Why Skype doesn't offer phone support
"What's the phone number for Skype customer service?" is the most common question I've been asked this year.
There isn't one. All support is provided through Skype.com.
Why not let customers call?
The back of the napkin arithmetic is simple.
- 100 Skype customer support representatives (roughly) serve 400,000,000 user accounts (roughly). So each rep has about four million customers.
- Let's suppose Skype has the happiest customers on earth. In any given year, 99 out of 100 don't have any problems with recovering passwords, payments, fraud, harassment, hardware, networking, or anything at all.
- That leaves one percent of account-holders per year with a problem. One percent of 400 million is 4 million accounts with a problem sometime in the year. Let's assume all the problems take the same effort/time and that they arrive smoothly throughout the year; so no need to allow for demand spikes.
- If 1% of customers have one customer service issue per year (a low, conservative guess), then each rep works 40,000 issues each year.
- That's about 160 issues per day (assuming fifty weeks of work, no holidays), or 27 issues per working hour. At six hours worked per day, that's about 2.3 minutes to solve a customer's problem; 135 seconds.
Voice calls in call centers don't work at this scale with these resources.
So what does Skype do?
- Avoid problems. An ounce of prevention is worth millions in call center operations.
- Design your software and web site to minimize customer issues.
- Improve self service. Help customers help themselves through help pages.
- Help customers help each other. Skype's forums are very active.
- Efficiently solve customer problems.
- Text takes less time and effort than voice or video.
- Asynchronous text takes less time than interactive chat. No hold times or waiting times.
- Structured, templated complaints find their ways to the right people more often and trigger appropriate scripts for the reps.
- Tiered support.
- Registered developers and enterprise customers can purchase priority engineering support from Skype.
- How much would you pay per user account per month for a Skype customer service rep to pick up the phone (or Skype) when you ring?
- Add resources smartly.
Demand for support will grow. Skype's user base continues to grow with millions of new customers every month. Skype opens up platforms, runs on more kinds of devices and computers, as Skype operates in more countries with many languages and cultural views. Demand for support will grow in volume, intensity, and variety.
The pre-IPO stakes are high. Skype wants to avoid customer dissatisfaction breeding more class action lawsuits, like the class filed in December 2008 on behalf of Washington State Skype users.
tags: skype, customerservice, support, techsupport
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22 Comments:
So, the Skype Cheerleaders have now become the Skype Apologists? Once again you are reduced to mindlessly parroting the empty propaganda given to you by Skype. Even if one is willing to accept that "phone support doesn't work on this scale" (which I personally think is rubbish), the statement "Efficiently Solve Problems" is ludicrous. The more accurate statement, when applied to Skype's so-called "Support", is "Efficiently ignore problems". To wit: State on the "support" web page that the MINIMUM response time is FOUR DAYS, and then hope that the majority of users either don't bother filing a report, or get tired of waiting (because the actual response time is MUCH longer than the stated four days) and give up.
It is an absolute disgrace for a company the size of Skype to treat their customers with the disregard and outright contempt that they do.
jw
THIS IS AWFUL. IF THEY WERE AN AMERICAN COMPANY, BASED IN THE US, THIS CRAP WOULDNT FLY. THE CUST SERVICE ON SKYPE IS THE MOST CRAZY AND IGNORANT CRAP I HAVE EVER DEALT WITH. I AM SHOCKED THEY ARE STILL IN BUSINESS. THEY NEED TO BE SHUT DOWN AND THE CEO'S THROWN IN PRISON FOR SUCH A SHAM.
Explaining the problem and the constraints is not apologizing, Jaime. I described the problem and I outlined potential responses to the problem.
You are incorrect on several points. First, I didn't talk to Skype about this story. Second, squeezing more support out of each support euro (efficiency) gives more support, something we all want.
I don't hear you doing anything but whining; where's your own analysis? In what specific way am I incorrect that nobody operating at this scale at these margins with this headcount can provide phone support? I'm willing to be proven wrong but you must step up to the intellectual plate and argue evidence and logic.
P.S. In the future, Jaime, drop the personal attacks and focus on the substance. I won't publish any more of your ad hominem attacks.
Customer support doesn't work in Skype at all - my account was blocked long time ago, after many emails - no answer
It is so bad - any one can suggest alternative software?
What is the difference? You ignore us any way. Yes, I got my problem first time in 3 years - but you don't want to help me to fix it. And even more then that - you created my problem, becouse you blocked my account. You are not a good company any more - shame on you.
