6. Managing Customers - Standard Edition Resellers
Effective customer management helps businesses build a relationship with their customers which builds loyalty, contributing to the active revenue stream. The Standard Edition for Resellers offers an integrated set of customer management functionalities, which allow resellers to maintain stable relationships with their clientele.
In the My Customer section, you can:
Access, view, and edit customer lists
Create a new account record
Access, view, and edit individual customer records
Access, view, and edit customer orders, subscriptions, and assets (to be released at a later stage)
Create, assign, and deactivate Storefront users
Obtain customer statistics and other relevant information (to be released at a later stage).
This section is automatically populated according to the Distributor’s records as well as the reseller’s purchases via the Distributor’s Storefront on behalf of their end customers.
Access, view, and edit customer lists
As a Reseller, with the Standard Edition you can easily access the Customer section of their Storefront by navigating towards the Settings icon in the left-hand-side panel of the menu and selecting the My Customers option.
The system displays the homepage of the section, which includes:
Key customer statistics (available in an upcoming release):
All Customers: the total number of all their customers, both active and inactive.
Transacting Customers: the total number of customers who:
have at least one active subscription/ asset or
a Monthly Run Rate larger than 0
Monthly Run Rate: the monthly revenue of the Reseller’s customers.
The list of all the Reseller’s customers is presented in a grid that displays customer name, phone, city, email, monthly run rate, access to Storefront, and a button for performing individual customer management actions.
To prevent end customers from overcharging resellers, a check runs to determine whether the Reseller has assigned a payment gateway. If they have, every order placed by customers will require approval before being executed. In this case, the following message appears on the top of the page:
The payment method set by your distributor requires order approval for all customers.
From this interface, the Reseller can:
Search for a customer, using the search bar in the top right corner of the customers' grid
Export the entire customer list by selecting the Excel button next to the search bar. The system generates the customer list in an Excel file named Customers.xls and prompts to save the file.
Create a new account record
The system allows the Reseller to easily create a new account record by following just a few steps:
Log in to the admin environment and click on the My Customers button on the left-hand-side panel
Click on the New Customer button at the top right corner of the grid:
Fill in the customer details at the pop-up window, including company name, email, address, city, country and state/province, postcode, and phone number. The system checks whether the mandatory fields have been filled in and notifies the user.
Select Save to save the new account or Cancel to abort the operation.
Access, view, and edit individual customer records
To obtain detailed information for any customer, clicking on their name in the grid. The system opens up the customer’s record, which is divided into three principal sections:
Customer Name and access to quick actions on the left-hand-side panel
Detailed information
Storefront Users: this section presents a list of users related to this customer with access to the Reseller’s Storefront.
Orders: this section displays details on the orders of the specific customer.
Available Actions
Right under the customer’s name, this section presents a sticky menu with two main options and a shortcut button to several key Actions. Specifically, the sticky menu options provide access to:
Order Approval required: this toggle is disabled for resellers who have set Credit Card as their payment method. This means that all of their end customers' orders require approval by the Reseller. On the contrary, resellers who have set Cash or Deposit as payment methods can deactivate this option for any of their customers.
Information: when the user clicks on this option, they are redirected to the detailed customer information section (section #2 in the figure above).
Storefront Users: when the user clicks on this option, they are redirected to the Storefront User section (section #3 in the figure above).
Orders: when the user clicks on this option, they are redirected to the orders section right below the Storefront Users section.
Additionally, clicking on the Actions button displays shortcuts to several options, including:
Add Storefront User: by selecting this option, the system displays a pop-up window where the Reseller can create a new Storefront user by filling in some key information (user’s first and last name, email address for receiving the activation link, preferred language, and date format). All fields are mandatory, and when completed, the Reseller must click on OK to create the user or Cancel to abort the operation.
The new Storefront user will receive a welcome email with an activation link and instructions on how to log into the reseller’s Storefront.
Manage Services: when the Reseller clicks on this option, they are redirected to their distributor’s workspace at the pre-selected end customer’s record with Single-Sign-On (SSO). This saves the Reseller valuable time as they do not need to log into their distributor’s Storefront, look up for the specific end customer and pull up their record.
