Gatekeeping

A client had asked me to take a look at their website code and provide a quote for building some new features. They copied me into an email with the agency that manages their site, asking them to set me up with access so that I could clone the files and set up my own local version of the site.

Here’s where the problem started. The agency refused to give me access. Nor would they package up the files and database and send them to me. They were responsible for managing the site, they said, so if the client needed any updates to the site, they should let the agency know, and they would handle it.

However many times I encounter this kind of behaviour, I never understand the rationale. Refusing to give the client (or a client approved third party) access to their own website seems completely counterproductive to me. If a client is considering moving to a different provider, they’re going to do so, and gatekeeping behaviour like this certainly isn’t going to change that – if anything, it’ll only cement their decision.

Of course, there are some hosted platforms (Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, Shopify, etc.) where the site lives within the agency account, and it isn’t straightforward to provide a copy of the site. I can understand why an agency wouldn’t want some unvetted third party clicking around the live site, potentially causing problems which they would have to deal with.

But when it comes to something like WordPress, where it’s easy enough to give that third party a self-contained export of the site, I don’t understand going against the site owner’s wishes and refusing to provide the requested access.

Luckily this kind of gatekeeping behaviour is rare, but when it occurs it never paints the agency in question in a good light, showing them less as the experts they (probably) are, and more as entitled, awkward and obstructive.

To my mind, the only approach is to provide a good service for as long as the client is contracting me to do so, and to act in the interests of the website that I’m responsible for managing. If the client asks to do something that I believe will be detrimental to the website, it’s my responsibility to flag this, and advise accordingly, but when it comes down to it, the website belongs to the client, and if the client wants to bring in another party to do some work, or even transfer the site entirely to another agency, that’s their decision. My responsibility, as I see it, is to continue to support the website until it’s out of my hands, and ease the transition as much as possible.

From the moment my relationship with a client begins, to the moment it ends, I want to behave in a professional, efficient and genuinely helpful way, making things easier for the client, not harder. Perhaps I’m being naïve, but I trust that this level of service will make an impression, and may pay off further down the line. Even if it doesn’t, and I never have the chance to work with that client again, I get a lot of satisfaction from providing a valuable, high quality service that clients will remember positively.