Skype has sought to reassure its business customers that they can trust it in the future, despite the withdrawal of thousands of central London numbers from its SkypeIn users.
Speaking to ZDNet.co.uk on Tuesday, Skype's vice president of telecoms, Stefan Oberg, shed further light on the circumstances that led to the VoIP company withdrawing the numbers, and insisted that Skype tried to defend its customers' "best interests" throughout.
SkypeIn is a paid-for function of the largely free Skype internet communications service. It provides the user with a geographic telephone number — one starting 01 or 02 — which gives the impression that the user is located in the area of their choice.
In late November, Skype pulled around 10,000 SkypeIn numbers that used the 0207 prefix — a move which caused outrage among business customers whose marketing literature and business cards used the number to imply a central London business location. Many customers were exasperated by Skype's subsequent offer to them of a new SkypeIn number which was free for a period but not prefixed with 0207.
This has never happened before. We have numbers in many markets and from many different providers... This was one exception
Stefan Oberg, Skype
Initial reports suggested that the withdrawal was simply the result of a commercial dispute between Skype and its supplier of 0207 numbers, GCI Telecom — itself supplied by a company called Gamma Telecom. It appeared that the price of the numbers had risen and Skype was unwilling to pay what was demanded of it.
However, according to Oberg, there was more to the story. "It wasn't only the money," said Oberg. "We were forced to come to the conclusion that we did [arrive at]. It was a very complicated matter, and we had our customers' best [interests] as our top priority. This has never happened before. We have numbers in many markets and from many different providers. We have good agreements in place with big, reliable partners for our numbers in general. This was one exception."
Oberg explained that the relationship between Skype and GCI Telecom had "started many years ago when Skype was in a different situation."
"It is unfortunate that it came back to hit us and our customers now," Oberg said. "We were running out of numbers in London and we went to one of our largest and most trusted suppliers… who pointed us in one direction and asked us to work with a local partner in the UK. Our trusted partner was in talks [regarding] an acquisition here in England. They thought it would conclude shortly. The acquisition failed, but by that time we had already sold the numbers to our customers. We were [then] in a situation where we had the numbers, but not a proper partner, nor a properly regulated [in terms of the commercial agreement] relationship."
"What normally happens is we work only with trusted, reliable large companies, and we do due diligence before engaging in negotiations," said Oberg. "We have standards terms and conditions regarding how we buy SkypeIn numbers, and service levels we expect from our partners. We then test the service technically, very thoroughly. In this case, that did not happen properly. We concluded the best thing for our customers was to offer them a number from a reliable partner."
Oberg, who claimed that he and many others at Skype had themselves lost 0207 numbers as a result of the incident, said that Skype was "doing all we can to make sure it doesn't happen again" and had tried its best to contact the majority of affected customers personally, albeit with only a month's notice.
Many telecoms services offer business customers a service level agreement (SLA) to give assurance that this sort of thing will not happen. However, argued Oberg, Skype is "clearly not a telco" and is therefore unable to offer an SLA. "We are a piece of software," he said. "To use it you need a lot of other components that we have no control over — a PC, other software, network provider and so on. We cannot control that whole chain, which is one reason why we cannot do an SLA. For some customers, an SLA for voice can be very important, but customers need to make that choice. We are not a replacement for your phone system. We are a complement."
Oberg suggested that Skype had much to offer business users in terms of functionality. "You get presence, great audio quality, video, IM, file transfer, conference calling; it is possible to send SMS; and it is possible to have numbers in many countries," he said. "A small UK company can have a number in the US, one in Hong Kong, one in Sweden and so on. This is something a telco cannot offer. You can use Skype from your mobile in the UK — free communications from the office to mobile workers and back. Your number and service travel with you. Those are great benefits on their own, and they are for free."
Oberg hinted at new features which will shortly arrive for business users. "There are a couple of areas we are working on improving. One relates to buying and managing credits. Companies want to buy credits in larger amounts [the current limit is €250 (£180) at a time] and distribute them automatically to individuals, and follow that up with statistics. Companies also want to get an invoice, so we are also building that."
Another issue which may concern business users of VoIP is the Enum registry, which aims to unite not only the various VoIP providers — referred to by some as "islands" due to their lack of interconnection with each other — but the entire VoIP and traditional telephony worlds.
Asked whether Skype had considered opening up its famously closed communications protocols, Oberg claimed that there had been no customer demand for interconnection. "[Customers] are not saying they would love to call a VoIP provider on a different network," he said. "Customers are asking for better video and better conference calling. If it is something that customers really ask for, we would consider it, but it is very easy for anyone to get on the island."
"In order to provide richness, we have to create our own protocols," Oberg added. "SIP and the standard [VoIP] protocols simply can't do it."
Talkback
I have read this article through several times, and I still can't find any significant new information from Skype, and I certainly don't see what Skype was doing that could be construed as "defending its customers best interests". There is nothing in what Oberg says which comes close to explaining why they would suddenly decide to take away 10,000 phone number, with only 30 days notice, and a cutoff date five days before Christmas! Obviously they had made a commercial agreement with the company providing those numbers which they were no longer happy with, but rather than making the effort to work out the problem or at least make a reasonable transition period for their customers, Skype decided to just dump the problem on their customers.
