The offboarding that protects you both.
The scenario:
A client is leaving. Merged, outgrown you, gone cheap. The temptation is to do the minimum and move on.
Offboarding is where reputations are made. The departing client talks to your market for years, and a messy handover leaves you holding access, data, and liability for a business relationship no longer paying you.
The leaver risk is the sharp end. Live credentials for a departed client, or a client still holding access to your tooling, sit outside every review because the relationship no longer appears on anyone’s list. Offboarded-but-connected is how yesterday’s client becomes tomorrow’s incident report, with your name in the timeline.
The prompt:
You are building a client offboarding standard for an MSP.
Context: [your stack, what a typical client relationship touches, one past offboarding that went badly]
Build:
The offboarding checklist: data handover with confirmation, credential transfer, our access revoked everywhere with a sweep for the forgotten ones, license transfers, final backup with retention terms in writing
The liability line: the letter confirming the date our responsibility ends, and what remains theirs
The handover pack for the incoming provider: professional, complete, nothing petty
The relationship close: the exit conversation, the door left open, and the six-month check-in