I heard that it is possible to oursource support but I wonder how it works. I mean how will the third party support company know what I offer and how my stuff works. Example:

Someone contacts me and asks if the cheap offer supports multi domain hosting - How will the support company know ??

Someone contacts me telling me that phpBB auto install in Cpanel doesn`t work. Will the support company fix it or how will they take care of this ?

Someone wants to renew or cancel his Paypal subscription. What does the support company do ?

Someone wants me to reset his account, asks for help on how to upload his site etc.

How will the support companies handle all that stuff ? I mean how do they know my offers, how can they Cpanel bugs, how will they deal with billing issues or things that require them to log in to the server and do something ??

Hi,

It depends - you can have the co. handle support only or support and sales or sales only etc, usually all chargeable at different rates.

The company will probably ask you to complete some sort of fact finder, where you state the various things you offer, any policies you enforce (eg NO shell account, 10% discount if you beg etc)

re: installs not working - unless you want the company to handle 1st line support only (eg how do I set up a new email account) then you will probably give them root access to the servers, so they can do whatever is necessary to resolve a problem.

Depending on the level of outsourcing, some companies would include say, a kernel upgrade (if it was necessary) in their plan, others would consider it a separate, chargeable admin task.
A client having a problem with an install or say ftp not working should be included in their responsibilities.

re: paypal - well, if you want to have them handle the sales/admin side of things then they will need all relevant passwords and clear instructions on what to do.
Personally, I find that support outweighs sales (is that good or bad? ;) ) so I handle all the sales side myself and have others deal with support issues - this is independent of whether outsourced support is used or not.

Basically, you decide how much responsibility you want to hand over to them, how much you are willing to pay them and, give them as much information as possible to run that aspect of the business on your behalf.

I don't know of any hosters personally that would outsource the admin/money handling side of things - sales queries maybe, but not the actual bits involving oarting with money. Doesn't mean there *aren't* any who do so of course...

hth.