Reseller Support

[Gil857]

I have done some reselling in the past and still use a reseller account to manage all my web sites. However, i was thinking about getting back into reselling - because I think I have stumbled upon a niche that might work out pretty good.

The problem is that I work a day job and would not be able to offer support myself, and currently do not have the funds to contract out support or hire someone. Anyone have any possible solutions or suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[Nobull]

do you have internet access at work if so can run msn messanger in the background or check your e-mail every so often. Thats what i did when i first started off. that and used my cell phone to get calls durning luch and breaks.

 

[Faiyaz]

Have you promised instant support to your client ? If not then you can promise maximum 12 / 24 hours support to your clients and resolve their queries within 12 hours ( your working hours ).

If you promise instant support ( 1 Hour or so ) then you should go with advise of Nobull which is fine too.

 

[Gil857]

Thanks for the ideas! I'm still in the 'thinking about it' phase. I have thought about just doing email support and stating an 'up to 24 hour' response time as you have suggested, Faiyaz. Of course I would try to get to it quicker, but that would leave me some space if something were to happen that I couldn't get to a computer with Internet access.

I also thought about some really in depth help, or knowledge base section so that practically almost any problem could be resolved by visiting those pages.

If I could run instant messanger at work, that would be great, but I don't think that my work would allow it - except probably at lunch time.

Again, thanks for the ideas! :winter:

 

[tickedon]

I think you've got some good ideas

A KB is good in that it can provide lots of information, but, it relies on a customer looking at it rather than them simply firing an email off.

Presuming you work 9-5, and sleep 11-6, you should be able to offer <12 hour responses without any problems. Hire a cheap ($30/mo) server administration company (such as PSM - www.platinumservermanagement.com) to monitor and look after things if it all goes wrong in the middle of the night/when you're at work, and then couple that with an 'emergency' address that goes to your cell/pager and everything should be under control If something goes wrong, customers can contact you without you having to actively check for any issues (you can then look at the issue during a lunch/break or get out of bed), but, PSM's monitoring should have picked up the issue and they get on to fixing it/rebooting the server.

When you've got the cash flow and customers, both BobCares and Touchsupport offer ticket based support for around and under $100 per month. http://touchsupport.com/outsourced-tech-support-support.php and http://bobcares.com/page-20-16.html. Both companies have pretty good reputations

 

[Webkore.net]

Alternatively, and I'm surprised no one's mentioned it yet, go with a reseller that provides technical end-user support. Much better than outsourcing to a company, which will just submit tickets for you anyways. At the very least, your hosting company already has root access to the servers, so you don't need to add an extra layer to support.

 

[hmalekib]

I have done some reselling in the past and still use a reseller account to manage all my web sites. However, i was thinking about getting back into reselling - because I think I have stumbled upon a niche that might work out pretty good.

The problem is that I work a day job and would not be able to offer support myself, and currently do not have the funds to contract out support or hire someone. Anyone have any possible solutions or suggestions?

Thanks.

Why not get a blackberry?

 

[hostzio]

Why not get a blackberry?

Those smart phones are nice, its almost time to renew my contract.

 

[Addmember]

Alternatively, and I'm surprised no one's mentioned it yet, go with a reseller that provides technical end-user support. Much better than outsourcing to a company, which will just submit tickets for you anyways. At the very least, your hosting company already has root access to the servers, so you don't need to add an extra layer to support.

That's a very sound idea, it's up to the mainstream provider to support yopur clients, just go for the one with in-house support if your current one doesn't do anything of that sort. I recommend you ************ reselling services, I tried them and find ok.

 

[bobchrist]

I have done some reselling in the past and still use a reseller account to manage all my web sites. However, i was thinking about getting back into reselling - because I think I have stumbled upon a niche that might work out pretty good.

The problem is that I work a day job and would not be able to offer support myself, and currently do not have the funds to contract out support or hire someone. Anyone have any possible solutions or suggestions?

Thanks.

If you provide your clients a knowledge based support, it will minimize your support level work in greater extent.

 

[MisterV]

That's a very sound idea, it's up to the mainstream provider to support yopur clients, just go for the one with in-house support if your current one doesn't do anything of that sort. I recommend you ************ reselling services, I tried them and find ok.

Hello. As far as understand your customers don't need to be supported with you. And your hoster ************ does that instead of you, doesn't it?
If yes - it is realy cool.

 

[urka]

Hello. As far as understand your customers don't need to be supported with you. And your hoster ************ does that instead of you, doesn't it?
If yes - it is realy cool.

And I think it takes additional fee for it, doesn't it?