Adding domains to your existing services is a strategic choice that can enhance your offerings and streamline your customers’ experience. Whether you’re a web hosting provider, a digital agency, or an IT solutions company, choosing the right domain integration solution can translate to greater efficiency and business success. In this guide, we’ll outline your options and walk you through the best practices, so you can choose the ideal domain solution for your business and customer base. 

Understand your needs

Before diving into the technical details, it’s important to assess your business’s needs and your customers’ expectations. Here are a few questions to consider:

  • What level of control, if any, do I want my customers to have over their domains? 
  • Should I manage their domains, let them self-manage, or give them flexible management options?
  • How much time and resources can I invest in the integration process?
  • Is there an out-of-the-box solution that can solve my needs? 
  • Is this an additional service for a select group of clients or all of my customers?
  • Do I need to make domain registration and management available within my product?

With a clear sense of how you want domains to fit into your overall customer experience and the level of resources you’re willing to invest, you can evaluate the available options to make the best choice for your business.

Choosing the right method

You have three solutions to consider: manually managing domains on behalf of your customers, a turnkey solution, or an API integration. Here’s a breakdown of each, including their associated benefits and considerations.

Manual domain management

You can manage your OpenSRS services through your control panel, where you can search, register, and renew domains on behalf of your customers.

Best for: Companies with a small customer base or those who prefer to take care of all aspects of domain management on the client’s behalf.

Benefits: No technical integration required. You get complete control over the customer experience and offer a fully personalized service.

Considerations: The control panel has limited scalability and no self-service options for your customers. If you wish to bill customers for registering and renewing domains, you’ll need to do this manually. 

Turnkey domain management

Turnkey domain management typically involves a ready-built solution, such as OpenSRS Storefront. With this solution, you can sell domains from your website and enable your customers to self-manage without any technical integration work.

Best for: Marketing agencies, website builders, IT services providers, and similar companies that want to offer domain services quickly without any development work.

Benefits: You can set up your customer-facing Storefront in minutes by customizing your branding, pricing, and the domain extensions to offer. You’ll also provide your customers with self-service capabilities to search, register, and pay for their domains. You get paid automatically on your bank account each month.

Considerations: At this time, Storefront supports 50+ popular domain extensions, and we’re regularly adding more. However, it does not support all those available through OpenSRS, or our other services, like email and SSL.

API integration

Best for: Companies with a large customer base or those looking to integrate domain management with their existing products, services, or customer interface. 

Benefits: You can seamlessly integrate domain registration and management into your existing customer experience, products, or services. This gives you full control over the customer experience and the ability to completely automate domain management. Our large customers, such as website builders and sizable hosting companies, prefer this method. 

Considerations: Building a seamless API integration between our systems and yours requires upfront development work and occasional maintenance.

Best practices for offering domains

Whichever method you choose, the customer experience should be at the center of your strategy.

If you want to enable your customers to register or manage domains themselves, here are a few ways to ensure they have a positive experience:

Design a streamlined registration flow 

Optimize the registration workflow to ensure it is as straightforward and efficient as possible. A streamlined process is crucial for retaining customers and minimizing confusion. By minimizing the number of steps required to complete a domain purchase, you can enhance customer satisfaction and encourage repeat purchases. Consider the following:

  • Multiple registration options: For users managing multiple domains, offer a bulk registration option that allows them to add and register several domains at a time. This saves time and simplifies domain management.
  • Easy renewal flow: Encourage auto-renewals and implement a one-click domain renewal option to allow users to easily extend their domain registrations without navigating multiple screens. This convenience can improve customer retention and reduce the risk of domains expiring.

Customize all automated messages to reflect your brand’s identity

Brand consistency across all customer interactions is crucial for building trust and reinforcing your brand’s presence. Domain registrations come with various ICANN-mandated communications for domain owners, like Whois verification and renewal notices. All registrars must send these notices to registrants, but not all offer white-label messaging options for resellers. You’ll want to ensure that all the automated messages sent to your customers are customized to reflect your branding. This includes:

  • Personalized messaging: Tailor automated messages to align with your tone and voice. This personalization can enhance the customer experience, making interactions more engaging and relevant.
  • Incorporate visual branding: Use your logo, color scheme, and brand fonts in all automated communications. This visual consistency helps strengthen brand recognition and reinforces your professional image.

 Enable self-service management

Providing your customers with domain management tools can save you both time. This includes changing DNS and namesever settings, setting up domain forwarding and auto-renewals, and processing, transfers, renewals, and registrations. You can build these functionalities into your existing customer interface through an API integration or leverage our turnkey Storefront solution to provide your customers with an on-brand client portal without any integration work. You’ll also want to provide resources, like help guides and FAQs related to domain management, and ensure your support staff are trained to assist customers effectively.

Focusing on these elements will help you create a seamless domain registration and management experience for your customers and streamline your operations. Thoughtful UX, effective communication, and robust self-service options will make your domain management services stand out.

Plan for scalability

As your business grows, your and your customers’ needs may evolve. It’s wise to choose a solution that can scale with you. You might start with a turnkey solution like OpenSRS Storefront and move to a complete integration using the  OpenSRS API as your customer base grows. You’ll want to partner with a registrar who can support your needs today and in the future. At Tucows OpenSRS, we offer a wide range of solutions that make reselling domains easy for businesses of all sizes. 

Maintain flexibility and control

Remain flexible to help ​​you stay ahead of competitors and meet evolving customer expectations. To ensure your domain integration aligns with your business goals, select a solution that’s not only scalable but offers comprehensive customization options.

Opt for a solution that allows you to tailor your pricing. You’ll also want a solution that lets you personalize and manage customer communications—from renewal notifications to reminder emails—to maintain a consistent and professional communication strategy that reflects your company’s voice and values. Also, ensure you have customizable branding options to maintain your brand identity across all customer touchpoints. This creates a cohesive customer experience and reinforces your brand’s credibility.

Features that provide flexibility and control are a must-have if you want to remain agile and deliver a high-quality, personalized service that stands out. 

Next steps

Providing domains along with your existing services doesn’t have to be complicated. By evaluating your needs, selecting the proper solution, and prioritizing user experience, you can build a more complete offering that boosts customer loyalty and grows your revenue. Whether you’re just starting out or scaling up, following these best practices will help you make informed decisions that benefit your business and your customers.

Ready to take the next step? Create an OpenSRS reseller account and unlock the tools and support you need to effortlessly integrate domain services into your business.