We've had a huge response to the reseller offering so far. This week has been the busiest in VOIPo history. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your business and patience during this pre-launch period and to provide you with some updates regarding the ongoing progress of the pre-launch phase.
Documentation
We are continuing to wrap up the documentation and reseller guide and expect to have those available within the next few days. While most items are self-explanatory in the control panel, we want to make sure that everyone knows how to fully use their reseller account and all the functionality that it provides.
We also want to help everyone build a successful VoIP business by helping you better understand the business and how to maximize your profit, so in addition to content on using your reseller account, we're working on content that will help guide you in setting up your VoIP business and running it.
Support
Due to the reseller program being in pre-launch and being so new, only our senior support agents are able to answer questions about it. We expect to be able to phase in all support representatives next week to help with the load. Once this happens, response times will get drastically better.
Included Account Enhancement
We've had more questions and confusion about how the included accounts were handled than anything else. There's been so much confusion with it that we've decided we needed to simplify it.
We were setting up separate VOIPo residential accounts in addition to the reseller account and then "linking them" on the backend. This created a lot of confusion since resellers weren't able to manage the account in the reseller control panel, get SIP credentials, etc.
We also had quite a few people concerned about the usage restrictions on the residential account since it was for personal, non-commercial use only. Many wanted to use it for their business.
Based on all of this, we've made a few changes to address these concerns.
All reseller accounts now include the following to get you started:
1 Free VoIP Adapter
3 Free Phone Numbers
3 Free E911 Activations
1000 Minutes Per Month (US Incoming/Outgoing Calls)
This allows you to setup your own personal service using your new reseller account. As an example, you could setup your home phone service, a toll-free number, and fax number.
Instead of setting up a special "included" account, you can just setup accounts normally in your reseller panel now. You won't be billed for the first 3 phone numbers (so you could setup the fax, toll-free, and home phone accounts), the first 3 E911 activations that you setup in your control panel. If you don't want to use all 3 for yourself, you don't have to. You could just as easily sell them all to customers if you don't need them yourself.
In addition, the first 1000 US minutes each calendar month are now included (remember our average residential account uses 472 minutes per month...so this is essentially doubling what you were getting before with a single residential account included). These minutes are for your entire account and are not isolated to one specific account.
After you've used the included items, the wholesale rates apply. So as an example, you won't be charged for a phone number until you add your 4th one. You won't be charged for US minutes until your account exceeds 1000 in a calendar month. You won't be charged for devices until your 2nd device order.
This should make things much simpler for everyone and give you more flexibility. If you already have included accounts setup, we'll be updating them over the next few days so that you can fully manage them in your control panel just as you would any other resold account.
If you have ANY questions about this, please let us know. We heard loud and clear that the original "included" method was very confusing and we've made these changes to simplify things.
Existing VOIPo Accounts
Many of you have existing VOIPo accounts that you want to move into your reseller account. As long as your name is on both accounts, we will move them for you. If there is a prepaid balance on the existing VOIPo account, we will issue a prorated credit to the reseller account usage balance so that you don't lose any money.
If you would like to move an existing VOIPo account to your reseller account, just contact reseller@voipo.com with the information. If you have already e-mailed a request to do this, we will reply and let you know once it's complete. These are being done manually due to the billing calculations so it may take 2-3 days to complete.
Bug Reports/Suggestions
During pre-launch, you will encounter some bugs along the way. When this happens, please e-mail reseller@voipo.com and let us know so we can investigate and solve the problem.
Our goal with this launch was to get all the basics out there. In the next version we expect to add a lot of enhancements and new functionality (such as billing modules). We're very open to feedback and suggestions and would love to hear what ideas you have that would help us make the program better. If you have suggestions, e-mail them to reseller@voipo.com and we'll add them to our suggestion list.
