VoIP Toolkit

Story: Skype tries to regain business users' trust

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The best laugh of the week.

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.”

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