Zendesk to Salesforce Migration: A Step by Step Guide

Zendesk in itself is a powerful support tool and works well for many teams. But as support operations grow, some teams start facing limits with reporting, data visibility, and how support connects with sales and customer success. This is where Salesforce Service Cloud becomes a better fit for many businesses. The market is clearly moving toward unified CRM and support systems that give teams a full view of the customer.

This guide will help you understand when it makes sense to move from Zendesk to Salesforce and how to plan and execute the migration step by step without breaking your support operations. At RAAS Cloud, we have helped leading US businesses migrate their support systems to Salesforce and set up clean workflows, data structures, and reporting. This guide shares our practical experience so you can avoid common mistakes and plan your migration with confidence.

Zendesk vs Salesforce Service Cloud: What Changes After Migration

The core difference between Zendesk and Salesforce Service Cloud is how deeply your support system connects with the rest of your business data. Zendesk is built mainly for support teams. Salesforce Service Cloud connects support with sales, account data, product usage, and customer history in one place. This changes how teams work and how decisions are made.

Here is what improves after moving to Salesforce Service Cloud

• Single view of customer across sales and support
• Better reporting across teams
• More control over workflows and automation
• Stronger case routing and SLA management
• Easier scale as support volume grows
• Better visibility for managers and leadership

But migrating to Salesforce Service Cloud is not for everyone. Zendesk is still a strong tool for many teams and works well when support is simple and needs are limited. You might not need a full CRM based support setup right now.

When a migration makes sense

• Your support team needs full visibility into sales and account data
• You want support, sales, and success teams to work from one system
• You have complex workflows that Zendesk cannot handle well
• You need detailed reporting across customer lifecycle
• You plan to scale support operations in the next 12 to 24 months
• You already use Salesforce for CRM

When a migration may not be needed

• Your support workflows are simple and stable
• You do not need deep CRM level reporting
• Your team size and ticket volume are small
• You want to avoid higher setup and admin effort
• Zendesk already meets your current support goals

If you are unsure, it helps to assess your current setup and future plans before deciding. A rushed migration often creates more problems than it solves.

Pre Migration Checklist: What to Audit Before You Move

Before you start the migration, there is a basic audit you need to complete. If you have been using Zendesk for years, there will be a lot of data, workflows, and small custom changes that people often forget about. Missing these early creates issues during migration and after go live.

We have highlighted the key areas you should review before you move.

Current Zendesk setup

Start by documenting how Zendesk is used today. Do not rely on assumptions. Go through the actual setup and list what is active and what is still needed.

Check the following areas

• Tickets
• Users
• Organizations
• Custom fields
• Macros and automations

Understand what is critical to daily operations and what can be simplified or removed during migration.

Data volume and data quality

Review how much data you are planning to move and how clean it is.

Check for

• Duplicate users and tickets
• Incomplete records
• Old and inactive data
• Inconsistent field values

Decide what needs to be migrated, what can be archived, and what should be cleaned before moving to Salesforce. This avoids slow migrations and reporting issues later.

Integrations connected to Zendesk

List all tools connected to Zendesk today. This often includes email, chat, telephony, CRM, billing, and internal tools.

For each integration, check

• Why it exists
• Whether Salesforce already covers this need
• What needs to be rebuilt or replaced
• Who owns and manages the integration

This helps avoid broken workflows after migration.

Reporting dependencies

Review all reports and dashboards that teams use today.

Identify

• What metrics leadership relies on
• What reports support teams use daily
• Which reports are used for compliance or audits

This ensures your Salesforce setup supports the same or better reporting from day one.

Compliance and data privacy needs

Check what data you store in Zendesk and what rules apply to it.

Review

• Customer data types
• Internal notes and attachments
• Retention policies
• Access controls and permissions

Make sure your Salesforce setup follows the same or stronger data protection rules and meets your compliance needs.

Stakeholder alignment

Migration affects support, sales, IT, and leadership.

