After conducting research and receiving feedback from partners, Verio drew on the information to design an online resource center that would facilitate greater community interaction between partners, says Matt Van Dam, manager of reseller sales for Verio.

"There was a desire to enhance the community aspect for resellers to interact with each other and interact with Verio to share information about products and services," he says. "There was also a strong desire from [resellers] to have better protection on pricing and content that was reseller-specific."

The viaVerio partner program is essential to Verio's overall business. The program offers resellers exclusive access to a range of online business services targeting the SMB market, including shared, virtual or managed Web hosting, online business services and applications and e-commerce solutions. Resellers receive volume discounts, private label opportunities and technical sales and marketing support.

The company's new reseller efforts are focused in part around providing resellers with the materials to help them better communicate.

"Verio's trying to improve the communication, whether that's between Verio and our partners or partners amongst other partners," says Van Dam. "Also, to allow them to be more efficient in how they communicate with their customers by providing that content in either co-branded or non-branded formats that they can use."

The company ensured that the new site would be accessible to people of varying technical backgrounds and requirements, ranging from the inexperienced first-timer to the tenured partner.

A new welcome area will provide new partners with everything they need to get started, including the tools and basic knowledge they need to launch a Web services business. There is also a general account maintenance area where partners can access FAQs and get documentation and setup material, including best practices for fighting spam and email marketing tips.

Existing partners can access a password-protected area that contains a wide range of resources including white-labeled PDFs and marketing materials that partners can use to serve their own customers, helpful Webinars and tutorials and new deals on products and services.

"I think one of the key differences between what Verio is doing and what our key competitors are doing is that it's focusing an entire site, an entire brand name, an entire channel [on the reseller partner program]," says Van Dam. "I think it shows Verio's commitment to the reseller partner program."

Verio will continue to expand on the viaVerio.com portal in future updates and enhancements. In the meantime, Van Dam says he is confident that the new site is a considerable improvement over its predecessor, making life a little easier for Verio's resellers.

"The response has been very positive," says Van Dam, "It's been a major shift in the look and feel in the design, so obviously with that type of major change there's a learning curve where customers have to go through and learn."