How Riverside Insights Eliminated 10,552 Duplicates and Built a Custom Hierarchy System in HubSpot

Background

Challenges

• Massive Duplicate Data Problem: With over 10,552 contact and company duplicates, their sales team was wasting hours each day trying to figure out which records were legitimate prospects and which were duplicates, costing them deals because reps couldn't get a clear picture of their pipeline.
• Missing Educational Hierarchy Structure: Riverside works with educational institutions that have intricate hierarchical relationships where schools belong to districts, districts belong to district parents, and faculty members are associated with multiple institutions. But without proper data structure, they couldn't track these relationships or understand their true market penetration.
• Disconnected from NetSuite (their ERP system): Their existing systems weren't talking to each other - they needed a NetSuite integration for their financial operations, but the data mapping was completely disconnected from HubSpot, meaning double data entry, inconsistent information, and zero visibility into their customer journey.
• Complex Migration of their ESGI Business Unit: Riverside had recently acquired another business, ESGI Software, and needed to migrate that entire business into their main HubSpot portal. This had to be done while maintaining data integrity, without losing any historical engagement data, forms, or lead capture mechanisms - a task that required HubSpot Partner expertise, not basic HubSpot Support.

Solutions

Part 1: Data Cleanup and Hierarchy Implementation

• OTF's Data Experts conducted a complete contact duplicate management initiative, processing over 10,552 contact records using advanced matching algorithms based on full name and street address properties.
• To cleanup company records, we implemented a three-tier matching system starting with email domains, then phone numbers, and finally company names with manual review for partial matches.
• Then, we created their educational hierarchy structure. We built custom properties that mirror their industry's natural organization (UPID for District Parent, PARENTPID for District, and PID for School/Building). This allowed them to track relationships from the top-level district Parent Company all the way down to individual schools and faculty members.

Part 2: NetSuite Integration and Field Mapping

• We tackled their NetSuite integration challenge by conducting detailed field mapping for Customer, Address, and Contact record payloads. Our team reviewed every existing HubSpot property and identified exactly which new fields needed to be created to ensure seamless data flow between systems.
• We implemented automated deal engagement migration, transferring 15 calls, 1,144 emails, 65 meetings, and 69 notes from their previous system while maintaining complete historical context for their sales team.

Part 3: ESGI Business Unit Migration and Setup

• Finally, we successfully migrated their newly acquired business unit, ESGI Software's HubSpot instance into their main Riverside Insights HubSpot portal, preserving all historical data while implementing proper business unit segmentation through hidden form fields.
• To optimize their forms, we updated 19 migrated forms with correct business unit tracking, ensuring that every new lead is automatically categorized and routed correctly. This advanced HubSpot Expert configuration eliminated manual processes and improved lead quality scoring.

Optimization Results

1. Eliminated 10,552 Duplicate Contact Records: We processed their entire contact database, identifying and merging duplicates based on advanced matching criteria. This gave their sales team immediate access to clean, accurate prospect information and eliminated the confusion that was slowing down their sales process.
2. Created Hierarchical Company Structure for Educational Market: By implementing our three-tier property system (District Parent > District > School), Riverside Insights can now track market penetration at every level of the education hierarchy. This visibility allows them to identify upsell opportunities and understand their true market share in each region.
3. Successfully Integrated NetSuite Financial Data: Our field mapping and integration work eliminated double data entry between HubSpot and NetSuite. Financial data now flows seamlessly, giving leadership real-time visibility into revenue metrics and customer lifetime value.
4. Migrated Complete ESGI Business Unit Without Data Loss: We preserved 100% of their historical engagement data (1,224 total activities) while implementing proper business unit segmentation. This means they maintained all relationships and context from their acquisition while gaining unified reporting across both brands.
5. Optimized 19 Lead Capture Forms for Business Intelligence: Every form now automatically tags leads with proper business unit classification, enabling precise attribution tracking and ROI measurement for their different product lines and market segments.

What's Next?