The Complete Guide to Migrating from Trengo to Kustomer

Transitioning your customer support operations from Trengo to Kustomer is an exciting step toward building a more integrated and powerful customer experience.

This guide will walk you through the nuances of the migration process to ensure your data arrives safely and your team is ready to hit the ground running.

Define your migration scope

API Migration

The bulk of your historical data will move through the Kustomer API to ensure speed and accuracy. This includes core resources such as Trengo Profiles and Contacts, which will be consolidated into Kustomer Customer records.

Your entire history of interactions, encompassing Tickets, Messages, and internal Notes, can be moved over to maintain a full view of the customer relationship.

Additionally, your self service content from the Trengo Help Center, including Categories and Articles, is best handled through automated scripts.

Manual Configuration

Some elements require a human touch to ensure they align with Kustomer unique structure. 

While you can create Teams and Users via the API, you will need to manually map Trengo permissions to Kustomer specific roles and permission sets.

Static configurations like Business Schedules, the visual look of your Knowledge Base themes, and the specific URL routes for your help articles should be configured manually within the Kustomer interface to ensure they function correctly.

Data for Archiving

Certain data types from Trengo are not suitable for a live migration and should be exported for your internal archives instead.

Aggregate reporting metrics and agent performance histograms from Trengo do not map directly to the real time reporting engine in Kustomer.

For compliance or continuity, it is best to pull these as CSV or PDF files before closing your Trengo account.

Prepare Kustomer for data import

Before you begin moving records, you must set up the destination environment.

• Custom Attribute Metadata: You must define all custom fields for Customers and Conversations in Kustomer before importing data.
• Klass Creation: If you have unique data structures in Trengo, create the corresponding Klasses in Kustomer to house these custom objects.
• Team and User Provisioning: Invite your users and organize them into teams so that ticket ownership can be assigned during the migration.
• Knowledge Base Shell: Create the Knowledge Base container in Kustomer so that categories and articles have a destination.
• Sub Status Definition: Map your Trengo Ticket Results to Kustomer sub statuses to maintain your resolution categorization.

Migrate objects

The migration process follows a strict logical sequence to prevent data errors. If you import a message before its parent conversation exists, the record will fail.

1. Access and Metadata: Start by migrating Teams and Users. This ensures that when you move tickets later, the original agent who handled the case is already recognized by the system. Simultaneously, ensure your Custom Fields are ready to receive data.
2. Self Service Content: Move your Help Center content next. This involves a three tier model: Help Centers, then Categories, and finally Articles. In Kustomer, you will also handle Article Versions and Blocks to mirror any modular content you used in Trengo.
3. Core Customer Data: Trengo "Profiles" are the primary container for contact details. You will migrate these as Kustomer Customers. This is the anchor for everything else on the timeline.
4. The Timeline Migration: This is the most descriptive part of the process. You will bulk create Conversations based on Trengo Tickets. Once the conversation shell exists, you can import the Messages and internal Notes. If a message includes a file, you must handle the Media upload first to generate a URL that Kustomer can display.
5. Labels and Events: Finally, append your Trengo Labels as Tags in Kustomer to keep your organization intact. For specialized data like VOIP call logs or custom channel data, these should be imported as Tracking Events on the customer timeline.

Data Mapping

Post Migration Configuration

Once the data is in, you need to reactivate your logic.

• Workflows: Trengo Journeys must be rebuilt as Kustomer Workflows using the new data model.
• Shortcuts: Organize your Quick Replies into Shortcut Categories for better agent productivity.
• Search Filters: Set up Saved Searches so your agents can find the migrated tickets easily.
• Satisfaction Surveys: Reconfigure your satisfaction forms to match your new branding and response requirements.
• Knowledge Base Routing: Finalize the article routes and custom domains to ensure your public help center is live.

Insider Secrets

1. Bypass Rate Limits with the Import Flag: When creating objects like conversations or messages, include the importedAt field in your payload. This tells Kustomer the data is historical, which significantly relaxes the standard rate limit of 120 creations per minute.
2. The Media Upload Dance: You cannot simply send a file to a message. You must first POST to the media endpoint to get a temporary upload URL, send the file there, and then use the resulting ID in your message creation script.
3. External IDs are Your Best Friend: Always map the Trengo Ticket ID to the Kustomer externalId field. This allows you to run idempotent scripts that won't create duplicate tickets if you have to restart your migration.
4. Customer Update Limits: While conversations have tight limits, Kustomer allows a single customer record to be updated up to 600 times in 10 minutes via the API. Use this to your advantage when consolidating multiple Trengo contacts into one profile.
5. Handling Blocked Extensions: Kustomer will reject certain file types like .exe or .bat. If your Trengo history contains these, your migration script needs a fallback to skip these attachments or they will block the entire message from importing.

Summary

Migrating from Trengo to Kustomer allows your team to leverage a more sophisticated data model and powerful automation tools.

By following the logical sequence of creating metadata and users before importing customers and their timelines, you ensure a clean transition.

While reporting and workflows require manual effort to rebuild, the resulting clarity and control within the Kustomer platform will empower your support organization for years to come.

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
• Trengo