Currently, I offer hosting with the H-Sphere control panel. But lately I've been playing with the idea of setting up a Cpanel box, and offering Cpanel hosting as well.

How many hosts offer multiple control panels? If you currently offer multiple CP options, what are your customers opinions? Any comments opinions on it?

I really would like to offer multiple control panels down the road. I think it may save a provider a customer here and a customer there. Because you know there are people out there who have their head stuck in rock about something.

IE vs mozilla
intel vs amd
ford vs chevy

catch my drift?

We offered Ensim and cPanel packages for about 4 months and found that it just confused many people (and we target fairly technologically-savvy people). We eventually moved away from Ensim and now just offer cPanel.

IMHO it's confusing for the customer and in the long run it will make the live harder for the host.

Some customers (including me) love cpanel only. and never thought about changing it. I think it's the most common, unless some masters correct this.

For 99% of you, most of your customers don't know what cPanel or Ensim are, no matter how ubiquitous the cPanel name seems to hosts. Believe it, even if they've been with a host that used a standardized control panel before, and despite it saying cPanel or whatever name, the customer still doesn't realize or remember that it's not specific to that individual web host.

I would not consider it worth having to maintain and support servers with different control panels, keep support staff trained with multiple control panels or write support documents for multiple control panels, and when responding to support requests having to look up which control panel that customer is on.

To the majority of your potential customers, the words "control panel" are enough pre-sale.

I can't see much point in offering multiple control panels unless you really have to.
We currently use DirectAdmin on linux, though we still have a number of servers running a legacy CP
On windows we use Helm.
It would be confusing to have to support more than the two control panels we currently use actively.

I was playing with the idea of running both and did for a short period of time but its just too much hassle. You need seperate support forums, seperate demos etc. It basically doubles your cost and time.

Originally posted by blacknight
I can't see much point in offering multiple control panels unless you really have to.
We currently use DirectAdmin on linux, though we still have a number of servers running a legacy CP
On windows we use Helm.
It would be confusing to have to support more than the two control panels we currently use actively.

That's why we use Plesk. :)

Supporting multiple control panels is not the best route for all companies. It does take more time and more admin knowledge.

I would recommend spending time on training with the second control panel before offering.

As for needing seperate support stuff, that is wrong.

We have 1 forum, 1 help desk. Now, for demos you would want flash for both. Many of the usability questions are the same among control panels, for things like email, etc... So your FAQ's can have common ones and then ones specific to each control panel.

But it takes time and work. For some it pans out for others it flops I have seen both.

It depends on your structure and where you are heading.

Offering multiple control panels can be done if you're a larger company. It requires people with admin experience of one control panel and then different admins (costing more money) to have experience with the other. You really have to streamline it in order to make it work. The other thing is, if you're not at the right stage, signing another contract with another control panel maker, helps put a stop to discounts you might get by buying bulk from another control panel maker. Another problem you may get is customers starting with one control panel...and not liking it. Then they ask to switch and this causes more work because we all know, switching from control panel to control panel is not the easiest thing in the world :)

Rather then offer multiple control panels, I think it is better to offer multiple operating systems.

We have far more potential customers who ask for Windows then potential customers who ask for a different control panel then the one we offer.

I've always said the more the better. If you offer more of a selection, you increase the probability of making a sale.

Regards,
Waylon