A four-week CRM rollout: decide the model, migrate the active set, move the enquiry channels, then retire the old system.
Week 1: Decide the model
Before touching any data
- Write down your pipeline stages and each entry condition. Six or fewer.
- Write down your application stages. Five or fewer.
- Decide what makes a student active. This defines the migration set.
- Decide which counsellor owns which students.
- Agree the fields you will actually fill in. Every optional one is a future argument.
Week 2: Migrate the active set
Data
- Clean the spreadsheet first: deduplicate, split combined fields, standardise dates and country names.
- Import active students with contact and parent details.
- Add open applications only, each with university, stage and deadline.
- Enter outstanding payments. Skip settled history.
- Spot-check ten records against the source. If something is systematically wrong, fix the import, not the records.
The detail behind this week is in moving from spreadsheets to a CRM.
Week 3: Move the inputs
Where new work arrives
- Publish your registration form and link it from your website, Instagram bio and email signature.
- Switch off the old enquiry form so nothing lands in two places.
- Add team members and set their roles.
- Book the recurring weekly review in everyone's calendar.
- Log every new session in the CRM from this week. No exceptions.
Week 4: Retire the old system
The switch
- Set a date after which the spreadsheet is read-only, and rename it so everyone can see that.
- Run one week in parallel, not three. Long parallel periods leave both systems incomplete.
- Review the overdue and no-next-action lists together as a team.
- Confirm you can export your data, while you still have an alternative.
- Write down the three things the team keeps getting wrong, and fix the setup instead of repeating the training.
What tends to go wrong
| Symptom | Usual cause |
|---|---|
| Nobody updates the board | Too many stages, or stages that do not match how the work moves |
| Two versions of the truth | The old spreadsheet is still editable |
| Data looks wrong after import | Mixed date formats, or combined fields not split before export |
| New enquiries still get missed | The enquiry channels were never repointed |
Still choosing a system rather than rolling one out? Start with the CRM buyer's guide.
Run week one for free
The free plan covers 10 students, enough to test the model before you migrate anything.