It’s easy to feel empathetic to the plight of partners when you consider that many of them now register deals with 20 or more vendors, and that means an almost overwhelming level of complexity in managing it all.

Juggling multiple partner portals and adhering to varying program rules can make deal registration effectively unmanageable. But it’s easy for a vendor to be part of the solution to this challenge. All they need to do is create a simple, intuitive deal registration process. Resellers need tools and platforms that reduce friction.

One thing that remains constant is why resellers register their deals in the first place. They want to protect the deal from competing bids, and then take advantage of the additional margins that are available when they do so.

What is fascinating here is that these very clear benefits and motivations, many resellers report being unaware of how these advantages apply to specific deals. Awareness is particularly low during critical customer interactions, which is when deal registration benefits would be most valuable.

Vendors should, therefore, be asking themselves “how can I improve clarity, to improve program utilization in kind?” It’s a question that provides powerful benefits back to the vendor as it means that the partner will feel fully supported by the vendor, with clear communication and training that fully improves the sales cycle.

Resellers really need to know if a deal qualifies for registration, and yet far too frequently they don’t. This isn’t their fault. It generally comes down to inconsistent guidelines and unclear criteria, and it’s hard to blame resellers that decide they don’t want to waste time for potentially not reward.

Obviously, this confusion results in lost opportunities for both vendors and their partners. Resellers often report skipping registration altogether because they are unsure if it will result in approval. Vendors can address this by offering clearer, more transparent criteria and decision-making tools that make it easy for resellers to determine eligibility quickly.

It’s somewhat incredible that even with advances in technology, many vendor-provided systems remain difficult and cumbersome to use. We all know what a well-designed app that puts the user experience first looks like, and too often resellers don’t get that from the portals.

This perception isn’t just academic – it has a direct impact on participation rates, as resellers are less likely to engage with programs that feel like a hassle. The answer here is simple: Make sure your portal has the same care put into the user experience that any other software project would.

Resellers consistently express dissatisfaction with the overall experience of deal registration. The reasons are varied, but common ones include: a lack of integration between portals, the complexity of rules, and the inconsistency in processing registrations as key pain points. To improve satisfaction, vendors need to go beyond fixing individual systems and adopt a more holistic approach that streamlines the entire process and makes it more efficient for resellers to engage.