Ready for a better web designer? Whether it’s due to a lack of follow-up, bad communications, or poor workmanship, ending an engagement with an agency is a high-risk event. Not everyone remains professional, and when the time comes, an unethical web team can do some serious damage to your brand: they can delete your website, disrupt your hosting services, wipe valuable records, and even hijack your paid and social media accounts.
Scary stuff, but the good thing is you can reclaim what’s yours before things get out of hand. Here’s a reminder checklist covering contracts, credentials, the handover process, and last resorts to ensure a smoother transition.
Step 1: Carefully Review Your Contracts
First and foremost, review your Master Services Agreement (MSA) and Statement of Work (SOW). They include your exit clause and termination details, such as the official notice type, the termination reason, the number of days’ notice, penalties, and ownership rights. If your relationship with your current web team is good, you might be able to negotiate a clean exit. We’re not legal experts, so please consult with an attorney to ensure compliance with the contract terms. With a clear path to terminating your contract, the next step is to reclaim ownership of all your website services.
Step 2: Reclaim Access Credentials to Your Website and Other Services
If your web designer has full ownership of your website, you’ve got a ton of work to reclaim everything. You’ll need to know what services to look for, and a web design agency has tools to help you do so.
Let’s review seven services that you’re likely using below. As you review them, note their threat levels:
- Critical threat – replacing it is a huge lift and extremely costly. Abuse of it will hurt your digital brand.
- Medium threat – it can be replaced but requires some effort. Abuse of it can hurt your digital brand.
- Minor threat – it can be easily replaced. Abuse of it will do little to no damage to your digital brand.
1. Website & Server Access
CMS Credentials (WordPress, Shopify, etc.)
- A content management system (CMS) controls everything UI-related on your website. It stores all your copy, video, and image content. Losing access to it means you’ll have no way of managing what people see on your website.
- Critical threat
Code Repository (GitHub, BitBucket etc.)
- If your site doesn’t use a CMS, chances are it exists as a source code file somewhere. Locate your local copy or reclaim access to it online through the code repository service.
- Critical threat
SSH Security Keys
- Allows access to your web server and is critical for web development teams to manage it. The issue with an SSH key is that once shared, it can be used to access your server at any point. You can either swap servers or, as permitted, reset the server’s SSH key.
- Critical threat
Cloud Credentials (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, etc.)
- The cloud houses all of your digital services: hosting, files, domain, and CDN configurations. It’s almost impossible to recover your cloud credentials if the root or primary email of the account is under their name, unless legal is involved. We’ve seen it might take months before anything is done.
- Critical threat
2. Tracking and Analytics
Google Analytics
- Retain ownership to keep your historical data and ensure tracking continuity. If you lose access, it’s not the end of the world. You just won’t be able to recover historical data, but you can still reimplement Google Analytics to capture data moving forward.
- Medium threat
Google Tag Manager
- Google Tag Manager (GTM) sends event data to third-party services. It can be configured to trigger Microsoft Clarity, Google Ads, and other third-party services for your website. If access is lost, GTM can be integrated with your website fairly easily.
- Minor threat
3. Advertising Accounts
Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and More
- Losing access means losing valuable campaign parameters and data for future ads. Although losing this data is painful, an experienced digital marketing agency can set your ads up again in a matter of days on a different account. You’ll need to be patient, though; your ads will need to relearn PPC algorithms, which can take days to months. Just make sure to report the lost account to your advertiser and block any charges from it.
- Medium threat
4. Social Media Accounts
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok
- An angry web team can delete posts, engage with customers maliciously, change passwords, or disrupt customer engagement. If you lose access to your social media accounts, you can consult legal channels to disable and reclaim them.
- Critical threat
5. Business Listings & Local SEO
Google Business Profile (Google My Business) and Similar Profile Pages
- A Google Business Profile is critical for all businesses to establish a local presence. If you don’t already own your profile, reach out to Google for help reclaiming and protecting it from abuse. Sometimes all it takes is for you to respond to their postcard.
- Critical threat
Yelp, Clutch, Yellow Pages, Chamber Listings
- Similar to social media and Google, you’ll want to prevent abuse of your brand and to ensure they’re still supporting your SEO. Reclaim these local listing accounts as soon as you can.
