I posted a question in the Partner Facebook page yesterday asking, ‘When you’ve finished designing a site for a client, what role do you give yourself?’
I was interested in finding out how Partners handle the post design phase, and what role they have on their clients websites.
I knew that the question would be polarising, some people make their clients the owner, and some people remain the owner. And I understand each point of view, because it all depends on the relationship you have with your clients after you have built their website.
For me, I build the website and charge a fee for this. For many of my clients, the reason they choose someone to design their website, is because they don’t understand design, and find the whole hosting, domain and everything else complicated (although for partners it makes sense because we deal with this everyday).
After I have built the site, for many of my clients, they prefer that I take on the billing of the subscription and domain (I use an external registrar). This also means that I can bundle in, if they choose, my support package into the cost of the domain and subscription. (The bonus to this, is I can charge a markup for the admin and time that goes alongside this).
The problem occurs that to remain in control of this, I have to remain the owner of the site, but this means that I can see all of their contacts etc.
At the moment, under the terms and conditions of their site, I have to include clauses that state that information from using the site is made available to a their party for the purposes of running the site.
What I would love is to be able to hand over the site to my clients, but remain in control of the billing.
I think there are a few features that would be helpful in making Partners feel more like a constant base for their clients, rather than a one stop design service and everything else is dragged along.
Just some thoughts