Gone but not logged out
If the person who set up your email server, your domain name, your AWS account or your website hosting left your organisation tomorrow, would you still have full control of these services?
If you’re not sure, you’re not alone. And it might cause some issues down the line.
A client recently found out they couldn’t update their domain records. The domain had been registered years ago, when they launched, by an employee using their personal email. That employee had since moved on. There were no evil intentions or disputes involved, it’s just one of these things that happens all the time.
But now the client’s whole email and web infrastructure was basically locked behind someone else’s personal login. And that login wasn’t one they controlled.
I’ve seen this so many times… Subcontractors registering software in their own name because it’s easier at the time, former staff members who used their personal email for the cloud admin login, social media accounts that someone must have the credentials to, but who?
Try this test. For each of the following, do you know who the registered owner is, and is it a shared inbox or some random staff member’s account?
- your domain name(s)
- your web hosting
- your email platform
- your social media accounts
- your email marketing platform
- your cloud storage
- your CRM, project management, accounting, …
If any of these are using a person’s account rather than a shared business inbox, you need to fix that before that person leaves, not after.
Setup a shared inbox or a specific account like accounts@ and transfer all your logins to it. It’s worth the hour or so it will take you.
(and, yes, the client got their domain back by contacting that ex-employee on LinkedIn)
Colin