As has been mentioned by a number of people who were affected by this, that blow could be fatal to their business - the cost of reprinting marketing literature, business cards, advertisements on vehicles, and on and on, added to the loss of business in the heart of the Christmas season, is tremendous.
One thing that Oberg didn't mention was that the electronic "voucher" that Skype gave to their customers as "compensation" for this was itself invalid in many cases, so when the customers tried to change their numbers to one of the new ones offered by Skype, the voucher was rejected and they were charged again for the new number! Talk about adding insult to injury!
Promises of "we are doing all we can to make sure it doesn't happen again" from Skype ring hollow, in light of the recent past. After the "great Skype outage" for four days last August, Skype made the same promise. But they recently had a two-day outage in much of the U.K., which (of course) was followed by more promises from Skype to do everything possible not to let it happen again...
A very large number of (former) Skype customers have in fact been able to keep their 0207 numbers, by changing their VoIP service to another provider! This obviously brings up the question - if a third party was able to "come to the rescue" of these customers, why could Skype not do so themselves if as they say "we had our customers' best [interests] as our top priority"?
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simply don’t understand why Skype are even trying to excuse their 0207 number debacle. I’m sure for many customers, it’s not just that they are losing their number but the whole way the recall was handled that is the issue and for that there’s no excuse.
Skype has had little regard for the repercussions of cutting off these numbers for their customers. They haven’t even supplied their customers with a number to call for help. So when Oberg comments that Skype is “doing all we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again” you don’t get the impression that stems from concern for their customers. A desire to avoid more adverse publicity (of which they’ve suffered much recently) seems more likely!
A the end of the day, we all know mistakes can happen but I firmly believe that it’s how you handle them that is crucial. At Vonage, we pride ourselves in putting the customer first. This is why within 48 hours of the Skype recall story breaking, we had set up a special help line to allow any affected Skype customer keep their number simply by switching to us.
We’ve already spoken to many disgruntled Skype customers and are happy to welcome more. In fact, we've had to add extra agents to handle the number of calls. Skype customers can call 0808 178 9617 but need to do so quickly as Skype’s cut off deadline is looming.
Before I start to make my comments I would suggest you all go and get yourself a large glass or cup of your favourite drink, grab your favourite chair, sit down and relax and get ready for my comments on the excellent interview David Mayer did with Stefan Oberg VP of Skype telecoms.
For the sake of continuity I will try and answer each section I am going to make a comment on as it is laid out in the original article by David.
Lets talk about Stefan first why, because he is the best PR man Skype have got and no good at all as VP of the telecoms sections of Skype. Now why do I say he is the best PR man Skype have got, because like all PR men they talk a lot about this and that and we could of done this or we could of done that but NEVER give a straight answer to a straight question, now that is excellent PR. This is true of the article by David because 95% on the answers Stefan has given have nothing at all to do with the problem at hand.
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“Skype has sought to reassure its business customers that they can trust it in the future, despite the withdrawal of thousands of central London numbers from its SkypeIn users.”
How can people trust Skype in the future when a large proportion of the paid for services they provide don’t properly work if at all. You only have to look at the Skype Forum to see day after day complaints from Paying customers that the service they have paid for is not working or Skype have taken their money and blocked there service [I think they call in obtaining money under false pretences in law], or they have been waiting months for a support request to even get it’s first reply.
Skype in is still in BETA and as such it should be free but Oh! no Skype ask you to pay for it so that you can be the fall guy and do there beta testing for them, how it that for saving company money.
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“In late November, Skype pulled around 10,000 SkypeIn numbers that used the 0207 prefix — a move which caused outrage among business customers whose marketing literature and business cards used the number to imply a central London business location. Many customers were exasperated by Skype's subsequent offer to them of a new SkypeIn number which was free for a period but not prefixed with 0207.”
Now come on Skype what were you thinking of when you made this offer that we would all jump at it. If you did that you are bigger fool than we thought you were. Yes there were only 10,000 number involved a very small amount to the up to 10 million people who use Skype each day, and before you shout “but are they paying customers” no I don’t expect all of them are but I bet at least half of them are.
This Mr Oberg is what you should of done to keep a large proportion of your customers happy.
1. Yes offer them and alternative number which you did free for a year, big deal considering the profit you are making.
2. Ask the customer how much it will cost them to have new adverts, stationary, business card etc remade to comply with the new number you have offered them.
3. Offer to either pay say 25% of the cost for the replacement stationary if it is a very large sum or if the sum is say £10,000 or less pay it all.
4. Remember the paying Customer pays your wages therefore he expects to be treated with respect and helpfulness not just told 20 days before it happens “sorry mate we are going to take you phone number away from you because WE did not think of you we only thought of our pockets and now much less money we would have in our pay packet this month because the price had gone up.”
5. Remember the customer is NEVER wrong even if you may think so because a happy customer will come back again.
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“It was a very complicated matter, and we had our customers' best [interests] as our top priority.”
Protecting customers best interests? I don't think so. They made an assumption that a supplier would be subject to a takeover and didn't perform "due diligence" on them. The very customers that Skype claim to protect are the only true losers here....
Started off as a comment, ended up as a full blown advert for a rival company. Even had the phone number thrown in.
Nice try, but did you have to be quite so blatant?
Well, in all fairness, he did use his real name, so at least there's no subterfuge. And we did check, and it really is Mr Ritz of Vonage.