Before you start, confirm

• Who owns the migration
• Who approves changes
• Who signs off on data and workflows
• Who will be trained first

Clear ownership and alignment reduce delays and prevent scope creep during the migration.

Steps to Migrate From Zendesk To Salesforce Sales Cloud

Now, let us walk through the exact steps to migrate from Zendesk to Salesforce Sales Cloud. These steps will help you plan the move properly, reduce risk during migration, and make sure your support operations continue without disruption.

Before we share the steps, here is a checklist for you to save in order to perform the steps properly:

Step 1: Define Your Salesforce Support Architecture

The first thing you need to do is clearly define how support will work inside Salesforce before you move any data. Make sure you are not trying to copy your Zendesk setup as it is. This step is about designing the right structure for how your team should work going forward.

Focus on the following areas

• How cases will be created and tracked
• How accounts and contacts will be linked to support cases
• What roles and access levels each team needs
• How case ownership and handoffs will work
• How SLAs and escalations should be handled
• How email, chat, and other channels will connect to Salesforce

Document this setup and get sign off from support leads and operations teams. This avoids rework later.

At RAAS Cloud, we help teams design a Salesforce support architecture that fits their current workflows and future scale. This ensures your migration does not just move data but improves how your support operations run.

Step 2: Map Zendesk Data to Salesforce Objects

The next step should be to clearly map how your Zendesk data will move into Salesforce. This avoids data loss, broken relationships, and reporting issues after migration. Do this mapping before any technical work starts and get it reviewed by both support and CRM owners.

Here is a simple mapping you can start with

Zendesk Data	Salesforce Object
Tickets	Cases
Users	Contacts
Organizations	Accounts
Ticket comments	Case comments
Custom fields	Custom fields or custom objects
Tags	Case tags or custom fields
Attachments	Case attachments
Agents	Salesforce users

Adjust this based on how your team uses Zendesk today and how Salesforce is structured for your business.

What to migrate vs what to archive

Not everything in Zendesk needs to be moved to Salesforce. Migrating too much old data makes Salesforce slow and harder to manage.

Migrate

• Active and recent tickets
• Open and pending cases
• Customer and account records
• Data needed for reporting and audits
• Knowledge that support teams still refer to

Archive

• Very old closed tickets
• Outdated users and organizations
• Obsolete custom fields
• Old attachments that are no longer used

Deciding this upfront keeps your Salesforce setup clean and focused. At RAAS Cloud, we help teams define the right migration scope so you move what matters and leave behind what does not add value.

Step 3: Prepare and Clean Your Zendesk Data

To migrate your data smoothly, you will need to prepare and clean your Zendesk records before moving anything into Salesforce. This step reduces errors during import and prevents messy data from entering your new system.

Here are the key checks to complete

• Remove duplicate users and organizations
• Close or archive outdated tickets
• Standardise custom field values
• Fix missing email and contact details
• Review inactive agents and roles
• Validate required fields
• Export test samples for review

RAAS Cloud Tip: Always run a small test migration using a limited set of tickets, users, and accounts after cleaning your data. This helps catch mapping issues, broken relationships, and field format problems early, before you move your full dataset.

Step 4: Execute the Migration (Technical Process)

This is the most critical part of the entire process. Depending on the size of your data, number of integrations, and level of customization, this step can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks. Careless execution here can lead to data loss, broken links between records, and downtime for your support team.

There are three main approaches teams use for migration

• API based migration
• CSV based migration
• Tool based migration

Choose the approach based on your data volume, complexity, and how much historical data you need to move. Large datasets and complex relationships usually require API based or tool based migration.

Once the approach is finalized, plan the execution in phases

• Test migration in a sandbox
• Validate data accuracy and relationships
• Fix mapping and format issues
• Run a second dry run if needed
• Schedule final production migration
• Freeze changes in Zendesk during cutover

At RAAS Cloud, we run staged migrations to reduce risk and avoid downtime for support teams. We also keep rollback plans ready so your operations stay protected during the cutover.

