Hi all!
I thought I would ask the following question about reselling and any resellers thoughts are most welcomed.
"What do Resellers Need that would be ideal for their business?"

I started out as a reseller and can remember some of the things that I wish I had, but that was awhile ago. Anyone have thoughts on what would make a resellers life easier? (besides kickin back and collecting money.. :D) All thoughts are welcome.

laterz,
raqworld

Well, I think the most important thing that you will need is to be able to offer great support t your customers.

This is the secret of success. A customer brings another site and recomends it to someone that realy needs a website. And this continues until you have enough sites to move to a dedicated and then your main business starts.

Regards,
Mac

I must agree that prompt and attentive support is a must, you should also make sure to provide reliable services and as much control over the resold accounts as possible.

From our own experience, we know that the resellers always want a robust control panel for them and an attractive one with loads o features for their customers, this would save everyone the hassle of going back and forth for assistance. The reseller will be depending on your services so if you services are slow, he will be suffering from it along with the quality of the services he is providing.

I guess that's all I can think of.

The first item I would suggest a very strong online knowledgebase of information with a lot of how to's.

The second item I would suggest is a good trouble ticket system that allows you to manage and account for all trouble reports in a timely manner. Customers also like to be able to log into a ticket systems and look for updates and progress, specially if you do not offer phone support. This may cost you a little bit!

The third item would be an online forum to help build a customer community along with providing better support. You can get these for free from phpbb or burning board but form what I have seen VBulletin is the best but it will cost you some extra money.

In the end uptime, knowledge and great support is what will set you apart form the rest :) Good luck!

That is my 2 cents!

Very good 24 x 7 x 365 support.

Chicken, thanks for moving to the correct area..

As for all the comments, keep them coming!
What about billing support? What more could be done about anonymity besides nameservers and the like?

laterz,
raqworld

I think what you could also do is let your resellers needs be met by offering dedicated servers. Also, tell all your resellers that once they have made it passed the level of reseller into dedicated server, that they can count on you guys to meet their demands. Also, it would be a good idea for these dedicated servers to be managed since some of these people would not want to deal with server administration.

Make sure that the control panel also allows the resellers to add domains themselves as well as the other features. You should give them the choice of private name servers or unknown ones.

Billing wise, I think if you let the resellers add domains, then you just charge for the domain added. So you wouldnt have to bill the resellers customer.

Jim