How to Bring a New Agent's Contacts into Your Brokerage CRM

Why it's usually slow

Every agent hands over something different: a phone's vCard, a Google CSV, a CRM export with dozens of columns. Someone at the brokerage rebuilds each one for your CRM, and mistakes show up later as contacts with no agent, birthdays in the wrong month or past clients merged into another agent's record. Asking every agent for the same columns, checked as they're filled in, turns that into one step.

Where an agent's contacts are, and how to get them out

Their old CRM

The cleanest starting point. In Follow Up Boss, export with Export All Columns, or only the first phone, email and address of each contact comes out. BoldTrail and Lofty only let agents export contacts they own, so leads owned by their old team or brokerage may not come with them.

An iPhone

iPhone contacts export as a vCard (.vcf), not a CSV. On a Mac signed into the same iCloud account, drag the contacts from the Contacts app into Numbers and export as CSV. Otherwise, import the vCard into Google Contacts and export it from there.

An Android phone

In the Contacts app, open the menu, then Manage contacts and Export contacts. That saves a vCard too, which needs converting to CSV, for example through Google Contacts.

Google Contacts

Select the contacts, then Export under More actions and choose Google CSV. Lofty can also pull contacts straight from Google Contacts, by label, without a file.

Which contacts an agent can take with them depends on their agreement with the previous brokerage, not only on what the CRM lets them export. Settle that before the import, not after.

What to ask every agent for

Use your CRM's own columns, so the file imports without rework. Whatever the CRM, ask for these.

First and last name in separate columns

Every email and phone number, one per column

Mailing address split into street, city, state and zip, with zip codes kept as text

How they know the contact (past client, sphere, active buyer or seller), mapped to your CRM's stages

Birthday and last closing date, month first and with the year, for birthday and home anniversary campaigns

Spouse or partner on the same row, where your CRM has columns for them

Where the contact came from, for your source reports

Whether each contact has agreed to email, calls and texts, and anyone who asked not to be contacted

Mistakes that leave contacts unassigned or merged

Contacts already in the brokerage's database stay with someone else

Follow Up Boss merges a contact when the email matches, or the phone number and name both do, and doesn't change the assigned agent or stage of contacts that already exist. Decide who keeps a shared contact before you import, then reassign it by hand.

Contacts arrive with no agent, or the wrong one

BoldTrail doesn't import a lead without an assigned agent's email. Follow Up Boss and Lofty let you choose an agent for the whole import if the file has none, which suits a file from one agent.

Birthdays without a year

Phones often store a birthday with no year. BoldTrail needs a full mm/dd/yyyy date, so keep a yearless birthday in the notes instead of a date column. CSV date formatting guide.

Several numbers or emails in one cell

Some exports, such as Top Producer's, put several numbers in one cell. Split them so each column holds one value; Follow Up Boss splits on a pipe or a new line, but not on commas.

Everything else in one Notes column

Notes are fine for history, but stages, tags and sources in notes can't be filtered or used in campaigns. Give each its own column.

The same person listed twice

Agents' phone and CRM contacts overlap. Remove duplicates in the file first, so the import doesn't merge or skip them unpredictably. CSV duplicate rows guide.

Moving the whole brokerage to a new CRM instead? The guide to moving contacts to a new real estate CRM covers exports, stages, duplicates and consent in Follow Up Boss, BoldTrail and Lofty.

How to collect it

One form for every new agent

Set up a form with your CRM's columns once, and send the same link to each agent who joins. Emails, phone numbers, dates, stages and duplicates are checked while they fill it in.

Let them bring their export

Agents import the CSV from their old CRM or Google Contacts into the form, match its columns to yours, and fix only what's highlighted. Then they download the finished CSV and send it to whoever runs imports, or import it themselves.

Make the agent a dropdown

In your own form, turn the assigned agent column into a list of your agents as your CRM writes them, so every contact lands with the right person. The BoldTrail template and the Follow Up Boss template are a starting point. More for agents and brokerages is on Import Builder for real estate.

Get every agent's contacts in one format

Start from the template for your CRM, adjust the columns, and send each new agent one link. They fix what's highlighted and download a CSV in your CRM's columns. Their contacts are checked in the browser and never stored by us.

Try the BoldTrail template