How to Import Your Customer List Into Field Service Software

The spreadsheet has a thousand rows. Some customers are in it twice. One column says "Address" and holds three different kinds of address. There's a column called "NOTES!!" that only Linda understands. And you're about to move all of it into new field service software.

Here's how to import customers into field service software so the first week runs on clean records instead of cleanup.

Why the import is the part to get right

Everything in field service software hangs off the customer record: the jobs, the invoices, the booking requests, the review requests, the maintenance plans. Import duplicates and your techs pick the wrong one. Import bad addresses and the job lands in the wrong town. An hour spent cleaning the spreadsheet saves weeks of fixing records one at a time.

Step 1: Decide what's coming over (and what isn't)

Be clear about what the import is for. A customer import brings over customers and their service locations: names, contact details and addresses. It doesn't bring over job history, open invoices or agreements.

So decide now:

• Coming over: active customers and every place you do work for them
• Leaving behind: customers you haven't served in years. Archive the sheet instead of importing the clutter
• Handled separately: open invoices (finish them in the old system), equipment lists and service history (keep the old export as a reference)

Step 2: One row per what?

Spreadsheets mix two things: the customer (who pays) and the service location (where the truck goes). A property manager with nine buildings is one customer with nine locations, not nine customers.

Decide your rule before cleaning:

• One row per location, with a column that identifies the customer, or
• One row per customer, with extra locations added afterwards

Your software's import template tells you which one it expects. Follow it exactly, and keep its column headers as they are.

Step 3: Clean the spreadsheet before you import it

Duplicates

Sort by phone number, then by email, then by street address. Each sort finds a different kind of duplicate: "Bob Smith" and "Robert Smith" at the same phone number, or the same address with the unit number typed two ways. Merge them in the spreadsheet, where it's one keystroke, not in the software afterwards. This matters more than it sounds, because a company in FSM Navigator can't hold two customers with the same email address or the same phone number. For more on why duplicates happen and how to stop new ones, read duplicate customer records.

Addresses

Split addresses into street, city, state and ZIP columns if the template asks for them. Fix the obvious problems: missing ZIP codes, "St" and "Street" typed both ways on the same road, unit numbers in the wrong column. The USPS addressing standards are the reference for how a US address should be written. A bad address doesn't just look messy. It sends the wrong tech to the wrong place.

Phone numbers and emails

Put each in its own column, one per cell, in one format. Delete "N/A", "none" and "call office". If you plan to send booking confirmations or review requests by email, the email column is worth an extra 20 minutes.

Step 4: Billing address vs. service location

Commercial customers and landlords often get billed at one address and serviced at another. If your spreadsheet has one "address" column, find the customers where those differ and split them. Getting this wrong means invoices going to a tenant, or a tech driving to the property manager's office.

Step 5: Do a test import with a small batch

Take a couple of dozen rows that cover your messy cases: a customer with several locations, a commercial account, a customer with no email, an address with a unit number. Import just those. Then open each record and check it looks the way you expect.

Fix the template or the cleaning rules, remove the test records, and only then import the rest.

Step 6: Import, then spot-check

Import the full list. Then pick ten customers you know well and check them: name, phone, every service location. Check your three biggest commercial accounts by hand.

What to do with everything that didn't come over

• Open invoices: collect them in the old system, or recreate the few that remain by hand
• Service history: keep the old export as a read-only reference until the new system has built up its own history
• Equipment: add it to the customer's location as you visit, or in a separate pass later
• "NOTES!!": read it. Move what matters (gate codes, dog warnings, billing quirks) into the right place on the new record and leave the rest behind

Switching from a spreadsheet stack? The spreadsheets vs. field service software comparison covers what changes beyond the import.

How customer import works in FSM Navigator

FSM Navigator imports customers and their service locations from a CSV file, and one customer can have many service locations. Customer import is on the Pro and Enterprise plans, and Enterprise can also import inventory items and assets by CSV. See pricing for what each plan includes. Once your customers are in, they're the same records your customer management runs on, from the first booking to the invoice.

Once the list is in, the same customer records carry your maintenance plans. Read how to schedule recurring maintenance visits for the next step.