent receives a work item.
• Activate Satisfaction Surveys: Set up Kustomer’s satisfaction tool to begin collecting new feedback on your migrated conversations.
• Configure Saved Searches: Recreate your Help Scout views as Searches so agents can easily navigate their daily tasks.

Insider Secrets

1. Mind the Rate Limits: Kustomer has different rate limits based on your plan. If you are a machine user performing a bulk import, you might hit limits of 300 to 2,000 requests per minute.
2. The importedAt Shortcut: When creating conversations or customers, including an importedAt timestamp in your data body can sometimes bypass standard rate limits, which is a lifesaver during large backfills.
3. KB Versioning is Mandatory: Simply creating an Article isn't enough to make it visible. You must also create a Version for that article to publish the content into the help center.
4. Preserve Timestamps with Admin Roles: If you want to keep the original "created" dates from Help Scout, you must use a token with administrative privileges; otherwise, Kustomer will set the creation date to the moment of import.
5. Audit Logs are Your Safety Net: If something goes wrong during the import, check the organization audit logs to see exactly what events were triggered and where the data flow might have stalled.
6. External IDs are Your Best Friend: Always map the Help Scout ID to an externalId in Kustomer. This makes it incredibly easy to troubleshoot and prevents you from creating duplicate records if you have to run your migration scripts more than once.

Summary

Migrating from Help Scout to Kustomer is more than just a data transfer; it is a transformation of how you manage customer relationships.

By following a strict sequence, from internal users to individual messages, you ensure that every piece of context is preserved.

While the API handles the heavy lifting of historical data, your manual configurations in workflows and routing will define your future success on the platform.

With the right preparation and a few insider tricks, you will be up and running with a comprehensive, unified view of your customers in no time.

If you’d rather focus on your revenue instead of wrestling with mapping sheets and pagination loops, ClonePartner can handle the full migration for you. Every project gets a dedicated engineer who understands the nuances of both APIs and ensures zero downtime.

Further Reading:

• Kustomer
• Help Scout