AIT Launches Dealership Program
By Justin Lee, theWHIR.com
August 18, 2006 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — The Web hosting industry is saturated with resellers serving the small and medium-sized business market. And while many are professional, albeit small, operations, there has always been a certain segment of resellers that is sloppy and disorganized.
For the unknowledgeable customer, an attempt to choose a dependable, professional provider can come down to the company’s outward appearance.
The presence of a physical storefront can dramatically effect the first impression a prospective customer has of a reseller.
This uncertainty was the motivation behind Web host AIT (ait.com) launching the AIT Dealership Program, a new initiative that trains AIT resellers in opening and managing their own brick-and-mortar dealerships.
“Your typical reseller is the quintessential small business,” says Alex Lekas, VP of corporate communications for AIT. “If you’re chasing a government contract, and you’re talking to a business of 200 employees, it doesn’t matter how good you look sitting across the table from them.
“At some point they’re going to want to know, ‘so what does your back end look like?’ And when you tell them your address is a garage or a home office, I don’t know if it gives folks like that a warm fuzzy [feeling].”
The Dealership Program provides AIT resellers with private-label anonymity for their hosting clients and the credibility of being associated with a two-time Inc 500 company for adding new services and tapping into new customer markets.
AIT has opened offices in a half-dozen metropolitan areas including Pittsburgh, Chicago and Atlanta, converting members of its 8,000-strong reseller program into dealers with physical storefronts that carry the AIT brand.
“The dealership program raises the bar of expectations and possibilities on the part of the reseller,” says Lekas. “Instead of being a vendor-customer relationship, the dealer is a partner. We are firmly wedded to them by the time the dealership opens up.”
The dealerships combine the resources of a global company with the local feel of individual operators. With a recent seven-figure deal in Pittsburgh a few months ago, Lekas says the program is already on its way to becoming a success for AIT and its resellers.
“What we bring to the table is the infrastructure that helps [resellers] pursue some of the larger deals they can learn about and submit the requisite paperwork for,” says Lekas. “AIT is a centralized provider – it has the infrastructure and the technology backbone to support almost any initiative. These guys that are being tied publicly to AIT can pursue things in their local community.”
The Dealership Program services six major business competencies of Web and application, commerce and billing, collaboration and communication, security and monitoring, contracting and consulting, and training and certification.
An authorized dealer can arrange visits to the AIT data center or face-to-face meetings in their community. Additionally, dealers have access to key AIT personnel to assist with any client questions or concerns and the technology needed to support five- and six-figure sales and contracts.
The development of the Internet’s mass-market appeal has paved the way for a new generation of customer growth. While this new group of customers understands that the Internet is essential to the success of their business, they also want the personal feel of the customer-dealer interaction.
Lekas says AIT’s Dealership Program is the “logical evolution” of this AIT Reseller Program and opens many new opportunities beyond just Web hosting.
“The typical reseller program is all about hosting – everything spins off of hosting,” says Lekas. “With the dealership initiative, hosting may well be the last service that comes off the table.”
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