It might be every agency’s worst nightmare: a client no longer needs you. However, we all know that there is a natural client lifecycle but it is never nice to no longer be needed. Firstly, we’d recommend congratulating yourself and your team as hopefully the reason the client no longer needs you is that they’ve grown. That they’ve grown their business and part of that is due to the service you’ve provided.
But how do you alert your client to the fact that they’ve outgrown you and keep a positive relationship?
Firstly, what are the signs they might have outgrown you?
If you’re a Digital Director, Head of Development, Operations Director or even MD, then you might not see all the signs that a client is outgrowing you for hosting. It is always worth checking in with your team to see if they are:
- Getting an increasing number of requests from your client
- Spending more time on hosting management than development
- Struggling to action all the hosting/server requests
These are some of the key signs that your client is outgrowing the role you can provide in hosting.
While we’ll leave the client management to experts like yourselves, there are a few things we’d recommend to manage switching ownership of hosting to your client.
Secondly, what can you do to help?
You might already have a process in place for switching ownership of hosting, which is great. But, it might be something that if you’re a growing agency or have a wide mix of clients that you don’t encounter too often. Or if you have a process in place, our advice might be worth considering to see if there is anything that can be added in. Whatever stage you are at you can always talk to us via our live-chat or support desk for advice.
In the meantime though, we’d recommend:
- Reviewing your hosting providers. In our last survey, we found that over half of respondents used two or more hosting providers. Recommending the optimum hosting provider to your client is a great way to add value and continue a positive relationship. Have a look at your hosting providers and see their response time, packages and how they can support a growing client to see who to recommend.
- Investigating affiliate and advocacy. If your client has outgrown you, don’t forget to ask for a testimonial or who they can introduce you to as part of the process. They are your best advocates after all. We’d also recommend investigating affiliation schemes with your hosting providers. They may be getting additional business as a result of the switch and have a kickback for your agency.
- Training. If you’re finding that your team is struggling with the requests coming in then is it worth seeing what opportunities there are for your agency? Is there an opportunity to increase skills through training? If you’re finding you’re transitioning multiple clients direct to hosting providers are you missing a role in your agency? Adding training to bridge any gaps could reduce the amount of times you’re switching clients to talk to a hosting company directly.
Final thoughts from our CEO
Martin, our CEO, highlights that this conversation is likely to happen with more bespoke hosting configurations. He says ‘high availability set-ups are very complex to implement and maintain. We’d recommend starting a conversation with your client talking directly to a host sooner rather than later. It will pay dividends to everyone in the long run’.
If you’re unsure what a high availability set-up might look like or its impact for your agency then talk to us via our live chat or support desk. We’re the human face of hosting and promise to have a person at the end of the chat to talk to you.