Your web agency has stopped replying to your emails

Why your agency stopped replying

Agencies do not announce that they have stopped caring about your account. They just slow down. A reply that used to come the same day now takes a week. Then two. Then nothing.

There are usually three reasons for this, and none of them are personal.

• They have signed a bigger client and your work has been pushed to the bottom of the queue.
• The person who actually knew your site has left, and nobody has properly picked it up.
• Your monthly fee is set-and-forget income. As long as you keep paying, ignoring you costs them nothing.

The third one is the most common. If you are paying £100 or £150 a month for a site that needs almost no work, you are pure profit. Replying to your email is, in their eyes, the only thing that costs them money on your account.

What the silence actually means

An unresponsive agency is not just an annoyance. It is a warning sign about how your site is being looked after when nothing visible is going wrong.

If they will not reply to a phone number change, they are almost certainly not checking the site for security updates, broken links, or anything else. The silence on email is the same silence that surrounds your whole account.

If nobody replies when you ask a question, nobody is watching the site when you do not.

The monthly invoice, of course, continues to arrive on time.

How to force a reply

Before you start thinking about leaving, try one clean, escalating approach. Sometimes a stalled account just needs a firmer prompt.

• Send one email with a clear subject line: "Account review - please respond by [date]". Give them seven working days.
• List exactly what you want answered. No chit chat, just numbered points.
• If no reply by the deadline, phone them. Ask who owns your account by name.
• If that fails, send one final email saying you are reviewing your options and need a written response within five working days.

An agency that wants to keep you will reply within hours of the phone call. An agency that has written you off will not. Either way, you will know where you stand within two weeks, which is more than you knew before.

What to check before you leave

Before you tell anyone you are leaving, find out what you actually own. This matters because some agencies put the domain and hosting in their own name, not yours. That is not always done maliciously - it is often just laziness when the site was first set up - but it gives them leverage if things turn sour.

Three things to confirm:

• The domain name. Your web address (the bit ending .co.uk or .com) should be registered to you, not to the agency. Ask them in writing to confirm it is in your name.
• The site files. You should be able to get a full copy of the website - all the pages, images, and any database behind it - without paying extra.
• The login details. If your site uses a system you can log into to edit content, you should have the master login, not just a limited one.

If they refuse, dodge, or go quiet again, that is your answer. You do not have a supplier any more. You have a hostage situation.

Switching without losing your site

Moving your site does not mean rebuilding it. A competent developer can take a copy of what you already have, move it onto better hosting, and have it running again - usually within a day - with no visible change to your visitors.

I do this for every new client at no extra cost. You bring the domain details and whatever logins you have. I handle the rest: copying the site, moving the domain, setting up email forwarding if needed, and pointing everything at the new home. If anything is missing because the old agency will not hand it over, I will rebuild what is needed from the live site.

SkipTheAgency's Maintained plan is £65/month and includes up to 10 content changes a month, with a same-day response. That is roughly half what most agencies charge for the same service - and you get a reply when you email.