Manage Subscriptions: similarly, when the Reseller clicks on this option, they are redirected to their distributor’s workspace at the pre-selected end customer’s record with SSO, where they can manage all the subscriptions of the specific customer.
Manage Assets: Assets can include both licenses and reservations selecting this options redirects the Reseller to their distributor’s billing page with SSO. There, the Reseller can select the corresponding asset list and perform the necessary changes.
Please note that the three last actions will be available in a later release, with more detailed instructions.
Detailed information section
This section contains the following details of the customer:
Name
Address
Email
City
Country
Phone
State/Province
Post Code
If the customer has access to the Reseller’s Storefront, the system displays a green check sign. To save the changes, select Update.
Storefront Users section
The third section of an individual’s customer page is the list of the Storefront users belonging to the customer.
Orders section
The final section displays all the orders belonging to this end customer, along with their status and details.
Specifically, the Orders table is broken down into the following columns:
Order #: Order number as generated from the distributor
Whether the order has been placed by the Reseller or the end customer (shown with the person symbol)
Status: current status of the order, which can take ant of the following values:
Executed: the order has been executed successfully
Pending Reseller Approval: this means that the order has been submitted by the end customer and now the Reseller must review and approve or reject it. This status appears for orders submitted by customers for whom the Reseller has activated the “Order Approval Required” option.
In Progress: this applies to non-automatically provisioned products and means that the order has been submitted successfully but the Reseller’s distributor must take the necessary actions to enable the provision.
Canceled: the order has been canceled by the Reseller
Order Date: the date the order was submitted
Total Cost: total cost of the order
Total Amount, including the markup set by the Reseller
Actions: a three-dot icon that gives access to the following actions, depending on the order status: (i) Accept orders pending reseller approval (ii) Cancel, which means that the order is rejected. Please refer to the following page for information regarding how order validation is performed: 7. Managing Orders by the Reseller - Standard Edition for Resellers | Order Validation
At the top right corner of the order table, the system provides a search bar that allows users to easily look up an order.
To export the entire table of orders in Excel format (.xlsx), select the Excel button.
Create, assign, and deactivate Storefront users
With the Standard Edition, Resellers have the flexibility to add, assign and remove Storefront users for their customers easily and hustle-free. To access this functionality, the Reseller must log in to the admin environment of their Storefront and:
Go to My Customers
Search or locate the customer for whom they want to edit Storefront user(s) and click on their name
Click on Actions → Add Storefront user and fill in the required user information, as described above
Alternatively, scroll down to the Storefront Users section where the Reseller can:
View all Storefront users belonging to the specific customer along with pertinent details, such as name, email, language, and date format
Search for a user by clicking on the search bar in the top right corner of the section
Add a new Storefront user by clicking on the Add button in the top right corner of the section, next to the search bar.
The system pulls up the Create New Storefront User pop-up where, as described above, the Reseller must fill in some key information (user’s first and last name, email address for receiving the activation link, preferred language, and date format). All fields are mandatory, and when completed, the Reseller must select OK to create the user or Cancel to abort the operation.
At any time, the Reseller can reset Storefront passwords for their customer’s existing users, resend an activation link to allow a newly-added and non-activated user to complete their registration, or deactivate an existing Storefront user. To perform any of these actions, the Reseller must locate the respective user and click on the three-dot icon under the Actions column.
Then:
(I) For resetting the password for existing users: if the Reseller proceeds to this action, a confirmation popup will be displayed:
When the Reseller clicks OK, the system will confirm the operation, and the user will receive an email with their activation link.
(ii) A similar confirmation message will pop up for resending the activation link to a non-activated user.
Once the Storefront user is activated, the system will email the user with their activation link. When the end customer is activated, the option Resend Activation link will be replaced with the Reset Storefront Password option.
(iii) For deactivating an existing Storefront user, the action Deactivate User must be selected. The system automatically deactivates the selected user and displays a confirmation pop-up message, as seen below:
Please note that you can reactivate a deactivated user at any time. Go to the Storefront Users list of the customer, find the user and select the Activate User option after clicking on the three-dot action button. The system will ask you to confirm the action.
Watch here the tutorial video of this page:
*For full-screen video playback, please click on the YouTube icon located next to the Full-screen option in the bottom right corner.