Hi, I'm new to WHT and to Reselling, I was curious on some basic questions in the Reselling area...

I've got a reselling account through my friend on a pretty reliable box that hosts many websites, I was curious.. if any of you have success ( or failure ) stories on trying to run a reselling company soley via IRC.

Or if any of you have suggestions on starting a good site to resell, I'm good with intermediate PHP-HTML-CSS but not good with design, so I'm not sure if my "styles" would appeal to those looking for a hosting account, I'm just curious on how most of you manage your companies and any suggestions to get started. :) I have cPanel, but no means of automatic billing/registration (AutoPilot I think it's called).. one last thing, for those with relativley small reselling rigs, do you do support over IRC or over HelpDesk?


Any input is greatly appreciated, this looks like a great community and you all seem very willing to help.

-Thanks!
Grant

if any of you have success ( or failure ) stories on trying to run a reselling company soley via IRC.

Interesting idea - however, I think you will find this impractical as your customer base grows - though, I guess it depends on your target audience. Maybe you will find that your customers are helping each other, and less work/costs for you.

However, from our experience, a solid, documented history is the most important item when dealing with support. And a combination of helpdesk and CRM is simply the most effective means we have found of providing this.

Hope this helps...

Well, you need to have a billing and support system in place... bare minimum...

for example, in cpanel you cannot give account expiry date.. and so your customer gets no reminder.. and the hosting goes on gor ever until you yourself check list of customers to see whose account is expiring today.. everyday

there are so many similar problems...

for example, in cpanel you cannot give account expiry date.. and so your customer gets no reminder.. and the hosting goes on gor ever until you yourself check list of customers to see whose account is expiring today.. everyday

there are so many similar problems...

wow - I would absolutely lose my mind with such a system

wow - I would absolutely lose my mind with such a system
Yes, but how many hosting companies operate without billing software? Whether it be public or internal, there has to be something there.

cPanel integrates with many billing applications and offers automation and semi-automation features through most of them (the good ones anyway).

I would advise you, JavaDog, to only provide support through private and secure methods. Offering public support through a chat system will not allow you to gain all the required information to act on the support request.

That is not to say you couldn't field general questions through your chat system. I believe it was AH-Tina who ran something similar when she owned affordablehost.com - it is very similar to a company offering general support through a forum, except on a forum you run no risk of everyone talking at the same time :)

Simon

You don't need designing skills to start reselling ...but support/billing is important though