Please Read: Designer wants to offer Hosting

[dosleos]

Hello everyone!

I am a web designer and want to offer hosting to my clients. From what I have seen here, Matrix is a great company for resellers.

My biggest concern is my clients satisfation and service. I am extremely service oriented.

Problem: My experience is in web design, not hosting. How difficult is this to learn?

How soon can I expect to be up and running? (average for a newbie)

What are the biggest differences between the Cpanel and HSphere? I want the most options for my clients.

Is Matrix a good place to start and grow?

Thanks a bunch!

Brad

[Garreg]

I am a web designer and want to offer hosting to my clients. From what I have seen here, Matrix is a great company for resellers.

Matrix is an excellent company for resellers – period. I’ve been here for just over 12months – that’s go to tell you something .

My biggest concern is my clients satisfation and service. I am extremely service oriented.

Depends how you develop your clients sites – Use Windows and yes, you will meet with the odd hiccup. Use UNIX and it’s far more reliable. In general there are problems, which are addressed quickly and fairly (we do get a say – Vortech are good listeners, to our needs).

Problem: My experience is in web design, not hosting. How difficult is this to learn?

Hosting is as difficult or easy as you wish to make it…. I mostly design and offer and package that includes hosting (do more design work that hosting in reality). Where I went wrong many years ago was by giving clients a hosting panel….. sounds odd I know but, if they just want you to design a site and host it for them – by giving them access to a CP simply confuses and creates support questions. My advice would be to offer a design that includes hosting and ‘you’ set up the account / email for them.

How soon can I expect to be up and running? (average for a newbie)

Depends on the CP that you choose – as the you choose hSphere and are a complete newbie, then I would allow yourself two weeks before you get to grips with it. Don’t just learn the CP – try out the FTP, setting up a few bits of code / sites etc…

What are the biggest differences between the Cpanel and HSphere? I want the most options for my clients.

There’s a number of differences – hShphere is more geared towards online sales / automation and the choice of using either a UNIX or Windows server. I think the deciding factor will be ‘if’ you wish to give your design clients access to a CP.

Is Matrix a good place to start and grow?

Of course……… But like everything else in life having the tools doesn’t make everyone a good builder…….. What Matirx does do is make sure you have the best tools for the job – which gives you a competitive edge over the others………

Thanks a bunch!

Brad

Oh no!!!!!! Not another Brad (our Admin / Vortech owner is also Brad........ )

P.S – Apart from Matrix………… This is by far the BEST community / group of resellers that I have ever know – everyone hear is helpful and friendly, it’s a great place……… let’s here for the Resellers !!!!

[Brangwyn]

Definately one great thing about here is you have a forum you can fall back on if you need help, theres heaps of friendly people around here that can help you with most things

[Vixen]

Another Brad?? Oh lucky me. LoL

[somereseller]

I agree with Garegg on the "do not give a cp to your customers".

It's best if you give them a full package (service/hosting) and add manually the occasional email once in a while. You will know when they need more than that.

Otherwise it's best to hire someone on a per ticket basis, because you'll get carried away from your main business if you want to take time to answer all their questions and understand how they have configured every little things.

I agree, target your services to being a full service provider, tell them they don't need to know anything to manage it because you handle all the troubles for them (of course this means you can charge more too!). My best client are ones that DONT have CP access and email/call/page me when they need a new email or DB set up, also, these clients are the ones withe the LEAST troubles, becuase they dont have ccess to screw anything up!

[vonbrocklin]

This is pretty funny. I also do not provide CP access to most of my clients. (We are in the development world and offer hosting as part of our services.) I wonder what percentage of people use HSphere like this, as opposed to the true hosting company environment it is geared for. I can only imagine my nightmares if was in actually in a pure hosting business using HSphere for all of my billing/support.

I have all my customer's on their own CP... most of them dont even know it exists ... they still ask me to setup emails

I do it for the automatic billing!

[Silverbug]

Originally posted by vonbrocklin
...I wonder what percentage of people use HSphere like this, as opposed to the true hosting company environment it is geared for...

Me im one of them. None of my client have access to the cp, infact most of my clients are run off one account, with multiple plans in it.

[DJJ]

Originally posted by Silverbug
Me im one of them. None of my client have access to the cp, infact most of my clients are run off one account, with multiple plans in it.

Would you mind explaining this to me Silverbug? I had thought of doing this myself too, and wouldn't mind some feedback. For instance, how many clients would you run on the one account? How does this affect you billing?

Most of my clients wouldn't know what to do with the control panel, I provide the web development, and even the maintenance to the sites. I even have to suggest what email addresses they use...

[Silverbug]

yeah sounds alot like what i do.
because of this i handle all my billing outside of hsphere. Its a bit of a long way around it but it works.

[david]

yea I couldn't agree more ...the CP and even FTP is of little use to my average web hosting/design customer. In fact, I think the majority are only interested in 1. the site being up and 2. the email working ...the rest of it is what they think they pay me to do.

My very 1st customer was given a CP and for a week i spent most of the day going thru it with them before realising 1. they didnt need it and 2. they didnt want it.

I would go so far as to say customers wanting a CP, and who are capable of using one, are more likely to be potential resellers themselves anyway.

David