Step 5: Rebuild Automations, Workflows, and SLAs in Salesforce

In Zendesk, many day to day support actions are handled through triggers, macros, and automations. Once the data is moved to Salesforce, these do not carry over automatically. You will need to rebuild them inside Salesforce using case workflows, assignment rules, flows, and SLA rules. This is also your chance to fix what was slow, manual, or messy in the old setup.

You can get better control and visibility in Salesforce if you redesign workflows instead of copying them as is. Here is the approach you can follow

• List all Zendesk triggers, macros, and automations
• Map each one to a Salesforce workflow or flow
• Redesign case assignment and routing rules
• Set up SLA policies and escalation rules
• Add approvals where required
• Test workflows with real case scenarios
• Get sign off from support leads before go live

This step has a direct impact on how fast your team responds and resolves cases. At RAAS Cloud, we review existing workflows and rebuild them in Salesforce with better logic and fewer manual steps.

Step 6: Reconnect Integrations and External Tools

All the integrations that you were using with Zendesk need to be reviewed and reconnected with Salesforce. This is important because broken integrations can slow down support teams and affect daily operations. Email, chat, telephony, billing tools, and internal systems should continue to work without gaps after migration.

At RAAS Cloud, we make sure every critical integration is tested and reconnected properly before go live. Even if some tools were custom built or loosely connected earlier, our Salesforce experts can rebuild and improve those connections. We also help teams set up new integrations if your Salesforce setup needs to connect with additional tools and platforms used across sales, support, and operations.

Step 7: Test, Validate, and Fix Gaps

This is the final step before you go live and one of the most important. You can build everything correctly on paper and still face issues in real use. A few structured test cycles help you catch gaps early and avoid problems for your support team after launch.

Here are some processes that you can do:

• Run focused testing across real support scenarios. 
• Check that data is accurate, cases move through the right workflows, SLAs trigger correctly, and reports show the right numbers. 
• Test with different user roles so access and permissions work as expected. 
• Fix gaps as you find them and repeat testing until core flows work without manual fixes.

At RAAS Cloud, we run user acceptance testing with support leads and agents using real case examples. This ensures the system works for daily operations and not just in theory.

How Long Does a Zendesk to Salesforce Migration Take

The migration timeline depends on your team size, data volume, workflows, and integrations. 

Here is a realistic estimate based on what we see in most projects.

→ For a small support team with simple workflows and basic integrations, the migration usually takes 2 to 3 weeks. This includes setup, data mapping, test migration, and go live.

→ For a mid size support operation with custom fields, multiple workflows, and a few integrations, the migration typically takes 4 to 6 weeks. This covers data cleanup, staged migration, workflow rebuild, testing, and training.

→ For large support teams with high ticket volumes, complex automations, and several integrations, the migration can take 8 to 12 weeks. This includes multiple test runs, phased cutover, user acceptance testing, and post go live support.

If your Zendesk setup has grown over many years with a lot of custom logic and historical data, the timeline can extend further. The more cleanup and redesign you do upfront, the smoother and faster the migration will be.

When to Use a Salesforce Migration Partner

While the steps shared above can help you plan a migration, not every team has the time or in house expertise to execute this safely. This is where Salesforce experts at RAAS Cloud can support you. Migration involves data, workflows, integrations, and user adoption. Getting any of these wrong can disrupt your support operations.

RAAS Cloud is a Salesforce development company with hands-on experience in CRM setup, Service Cloud implementation, data migration, workflow automation, and system integrations. We also offer dedicated Salesforce developers and experts for ongoing Salesforce needs including customization, reporting, automation, and support.

So, if you are planning to migrate your support system from Zendesk to Salesforce, get in touch with RAAS Cloud. We will audit your current setup, define the right migration approach, and manage the complete migration process from planning to go live and post launch support.