Client Offboarding: Creating the Ultimate Experience

Parting with clients is always such sweet sorrow. The client offboarding process can bring a mixture of emotions: awkwardness, sadness, satisfaction, relief. Offboarding isn’t just passing the finished project off to your client. It’s a process allowing you to maintain strong client relationships by leaving your customer with a positive experience and good last impressions. At the end of a project you want your client to be satisfied with your individual work but also with how you worked as a team, the attention you gave them, the work of your team members, etc. You also want to allow for a smooth transition for your client into independence, making sure they know exactly how to use the tools you’ve given them to take full advantage of in their business.

At the same time, client offboarding is a perfect opportunity to ask for client feedback. Feedback is like gold for business owners: a chance to see your business from your client’s perspective, what could be improved and fine tuned to make your services even better. And beyond that, it gives you the chance to see what additional services your client might need that you can provide yourself or can guide them to another trusted provider.

Overall, the client offboarding process is a crucial part of customer experiences and can make all the difference between a returning customer or someone leaving you a bad Yelp review. So how can you make your client offboarding experience a great one?

What is Client Offboarding?

To start, it’s helpful to explain exactly what we mean when we say client offboarding. Offboarding is the process of ending a project or service period with a customer, whether it is at the end of a contract period or project, a cancellation, or some other reason. It’s important to never simply say goodbye to a client (even if the project potentially ends mid-contract…) Most of the time, client offboarding will occur at the end of a project or contract, meaning you have time to prepare a proper offboarding flow to ensure clients have an easy, positive experience leaving their time working with you. 

It’s important for your offboarding process to not only be easy, but to be memorable. Much like Christine in Phantom of the Opera, you want them to think of you, think of you fondly. Why? Because if the experience is memorable, the next time they need a service you can provide, your business will be at the top of their list. Plus, if any of their friends or clients need your business’s services, they’re much more likely to refer them to you. Client offboarding is your last chance to make a lasting impression that will serve as a solid marketing strategy, encouraging returning customers and their referrals.

The Importance of Client Offboarding

It’s clear client offboarding is not to be overlooked. A great offboarding process can be a source of future customers, good reviews, a positive business relationship, and more. In the world of business there’s an infamous saying: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Which is true. Unfortunately if the people you know don’t like you, that does a lot more harm than good. Likewise, having your past clients associate you with happy memories can be a huge benefit to your company.

Retaining Connections

Someone out there may be thinking, “Well, it would be great if former clients liked working with me. But if they don’t I can always find a new client.” And that is… certainly one way to think. However, that sort of planning is extremely unsustainable, and is a bit of a careless stance to take on customer service. For one thing, your target audience is only so big. Meaning you cannot infinitely find new clients, but also that some of your clients  (*most definitely) know each other. 

Finding new clients is important for growing your business and expanding your network. They also give you the exciting opportunity to face new challenges and broaden your horizon. At the same time, onboarding new clients will always be more challenging and time consuming than onboarding past clients. And just like finding new clients can expand your network, a negative relationship with a past client means a narrower network. You can be sure that former customers will share the experiences they had with you, and you’ll want their commentary to be a glowing review instead of an ominous warning to stay away. Both new clients and former clients matter for a healthy, thriving business. And the best way to ensure your past clients want to work with you again, aside from being good at your job, is to have a client offboarding flow that leaves them with a positive experience.

The Offboarding Process Explained

So what should the offboarding process look like? There’s a bit of freedom here depending on what works best for your business and clients, but you always want to include these core pieces:

• Summary of the project and what you have provided
• A training on how to use the deliverables you’ve created and take over any ongoing responsibilities you’ve managed
• Any final invoice
• A closure meeting
• An offboarding email containing the above and a request for feedback 

These don’t necessarily have to be in that order, and some of the pieces can be combined depending on what your business and client need. For example, your closing meeting might include both the summary of your time together and the training, while your goodbye email might include only a summary and request for feedback. Or they might all be separate. One thing that should stay consistent is leaving the offboarding email as the final piece of the flow. Regardless of how you combine them, ensure the flow from one point to another is smooth and efficient. 

