DumpsterBossPro Blog — Quotes & Booking

Moving Your Customer List Into Dumpster Booking Software With a CSV Import

The biggest reason roll-off companies put off switching to booking software is the fear of retyping everything. Years of customers live in a spreadsheet, an old program, a phone's contacts and the owner's memory. The good news is that most of it can come in with a CSV import, and the work is mostly cleanup, not typing.

After Reviewing Your Open Dumpster Quotes and Orders Every Week, this guide covers getting your existing customers into DumpsterBossPro so your first booking starts from a full list.

Start With What You Have

Gather your customer data wherever it lives: a spreadsheet, an export from your old software, your accounting records, even your phone's contacts. You do not need it to be perfect yet. The goal of this step is to get everything into one spreadsheet you can clean up.

DumpsterBossPro supports CSV import, so whatever format your data starts in, the target is a clean spreadsheet saved as CSV.

Look at what each source actually contains before you combine them. Your old software might have addresses but outdated phone numbers. Your phone contacts might have the best numbers but no addresses. Merging the best of each into one row per customer is where most of the work goes.

Clean Before You Import

Cleaning is where the real value is. Remove duplicates: the same contractor entered three times with slightly different spellings. Fix phone numbers so they are complete and consistent. Make sure each customer has a name, a mobile number and an email if you have one.

Mobile numbers matter most, because texting is how quotes, confirmations and on-the-way messages reach customers. A list full of office landlines will not get your texts.

Delete the customers you will never serve again: the contractor who went out of business, the tire kicker from three years ago, the duplicate test entries. A smaller, cleaner list is far more useful than a big one full of dead records that clutter every search.

Separate people from businesses where you can. A contractor company and the superintendent who orders for it are both useful to know, and knowing which is which makes the account setup easier.

Decide How to Handle Contractors

Contractors with multiple job sites need some thought. In DumpsterBossPro, a customer can have multiple job sites. Decide which contractors to set up as accounts with sites, and which job addresses are still active. There is no need to bring in every address from five years ago.

Focus on the contractors who order regularly. Getting those accounts right before you go live makes the first weeks much smoother, because those are the customers who will call first.

For each active contractor site, note what you already know: where the can usually goes, gate codes, the superintendent's number. Adding those notes during setup means the first order after the switch goes out with the same detail your drivers are used to, instead of starting from scratch.

Import, Then Check

After the import, spot-check. Look up a few regular customers and make sure their names, numbers and addresses came through correctly. Look for odd characters or columns that ended up in the wrong place. Fixing a mapping problem now is easier than fixing it one customer at a time later.

Then do a test booking for a real customer: build a quote, send it to your own phone, approve it and make sure it lands on the Waiting List. That walk-through tells you more than any checklist.

Do the same with a contractor account and a second job site. If the site picks up the right address and the order lands in the right place on the map, your structure is right.

Bring Over What Is Active

Rentals currently out in the field need to be in the new system before you switch over. Enter active rentals so their days, sites and dumpster details are tracked from day one. Otherwise, extra days and pickups on those cans fall between the old system and the new one.

Pick a switch-over date, ideally a quieter week, and tell your team. From that date, every new call becomes a lead in the new system. Running two systems in parallel for long leads to confusion about which one is correct.

Start Booking From a Full List

When the import is done, the person answering the phone can look up a repeat customer in seconds instead of starting from scratch. Quotes go out with the right contact information, and repeat customers can be invited to the customer app.

For how your customer list connects to quotes, orders and dispatch, see Dumpster Rental Quote & Booking Software. Next, a look at what dumpster booking software should cost.