Ive been considering getting a vbulletin for my customers. Do you think support forums are much benefit? Ive had one before but no one used it, probably because i didnt have many customers then. Im worried that people will post every little problem they have and this might create a bad impression, or if no one uses it then that will also create a bad impression.

What do you think?

It depends on your reputation ...a support forum can be good or bad for your image. If you have 100's or 1000's of clients, it should be monitored 24/7, though.

I might do what you have done kiwi and keep most of it or all of it password protected.

That will keep the other hosts out at least :p

my 2 cents:

if the forum is kept up-to-date and people try to stay on topic, THEN it can be good.

Information on the server status would be really nice (it also keeps people from posting things like "Splashhost is down" on this forum).

Always password protect it I think, because a lot of resellers don't want to be identified as such.

Policy information is also good.

Btw, the mchost forum is damn good :).

Want my wish list for the splashhost forum?

server staus might be a bit difficult, as its the main splashhost.com server thats having the problems at the moment.

Yeah let me know what you would like to see in it.

Thanks

With 100 clients i wouldn't do it yet. With a 1000 clients it gets interesting. The nice part of a forum is that customers start to help each other. But for that you need some activity on the board.
So don't setup a forum if you expect 2 visitors a day. That will only discourage new potential customers.

Originally posted by Lmax
With 100 clients i wouldn't do it yet. With a 1000 clients it gets interesting. The nice part of a forum is that customers start to help each other. But for that you need some activity on the board.
So don't setup a forum if you expect 2 visitors a day. That will only discourage new potential customers.

Now that i think about it, I have turnd away from hosts that have boards and disided not to use them because of low trafic

Ok now i dont know what do to, 125 clients so far. Most of which are resellers. What do u think? Once the server problems are sorted out i should be back up to about 1-3 new resellers a day.

Well, in my experience resellers are difficult. They don't want to admit they are a reseller, they want to be a host themselfs. By posting on your forum they confirm to the outside world that they are a reseller, and that might not what they want.
;)

I could password protect it and who says they need to reveal on the forum what company is theirs?

We focus mainly on end user accounts and our forums are great. The users have a great community and help each other out quite a bit. We keep an eye on the forums for questions that we feel we should answer. However we pretty much stick to answering questions via the live chat, toll free and ticket system.

The biggest warning I can give to other hosts is to not censor the boards, let it roll, if you are good your regular and loyal customers will keep things sane.

I mean there is a chance for trolls and by all means delete those. But just keep things on topic and you should be fine.

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
I could password protect it and who says they need to reveal on the forum what company is theirs?

You're right. but a mixed board with normal virtual host member and resllers isn't gone work i think.

well i dont have many normal hosting customers

Hey Alan,

For what it's worth, as a customer of yours, I'd welcome a reseller forum. You've provided excellent info for me during my "initiation" phase and I love the personal support, but I do think that with more and more clients, they're likely to have the same questions, particularly in the early stages - and unless you want to answer the same questions several times over, a forum would be an excellent way of distributing information.

Personally I think it's a nice touch for a web host to offer forums for their customers -- especially if they offer reseller packages, as this provides a great opportunity for resellers to share tips and advice!

You might want to look into phpBB though instead of vBulletin, as it's free and would probably more than suit your needs.

I installed a phpBB2, its pretty neat. Will be launching it with my new design, help desk and special offers on monday.

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
I installed a phpBB2, its pretty neat. Will be launching it with my new design, help desk and special offers on monday.

Sounds good, and good luck! Been wanting to see your design for a while :)