It's Not Hard to Say Goodbye: Crafting Client Offboarding
While it’s essential to know how to land clients, it’s just as important to know how to offboard them. When you end a project with a client on a high note, they’re often more likely to reach out with future work opportunities and recommend your services to others. Clients can also leave you with helpful feedback and testimonials that can strengthen your work moving forward.
Seamlessly offboarding clients is an art, and it’s one that Christy Price has perfected. Christy has worked in web design for more than 15 years, and she’s exclusively built on Squarespace since 2018. At Circle Day 2023, Christy shared the six-step process she uses to smoothly offboard clients. She also provided specific tips for handing off projects you’ve built on Squarespace.
1. Build a safe space for clients to play
When you finish a web design project, you want to leave your clients feeling confident and ready to manage their websites. They should know how to update their website without breaking it and they should feel comfortable adding, editing, or removing content as needed. Christy’s solution? Build a “sandbox”—a place where clients can play with their website, risk-free.
Use the save sections feature to duplicate pages from your client’s website. These will become the sandbox pages. Hide the pages from search engines, give them unique page titles, and remove the header and footer to prevent accidental site-wide changes. (Since this last step requires custom code, your client will need a Business plan.)
Once these pages are built, show clients where they are and invite them to start experimenting. Using the “sandbox,” clients can practice adding text, editing elements, changing images, and more—building confidence and comfort updating their website.
2. Make a custom help page
Clients will inevitably have questions. By building a custom help page, you can empower them to find answers themselves. Christy builds this page directly on Squarespace, but she hides it from site navigation and search engines.
This help page should be a one-stop shop for your client. Specify the fonts, colors, and site styles you’ve used. Use the Display Source feature to share custom code. Answer frequently asked questions; Christy always addresses common Google Search Console errors. Link to relevant third-party extensions and include post-launch resources, like marketing next steps, SEO best practices, and accessibility guidelines. Christy also links to brief walk-through videos, which she films during the website building process.
After finishing a custom project, Christy offers a complimentary two-week support period. As clients ask questions, she answers them directly on the help page. She also uses the help page to remind clients when their support period ends, and she includes an Acuity Scheduling booking link and coupon code so they can schedule paid sessions as needed.
3. Back up your work in several places
It’s always a good idea to back up your work—in fact, Christy likes to preserve her work in three different places.
First, she takes advantage of the save sections feature. Using the tool, you can turn 50 layout sections into templates that your clients can reference and reuse. Christy recommends starting with the most complex layouts, then moving on to the layouts you used most often.
Then, she takes full-length screenshots of every webpage. These static images make handy reference materials for clients, and they’re also great assets to include in your portfolio.
Finally, Christy duplicates the entire website. As a Squarespace Circle member, you get a free extended trial on every new website you build. That means you can give your client a complimentary backup of their website for up to six months after your work is done.
4. Create and reinforce boundaries
Clear boundaries are essential at every stage of a project. To ensure a seamless handoff, you’ll want to make your offboarding process really clear.
Before working with a client, be specific about what services you do and don’t offer. Clarify what’s included in your web design package, and spell out what you’ll provide before, during, and after the website build. If you offer additional services for a fee, price them out. Lastly, specify what post-launch support you’ll provide. During her support window, Christy will fix problems, answer questions, and film brief tutorials. She won’t continue to design or build the website.
Share these boundaries in your discovery call, proposal, and contract, and mention them throughout the website building process. As the project nears a close, remind clients what post-launch support you’ll offer and how long you’ll provide it. Before officially handing off the project, check in to see if there’s anything else they need.
5. Ask for specific feedback
Never wrap up a project without asking for feedback. While this step can be scary, it gives you valuable insights that help you improve as a designer, strengthen your services, and land future clients.
Christy likes to ask specific questions to garner feedback she can use. Some of her favorites include:
How did you feel before working with me?
How do you feel now?
What did you like most about the process?
What was your biggest takeaway from the process?
Would you recommend me, and who would you recommend me to?
What would you change about the experience?
These questions help Christy understand what she’s doing right, where she can improve, and what problems she’s solving for clients. The recommendation question clarifies her target customer—and often leads to real referrals. Several of the questions generate great customer testimonials.
Before featuring these responses anywhere, ask your clients for permission. Even if they don’t grant it, you’ll still walk away with valuable data to bring to future client interactions.
6. Leave your client with a gift
Finish strong by surprising your client with a gift. Write them a thank you note letting them know you enjoyed working with them, and send them something personalized. Physical gifts help you stay stop of mind for ongoing work or referrals.
Part of Christy’s parting gift is a professional website mockup. Clients are delighted by seeing their website showcased so beautifully and will often use the mockup to announce their shiny new website on social media. This present always delights clients—and often doubles as free marketing for Christy. When clients share the mockup on social media, they usually mention her in the post.
By following this six-step process, you can avoid many common problems that plague project handoffs. Just remember to make the process your own: your business and your client relationships are unique and your offboarding process should reflect that.
Special thanks to Christy Price for sharing her expertise at Circle Day 2023. Visit the Circle blog for more session highlights.
Want more?
Check out Squarespace Circle, Squarespace’s program for professional designers. Along with exclusive content, discounts, and other perks, Circle brings professionals together from all across the globe to exchange advice while connecting with new clients and collaborators.