A summary of the project or what you’ve done during a contract period helps your client to have a good idea of what they’re being left with at the end of your relationship, and exactly how they benefited from your services. You never want to leave a client with them asking “what did they even do?” or worse: feeling like you did nothing at all. This helps to prepare the client to take on any ongoing work that exists after you leave and to feel confident that they got their money’s worth from their experience with you. 

A training on how to use any deliverables / tools or strategies you’ve created, or how to maintain something you’ve made, or perform any of the responsibilities you’ve taken on that will still be there when you leave, is crucial to your client’s success, and by extent, their relationship with you. This helps them to know what to expect when you leave, how much time to expect different tasks will take, how to perform those tasks, and how to train a new employee to take on those tasks if they hire someone new. If you leave your client with a valuable tool or project but they have no clue how to use it properly, you haven’t really helped them all that much.

A closing meeting may not be necessary if your communication has been on point throughout the entire process, but it can be a great chance to see if your client needs anything else from you, refer them to someone else if needed, and receive some constructive feedback. It’s also your best chance to leave a lasting impression. Reinforce how much you’ve enjoyed working with them, ask about their future plans and projects, and remind them if they need anything in the future you’re only an email away.

Your offboarding email is the ribbon tying the whole process together. If you’ve already sent a final invoice, to a lackluster response, this is a polite way to resend it. It gives you a chance to emphasize once again how much you enjoyed working together, what you’ve provided to their business, any notes you want to make sure they have in writing about how to do any tasks they’ll be taking on, give them any contact information they may need, and tell them thank you for a positive experience on your end.

Best Practices for Ending Projects on a Positive Note

Even following the above format, there are a few tricks to a successful offboarding experience. You want your clients to leave in the best mood possible. For starters, how to make it not only pleasant, but memorable?

One way is to choose a flavor. This means to highlight one part of their experience with you and emphasize that aspect of your business and personality during offboarding. Are you efficient? Friendly? Detail oriented? Obviously you can be all of these, but what makes their experience with you different from other people they could have hired? What about your business stands out from the crowd? This helps your client to leave your hands knowing they got something only you can provide.

Another one of the best practices to help end things positively is ensuring any pending final payments are dealt with. Your client needs to know how much they still owe you (if any at all); your relationship won’t be fully over until the final invoice has been handled. Sometimes you’ll have clients who are difficult to handle in terms of finances, which may be a good sign you don’t want to sign with them again. Likewise, if you try to add onto  your fee without a clear reason or send a final invoice long after you’ve said goodbye, your client will be left feeling confused and frustrated. Send any necessary final invoice before you and your client stop communicating frequently, make the bill easy to discuss in case there is any confusion, and handle any outstanding invoices before you send that goodbye email. 

Role of Referral Programs in Offboarding

When you offboard a client and they need help you aren’t qualified to provide, a referral program or being well connected can be your best friend. This customer trusts you, and knows that you have high standards for service. You can maintain the health of your relationship with that client and support a fellow business owner in your network by referring your client to someone else who is trustworthy and effective. And if your client runs a business that your target audience might have need for, they might be worth adding to your list of referrals. In return, your client is likely to send some potential customers your way. This is also another opportunity to showcase how helpful you are, encouraging your client to seek out your help in the future.

Final Thoughts

Your client offboarding process helps both you and the client to feel satisfied with your experience and part on good terms. It can also serve as a great marketing strategy to help you be referred new or have repeat clients. Most importantly, it’s just good customer service to have a structured client offboarding process. Your client should know exactly how you helped them and what to expect when you’re gone. Providing clear communication and a positive experience as well as the services you sell are crucial to maintaining good client relationships and growing your business. If you need help structuring your client offboarding process to put your best foot forward, let’s partner to complete one of our System Audit & Strategy projects to create the best client experience possible (from onboarding through offboarding).