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by Sawyer Klein on November 2022
Without a dedicated administrator on hand, marketing and sales teams typically avoid dealing with sync errors in the HubSpot Salesforce integration. Why? Fixing sync errors often seems difficult or confusing, and it seems easier to push them aside for the next person to deal with.
But we often fail to realize that just one field not syncing on a record will block the entire record from syncing between HubSpot and Salesforce. So, if there’s a mismatch in one field type, it takes a second for hundreds or thousands of contacts can stop syncing between HubSpot and Salesforce — until the error is fixed.
In reality, it usually takes less than 10 minutes to resolve sync errors in the HubSpot Salesforce integration.
All you need is HubSpot and Salesforce Administrator access (you’ll always need HubSpot — and usually, you’ll need Salesforce as well since you’ll need to resolve most issues in Salesforce, or you need visibility into Setup in Salesforce to resolve them) and a working knowledge of the types of sync errors that happen in the integration. Plus, you’ll need to devote 10-15 minutes per day to monitor and address sync errors as they happen.
Sounds simple, right?
If that’s not enough to convince you to deal with your sync errors ASAP, here are three consequences of ignoring them.
3 consequences of ignoring your HubSpot Salesforce sync errors
Poor customer experience
As you know, the inbound methodology is *all about* customer service. So much so that we recently talked about how each team in your company can improve your customers’ experience — and ignoring your sync errors goes directly against that.
A sync error can block a record from updating in Salesforce, which may result in your team missing an incoming lead notification, which can cause you to miss a sale. Or it may mis-trigger automations in HubSpot, sending your contact information they don’t need or want. None of this would occur if vital data from Salesforce synced back to HubSpot.
For example, let’s say a new lead comes in and syncs through to Salesforce. Then, a HubSpot workflow updates a value on the lead that causes a sync error with Salesforce.
An automation in Salesforce indicates if a Lead is associated with an existing account. Then, Salesforce sends that information back to HubSpot. But, because of the sync error, HubSpot will not receive that information and that customer will be enrolled in an intro series for net-new contacts.
Now, you’ve created a poor customer experience that could have been prevented with 10 minutes of Sync error maintenance.
Reporting integrity
Marketing and sales teams use reports to inform business decisions like budgets, hiring, and resource allocation. And, reports rely on the integrity of the data in your system.
If your records are not syncing correctly between HubSpot and Salesforce, your reports are based on faulty data. Meaning, the business decisions you make based on this data are relying on a faulty foundation as well.
Imagine the following scenario:
You’ve been asked to present an analysis showing how likely your existing customer base is to sign up for webinars your company offers.
Pulling data from HubSpot, you filter a report to show how many registrants for a recent webinar were customers compared to the volume of customers in your database and compared to the total count of registrants. Your results show that 20% of registrants are customers, and 2% of all customers are registering for webinars.
Because of your findings, the team chooses to stop investing in webinar creation. But, in reality, the majority of your database is comprised of existing customers, and that data hasn’t synced back from Salesforce due to a sync error with Opportunities and HubSpot deals.
Your decision to eliminate the value-added webinars brings a 25% increase in customer churn. And, you don’t know why it happened — because it contradicts the false data used to inform the decision.
Marketing and sales alignment
Marketing and sales teams both rely on the data in their respective systems to complete their jobs. Without accurate data in both HubSpot and Salesforce, marketers and sales professionals may not be providing the best experience to the people in your database.
For example, if a customer purchased a specific product, but it doesn’t reflect in HubSpot due to a sync error, marketing may enroll that contact in a nurture series designed to sell a product they already have.
How to manage sync errors
By now, it’s clear that monitoring sync errors is essential for the health of your HubSpot Salesforce integration — so how do we do this?
The first step is to set up sync error alerts. To do this, navigate to the HubSpot Salesforce integration under Settings > Integrations > Connected Apps > Salesforce.
Click “Manage notifications.”
Choose instant, daily, or weekly notifications. Then, block time on this cadence to address sync errors.
Easy peasy.
Empower your team to manage your HubSpot Salesforce integration
At Coastal, we believe that every team is fully capable of managing their HubSpot Salesforce integration. So we made it a mission to equip your team with the tools they need to take matters into their hands and remove the need for expensive third-party admins.
Enroll in our HubSpot Salesforce integration course. 8 modules covering all things HS SF. Module 6 is a deep dive into each type of sync error.