As many hosts DO NOT do this, what would you think about a support desk/billing manager on it's own domain? Right now we do a sub-domain for Lpanel, however we are moving to either ModernBill or WHMAP and when we do, we are thinking about just getting a whole new domain name.

Thoughts?

We are actually doing this shortly. I personally think it's a great idea.

It helps seperate the main site from the support site. It's a bonus if you can host the support site on a different server, in a different DC as well.

Well,

We just bought www.MyHNAccount.com and just bought ModernBill, however ModernBill messed up there signup system so it's not validating correctly, so I have to wait until someone gets my e-mail, which is likely to be a while. Someone know anyone inside of MB??

Oh my gosh! Heck with ModernBill, i'm canceling. It's easy for me to use now, however where is support at when you need it? Jeez.

use the modernbill forums. The support isn't that great but modernbill really is a good billing app. I've found that the forums provide pretty much all the support you need.

Well another factor is that it's very hard to transfer the information from Lpanel to ModernBill. I would think they would have some type of converter, but oh well.

Lpanel has importers from ClientExec, ModernBill and WHMAP but I don't believe anything does the opposite yet.

We're using Lpanel and while it has MANY quirks, I think that they're on the right *track* with their product and the importers are probably one of the reasons why people can even begin considering the switch.

On the discussion of the helpdesk on a seperate domain, it's a great idea to put on another server. Another datacenter...well, considering *most* datacenters have multiple and redundant providers, I honestly don't think this is necessary. Chances are that, if you have another server at the datacenter, it's on a different subnet anyhow.

Roj

I got www.ehbsupport.com not too long ago and put my helpdesk in the root directory, and the forums and live help in subdirectories. Helps keep support seperate I guess

Hmm i suppose its a good idea, for the main fact that if your main site goes offline you can still support your customers online. But other then that i dont see any real use for it.

(new domain for support)

- Eddy

That's right, whenever you can, get your support on at least a different machine to the majority of your clients, that way, when they're down, you'll be up to help :-)

Getting a new domain for support is actually a pretty good idea. Depending on how many customers you have and how often they need your attention, that would be a pretty neat thing to have.

I really don't see the point as clear as you guys might. If your clients remember your domain why not just make it part of the website, why make it complex and possibly confuse clients?

I'm just unsure about how to go about that properly, I firmly believe a subdomain will work quite fine.

I wouldn't want to have a separate domain for support because it would cause confusion. Example.

Client 1 will email support@mydomain.com expecting support although it is provided only at support@mysupportdomain.com. Now I know most of you will say forward the email but then again too much headache to make sure it is actually working and what not. I am happy with my simple helpdesk.

Also the more customers that use your website directly for support, they will remember the URL which may turn into word of mouth referrals etc.

Personally we own another domain for support which we plan to use when we start selling a few more of the reseller plans, but for now the same site for support is good enough

I think it can get kind of confusing for the client If its not related to the orginal domain, But thats my person opinion