Ins and Outs of White Label IT Support

Whether you’re selling a private label or white label platform, your own products, or both, white label IT support services can help your company grow. Relying on a third-party provider for technical support enables your team to focus on other tasks. It also makes scaling easier.

However, the white-label model isn’t your only option. Let’s look at what white-label IT support is, when it’s useful, and potential drawbacks you should be aware of.

What Is White-Label IT Support?

With white labeling, a third party provides IT support to your end users. But the services are offered under your brand.

As with white labeling and reseller partnerships for cloud platforms and other IT products, your customers’ experience revolves around your brand. Your provider’s brand isn’t visible anywhere.

There are different types of white-label IT support services:

• White label help desk – In this case, your partner provides technical support to your end users. They answer questions, troubleshoot problems, and offer general help to your IT customers.
• On-site IT support – With on-site services, skilled IT experts or engineers go to your client’s location to fix IT problems, maintain systems, or replace hardware.

When Should You Consider White-Labeling?

White labeling technical support or on-site IT help lets you expand your services without employing more staff. If you don’t have the resources to offer adequate IT support, either because you’re a small business or your company is scaling quickly, white labeling is worth looking into. Here’s why:

• A third party staffed by a diverse team of experts might be better equipped to handle your end users’ more complex issues.
• You can offer 24/7 support, which can be an important selling point for your business.
• White labeling is cost-effective. Your company can draw upon experienced IT experts without having to build a large team or worry about training or managing your IT staff.

White-Labeling vs. Managed IT Services – What’s the Difference?

White-label IT support isn’t the only way to outsource your help desk. Managed services providers (MSPs) are another option.

The difference is that MSPs may or may not offer a white-label service. On the other hand, when you use a white-label IT support provider, your customers aren’t aware that a third party is involved. They call your phone number, see your branding, and interact with IT experts who represent your brand values. Your provider essentially acts like an extension of your company.

MSPs generally focus on delivering services directly to their client – such as network maintenance, consulting, security, and cloud migration, as well as help desk support for end users (either employees or customers).

As they don’t specialize in IT support, they might not be able to offer high-level technical support. Instead, they are a good option if you simply need basic help desk services for your platform’s users, or if you’re looking to bundle your end-user IT support services with other MSP services.

What Are the Downsides of White-Labeling IT Support Services?

There are a lot of positives to using a white-label solution. With the extra IT support, your business can grow and provide a better experience to customers. But there are a couple of downsides you should know.

• Because the IT help desk experts aren’t part of your staff, no one from your team is managing them. That means, ultimately, their training and quality of service are out of your hands.

How to resolve this:

• Find out how much input your white label partner will let you provide regarding training, quality level standards, and processes. And only work with a provider you can trust. You need to be able to communicate your company’s expectations and have some control over the service level. There should also be a reporting process so you’re able to see insights into the quality of care and customer satisfaction.
• If a provider doesn’t know your brand or IT products well, they might not be able to resolve uncommon or difficult support requests. Also, depending on how many clients they work with, they might not respond to your customers’ needs quickly.

How to resolve this:

• If you want another company to handle your IT support, their team needs to have an intimate knowledge of your products. If you’re a reseller, you can rely on your provider partner to offer technical support. That way, you get peace of mind that your end users will always receive top-level technical support.

Finding a Partner You Can Trust

White-label IT support services can be a game-changer for some software and cloud services companies. You can take the burden of IT support off of your team, and at the same time, give your customers advanced services.

But there are other ways to expand your business through the right partnerships.

When you partner with Intermedia, you can choose the type of relationship that works for your company. This flexibility lets you take as much ownership as you want over the process, branding, and customer experience. We’re here to help with the rest and to lift up your teams with training, sales and marketing support, and J.D. Power-certified technical support. Find out how becoming an Intermedia Partner can help your business grow.

The Intermedia Team

Intermedia helps businesses of all sizes connect better – through voice, video conferencing, chat, contact center, business email and productivity, file sharing and backup, security, archiving, and more – from wherever, whenever. And, as a partner-first company, Intermedia goes to work for our channel partners to help them grow their revenue and maximize their success.