What to check before
choosing a migration vendor

A self-serve demo with your actual records — not a slide deck or a screenshot — is the only way to know what the output looks like before you pay. Any vendor worth trusting will offer this without requiring a sales call first.

Tickets are just the start. Ask specifically about: attachments, internal notes, public comments, users, organizations, tags, custom fields, and ticket statuses. Get a written list of what's included by default vs. what costs extra.

Delta (catch-up) migration syncs records created after the initial migration run. Without it, you either freeze your source system during migration or lose new tickets created in the gap. This is a must-have for any live support operation.

Field mapping should be visible and configurable before the migration runs — not a black box handled by an engineer. You should be able to see exactly how each source field maps to the destination and correct it if needed.

You need a full audit trail: how many records migrated successfully, how many were skipped, and the reason for each failure. Post-migration reports delivered days later are not a substitute for real-time visibility.

Your customer data passes through the vendor's infrastructure. SOC 2 Type II is not a self-assessment — it's an independent audit that confirms security controls actually worked over a sustained period. Ask for the report, not just a claim.

After migration completes, how long does the vendor keep your data on their servers? This directly affects GDPR and CCPA compliance. The retention period should be documented in the ToS or DPA — not just told to you verbally.

If your customers are EU-based, you're required to have a DPA in place with any vendor that processes personal data on your behalf. Ask for it before the project starts — not after.

If the only way to get a price is a discovery call, you have no cost visibility before you're already in the sales process. A transparent pricing calculator lets you estimate cost by record count before any commitment.

Ask for verifiable proof: years in business, number of completed migrations, reviews on third-party marketplaces (Zendesk Marketplace, Freshworks Marketplace, G2, Capterra). A vendor without a public track record is a risk you're taking on yourself.