Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I`d like to get feedback to see if there is interest in this type of service.  Some sites (ie, Amaonzon.com, Buy.com, etc) allow you to login and view all of your customer information, including contact info, billing history (no storing of credit cards) and tech support (opening new tickets and tracking them).  Would you use such a service for your website?

The service would be hosted.  After you setup an initial account with the hosting provider, it`s as simple as putting a link to the account login.  Customers create a new account with you.  They can then maintain all of the information wthout your intervention being required.  It will also have PayPal integration, which updates the billing history section for customers automatically.

Thanks,
John

is this for hosting service? folks like control, so it would be a good idea for any business. this will allow them to view history, ask questions, get help and pay. Do you have a programmer to set this up? what is your business type?

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Hi stonesledge.  It will be hosted.  I`m not a website hosting service however.  I supply custom web based applications.  The online account service is something I`d like to offer as a canned solution.  Here`s an example of how it would work:

You have a website and sell services or products.   You get many repeat customers and believe you can build more loyalty and offer high quality service by giving your customers a free place to view their information (mentioned above).  You come to my website and open a new account.  You choose the offerings you`d like for customers to access in the account and add a link to your site.  Now your customers can register new accounts with you.  When customers log into your account, they are taken to my site but the account you setup is branded.  So customers experience a close to seamless transition.  Their login is also secure.

I do have someone to help put it together.  I just wanted to get a few initial comments and explore if people here thought it would be a valuable addition to their website, marketing and customer service.

Thanks.

I don`t really see it as something valuable to myself but I sell a very low
volume through my site and my focus is not online sales. However, I
would think a more substantial online retailer would like it. And as an
online consumer I definitely see value.

I`m not entirely sure I understand your concept completely. Your initial
post is confusing though clearer on the second. What would be really
fantastic is a service where ANY online purchase could be tracked and
consolidated in one place. No logging into different sites to see your
purchase history and info. Not a payment service like PayPal but a
tracking service for anyone. Is this what you are proposing?

CampSteve,

Thanks. Your comments are helping me flesh out a better description.  I should have mentioned it is very oriented toward those that are selling online and most likely are subscription based or selling many products.  The advantage is that you don`t have to type in and maintain all of this customer information.  Customers will set it up and maintain it themselves (think about how you do this at Amazon.com).

Yes - most everything will be consolidated.  However, once a user makes a purchsase on your site, he will be prompted to log into the account (which you have setup with me) and then is directed to PayPal.  They finished the trasaction and are returned to their account with a thank you message.  The billing history is already updated.

You can log into the admin area and view purchases by customer name, date, product/service, etc. and downloaded these into Excel.  You can also download address information (for those that included it) into Excel or maybe another format for mailing customer gifits, marketing material or what ever it may be.  Customers can as well signup for newsletters or unsubscribe within their account.

Maybe one confusing area is the difference between an account the business owner creates and an account the business owner`s customers create.  If it were a hiearchy, I would be the top account.  Business owners would setup accounts with me to use the service.  Next, their customers would setup accounts with them.  So the business owners look like Amazon.com or Buy.com to the customer in regards to account login. 

I`m not proposing a place that you can login and see information from accounts you might have with Amazon.com, Buy.com, egghead.com, your bank, etc.  This is only for "your" customers to view transactions they have "only" with you. 

Does the concept seem clearer now?

Thanks,
John

I would be interested in this type of application. How difficult will it be to install? Have you troubled shot all problems?

Hi RaiseCapital,

This is in the early development stage and still has a ways to go.  Since it will be hosted on my server, no installation is required.  That brings up a key question, would businesses rather install this type of application on their server or is host it with me?

Hosting is the simplest solution.  No install and maintenance on your part.  You can be up and running immediately.  For the install solution, there will be some barriers for businesses since not all hosting companies will allow you to install applications on their server.  But if that is a popular enough request, it will most likely be offered.

Thanks,
John

Great to know that is an option. Do you have it in Beta where we can test it?

johnc,

The negative:
    Currently I cannot think of a way to overcome all of the technical issues with the idea. The main goal would be to make it as transparent to the user as possible while making it extremely easy to configure for the company using your product. Take for instance a OScommerce based site. They already have a built in database with all customer information and some pretty standard statistics. You could make an add-on module for this but then you have tons of other CMS and prebuilt packages to hook into, not to mention the millions of custom sites. Another way would be to mirror all of the companies database, stats, etc and then give them a great interface. But again, millions of different database structures to deal with.

The Positive:
    If I were to try this here is what I would do ( for beta ). Find the top 5 most used ecommerce systems. Such as OSCommerce, Virtumart, etc. (just examples). Then create some kind of easy to install package which streams data back to your servers in a secure manner ( another challenge ). On top of that add a javascript snippet like Google uses for Analytics to get traffic information. After all of that information is on your server, compile it into a super intuitive system that people can log into and analyze.




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SecurityDistro Arm Your Toolbox

Thanks for the clearer explanation. Correct me if I am wrong but a
customer would log into the account while making a purchase and then
be directed to PayPal, where they would then log in to their PayPal
account. That`s two logins. And what if the online retailer already has a
system for customer accounts, even if it`s just for collecting email
addresses or order tracking (no consumer options)? That would require
three different logins for one purchase!

It seems to me that another step in the consumer`s checkout process
might not be accepted all that well. To have to log into multiple accounts
while making a purchase would be annoying. Perhaps I am not
understanding your concept but you did mention that consumers would
login and set up their own accounts as well. Not to mention being taken
to another website, even though they would be directed back at the end.
Would all this be accepted by the buying public?

The big retailers like Amazon and Buy.com (which you seem to be using
as a model for those not as big) have put a lot of effort into streamlining
the checkout process, while at the same time offering more customer
options. They easily achieve this because they can do it under one
customer login and account.

Don`t get me wrong here, I like your idea of bringing these services to the
smaller online retailer. And by seeing some other posts above, there is
definitely interest!

It`s just my opinion that you need to rethink the setup of it all. From the
retailer`s point of view, it`s great. From the consumer`s point of view...
well, I don`t know.