Companies merge or run more than one hosting site?

[WebDogPro]

This is my story I have a small hosting company (WebDogHost) I have been friends with the owner of (ECA Hosting) and we have deiced to merge into one company. So between the both of us we have about 80-100 paying customers, so we where thinking about creating a non branded name for the parent company. So we came up with Twenty Four Networks.
My questions for all you are how would you deal with the 3 different sites do you think we should keep the 2 current sites and forward the sales to our parent company billing system and just let customers know during checkout that it will appear under Twenty Four Networks or would you forward the 2 domains with traffic to the new parent company? How would you deal with all the current customers as the name the invoices will be coming from will be different?

I have just been putting a lot of thought into it last few weeks as its coming closer to when I need to launch our new site and do something with our old ones I am just afraid of losing customers over the confusion.

I am really tired right now so if this does not make sense let me know and ill rewrite it in the morning.

Thanks

Best Regards,
Max Wilson
Support Team
System Administrator
WebDogPro Networks™
Max@WebDogPro.com

[wisehosting]

I have a similiar - yet not quite the same problem! I have purchased two domains with which I think I can expand a lot of sales with. However I cannot decide whether to brand the two domains differently from our main domain - wisehosting.co.uk and install a different client / billing type - or forward sales onto our main site and do as you suggest - let customers know they will be billed under a different name.

In your case forwarding traffic - I see the following pluses:


Client support can be integrated into one site (parent easier)
Billing is easier from an admin point of view
Clients will see an top level company and not a branch
You can "change over" existing clients if needed over time to parent billing etc while keeping existing arrangements for the moment
If you forward traffic - you only need to update one website with specials etc

[alex042]

I think some of this depends on if the different brands target the same people or not. It also depends on how the business entity is setup.

We have a similar issue with multiple brands, but currently a single business entity and just let people know all sales go through the parent company, but at some point, we could setup each brand as it's own dba to seperate them.

But If you are serving different markets with the brands and if each have their own business entity, they could still function as different brands on their own regardless of whether they are run by a parent company or not.

You'll also want to consider how you would want to handle any future mergers or acquisitions and treat them similarly.

[WebDogPro]

Thanks for your input.

All the sites will have the same sales so that’s why I was thinking about moving into one site and have forwarders for the old domains and that would solve my billing issues.

How would you let all the customers know about the change I know when name changes happen a lot of the time I would think new management? When in our case it’s actually going to be the same + more management and support.

Best Regards,
Max Wilson
Support Team
System Administrator
WebDogPro Networks™
Max@WebDogPro.com

[Trigger]

Tell them the truth, as your two companies run along similar lines you have joined forces to provide a larger more stable company, they will still have the same great service from you but with the added advantange that you can pool your resources to provide them with a greater level of support.

If you are all upfront most customers will see this as a smart move.

[prhost]

I agree with that...you must inform all your customers of the change and assure them that your services are there to stay. Honesty is the best policy.

Personally, I would form a new partnership (don't forget that you must have a written agreement with your new partner if forming a partnership) with a new brand name and have both your existing sites initially point to your new partnership site through links and an explanation that company X has joined with company Y to become company Z and all further orders are being taken with the name of company Z

You will then have to consolidate all your clients into a billing software, and possibly have them update their new subscription once to companyZ after you cancel the subscriptions that exist for company X and Y.

Hope that helps.

[GordonH]

Given the small number of customers and the similar services it makes sense to merge them together.

However there are two things you need to bear in mind here:

1. McDonalds has more than one outlet for a reason. Having more than one site may make sense as you get bigger.

2. You may want to offer products which contradict those you offer at the moment and then a second brand would make sense.

Right now. I think you should merge what you have as there is little value in trying to promote two independently.