Hiya,

My partner (romantic) used to run a small reseller hosting account with a friend who has now left the buisness (and stabbed him in the back... but thats another story). He has now taken me on as a partner in the buisness and we are thinking of relaunching the buisness. I am primeraly a website designer (thinking of going professional) so this is a bit new to me.

I am redesigning the site because the previous design was unproffessional and detrimental to any potential customer who did find the site (the SEO was awful) and it seems to be going well. I'm also re-writing the copy to be more proffesional, informative and friendly. Our relaunch will include the introduction of an ethical policy, more friendly copy, better organised support, etc.


But I do have some questions -

1. How do I introduce an ethical policy to existing customers? None of their websites (as far as a quick look goes) are in breech of our proposed policy however I want to introduce it carefully so that we don't loose existing buisness. To keep them a little bit sweet we have thought of quite a good offer which will benefit both old and new customers though.

2. The previous buisness was rather informal, although neither of them touched the money that came in (it went to paying the reseller package and they weren't in profit yet) I'm a little unsure of how to turn the buisness into a more respectable one - we have registered as a limited company - but when do we put our first trading day down as? The relaunch date? (We are in the uk and need the Inland Revenue documentation done properly).

3. Whilst writing the copy I want us to come across as an honest buisness (We will be) Should you openly tell people that you are a reseller? If so should you tell which host you are with - we undercut their hosting offers anyway, but I'm not sure if people are put off a lot by resellers.

4. What are the benefits of being a reseller to the customer? So far our selling points are that we can provide personal customer service and that I have practically infinite patience with helping newbie website owners. We undercut our hosting provider because we can spread the cost between our hosting accounts. Although we are small and personal we are able to provide our customers with very secure servers in a good datacenter which has very good connections. We also hope to be able to provide resources and advice that they wouldn't get from our provider. Is this enough? What are the other benefits of being a reseller for your customers?

Sorry if this is a bit long for a first post. ;)

Spirited

Welcome to the forums Spirited!

As far as the ethical policy, I would just send it out. Just write up sometype of a newsletter, welcome letter. Explain all the new & great upcoming changes. You might even wait until the website it re-done.

As far as the Registered Company, you can put that in the footer or on the about us Page.

As far as telling people you are a reselling, we never did when we were reselling. Every so often, a customer maybe wanted something extra - and I told them that the company we went thru at the time charged us X amount of dollars for it so I had to charge. That was my biggest problem with the reselling, if someone wanted something - we had to charge them. Yes I know we are in the business of making money, but customer service is also very important to me.

One good thing though about reselling - you do not have to worry about the servers, only the customers.

After a while you won't be able to hide that you are a reseller, so if people ask I would tell them. It would not look good if they found out later and confronted you or this board with the evidence. Disclosing all the details about your company is a good practice, it'll leave less surprises for you down the road ;)