- Critical threat
6. CRM & Email Systems
CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.)
- Losing access to your Customer Relationship Management software means losing prospects, customer data, and crucial communications. If your CRM is the only source of truth, outreach may not even be possible.
- Critical threat
Email Admin Access (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, etc.)
- Never give administrator access to your email. Otherwise, regaining control of providers such as Microsoft and Google may not even be possible, especially if there’s no linkage between the email and your business. Even worse, your web team can delete email inboxes, disable emailing completely, and/or forward and respond to your emails.
- Critical threat
7. Plugins & Third-Party Services
Paid Plugins & Software Licenses
- Ensure that your licences are registered under your business, and not your web team. If not, you may be forced to purchase another license to keep your website up and running.
- Minor threat
Form & Compliance Tools (JotForms, CookieYes)
- Depending on the industry, your business may be at risk of non-compliance with local laws (GDPR, PIPEDA, and equivalent) when these tools are missing. Replace them immediately if recovery is not possible.
- Medium threat
Payment Processing Accounts (Stripe, PayPal, Square)
- Unauthorized changes to your accounts could result in fraud and financial loss to your company. Although you can recover the account if it’s lost, the process will likely be drawn-out and messy. Try to avoid this when possible.
- Critical threat
As you can see, there are a number of items to recover, which can get messy quick. If you need help reclaiming ownership of what’s yours and safeguarding your digital, reach out to us for help!
Step 3: Conduct a Proper Handover with Your New Web Design Team
Once you’ve claimed your accounts, walk your new web team through everything. Ensure that they understand where everything is located and the purpose of each of your services does. It’s best practice to document your handover in writing to prevents surprises, accelerate the onboarding process, and can be easily used for future handovers. Additionally, it may even save you money if your team notices services that can be eliminated.
For cloud services like AWS, remember to delegate developer access with the appropriate permissions rather than sharing your root or primary account credentials. That way, you maintain ownership of the account while they their things on your website.
Last Resort If Your Web Design Team Doesn’t Cooperate
We’re sorry that you’re going through this. and have seen similar situations unwind badly. The good thing is it’s not quite over. What you’ll need to do are the following:
1. Calculate the True Cost of Contract Termination
Ending an engagement has hidden costs. Take the path with the least resources and consider the following:
- Legal Fees: If these disputes can’t be resolved mutually, you may need legal intervention. This route can take months or even years to resolve and may end up being more costly than parting ways and rebuilding your site.
- Termination Fees: Some contracts require payment for the remaining balance or a termination fee. Be weary of this as well as conditions that allow for an immediate termination.
- Business Downtime: Can customers find you and contact you during the transition? A poorly managed transition can lead to lost revenue and halt your business operations.
- Rebuild Costs: If your website has been taken as hostage, a complete website rebuild and migration may be the only way and can be very expensive. A cheaper middle ground might exist that a web development agency can help with.
2. Recovering What’s Yours Isn’t Free
If the incumbent team still refuses to hand over access, take action:
- Get Legal Representation: You may have legal grounds to reclaim your digital accounts. A formal notice from your lawyer can sometimes be enough. Litigation can cost tens of thousands of dollars and take years to resolve.
- Go With a Lift-and-Shift / Rebuild: Rebuilding may be the quickest and cheapest solution, and probably something you’d want to start immediately. We’ve helped businesses navigate these situations by helping them clone their websites and digital assets in a matter of weeks!
Final Takeaway: Ownership Is Key
The web design and development golden rule: Never give up complete control of your digital services and assets.
Know what’s yours with the checklist above and protect your business from sabotage, financial loss, and unnecessary headaches. Get your website, tracking, advertising, social media, business listings, CRM, email and services licenses in order. And if things go sour with your web designer, proceed cautiously through contract termination and consult with a new web design team for help. And when you’re ready to fire your agency, read about how to do so here.
Need Advice on What’s Next?
Uplancer specializes in doing web design and web development the right way. We can help strategize, plan, and execute a smooth transition away from your web team, or can serve as their replacement! Contact us for your free consultation and start safeguarding your digital today.