I have a question, when you delete a current contact from your contact list, is the only way that person would know you deleted them is if they tried to call you?
Why SKYPE is completely IGNORING the requests sent via website "support" form and yet the emails sent to support@skype.net just come back with mechanical autogenerated response to visit that same support area on a website... it is beyond just rude - it is outright deceptive!!!
It is a shame that Skype has a good offering but the support is nil. My account expired and I did not know to renew and now I can't get back the service I had last year. They have answered me but only confuse me more. They have now charged me for two services that I do not understand. Where can we file a complaint? Fcc? Better business?
You make a strong case for why it is practical to move away from phone support but there still needs to be some way to contact the company. My credit card has been used to frauduently set up a Skype account. Since I don't have a Skype account I have no way to log in and use their online tools to resolve the matter. If I could send just a standard e-mail then I could notify them that I've been robbed and they are being scammed.
What absolute twaddle. If I can call Visa, Mastercard, and Amex (how many millions of customers do they have?) 24 hours a day—and maybe, sure put up with a wait sometimes—then Skype is clearly not investing in proper customer service. Saying you can't handle the volume doesn't cut it. People have been complaining about Skype customer service since 2005 at least. Four years and it's still this dysfunctional?
Indifferent, impersonal, incompetent (directions provided to fix problem were actually wrong) — The worst customer service by any company in any country on any continent I've ever experienced. Love the software, but Skype's customer service model was and continues to be an utter fail.
I cannot create an account with Skype. After downloading, I tried to create the account but was advised that my skype name used invalid characters. ALL the characters were valid! What gives here?
A lawsuit would be in contract. Skype better set up some way to provide responsive customer support.
For all of you who lost small amounts of money, sue them in a small claims court. They'll never show up for that. You can sue in any state and locality. It's basically a free check from Skype for the money you're owed.
Skype just screwed me out of eight bucks by auto-billing me before the due date. Navigating their site for customer support is a nightmare, so rather than get worked up about this further, I thought I would share this with everyone and urge you to cancel ASAP. Someone commented on my blog awhile back about a cheaper service called Gizmo. Here's what they said:
You can save $ by using gizmo in between.. paying $20/year verses $60 a year w/ skypein number.
Gizmo was recently acquired by Google. I think that speaks volumes.
http://www.google.com/gizmo5/
Ive been charged by skype and I dont have a clue how to cancel this account but they charged my visa, how does that even happen. How can I cancel this stupid mess
Skype is freaking gay. Don't buy it unless you like being screwed over. Because there's a "fair use policy" now, which essentially means that when you buy your subscription you can make calls to only 50 different phones a day. If you do cross this line, you might think, well i'll just buy some Skype credit to use just encase i go over my daily limit. When you do this, you'll soon realize how expensive this route is. Because your subscription apparently goes void. Buy a regular phone line if you actually plan on calling people. Skype doesn't care about anything except for the dollar bill. Worst of all when you attempt to contact the company to rectify the problem you'll soon learn that you can't. Don't defend, solicit, or promote skype.
I am a fan of Skype. WHAT DID HE SAY!!!??? Thats right i am a fan of Skype. I have used it on and off for three years and have seen improvement to the services and features. To all the whinners out there You get what you pay for... 0.02 cents a minute doesn't leave much room for phone support. Big deal! Send an email already and wait for a resolution and PLEASE STOP crying about it. I have had a few issues over the yars and they have always taken care of it.
Looking for customer support at skype.com and then searching the Web for information, your eventually discover that you can't call, there are no e-mail addresses, you can't submit a support ticket anymore, there isn't even a mailing address. Skype simply doesn't have customer service. The only thing you can do is ask your credit-card company to give you your money back.
At risk of sounding like a broken CD... I have what appears to be a simple technical problem that unfortunately is not addressed in the FAQs. I have have been frustrated by the inability to request customer support. As much as I like Skype, its useless to me at this point. Moving on...
Is there no place for a new user to call to just get started. I've spent hours trying just a basic call...very frustrating, soon I will just give up and place my comments on the various tech "boards" (CNET) etc.
Skype support is indeed terrible. In my case, Skype took my payment (status: delivered). Then I got an email saying the payment was cancelled and my account is going to expire in 2 days. But I logged in and saw my payment was still delivered! My credit card info was correct. I found no support phone, I got the email was the kind of "no reply". Basically, I have no way to contact Skype!
i need support to recover the history i just cleared...i need to talk to an executive or representative i hope skype comes up with getting such issues sorted out. :(
I agree with many of the critical comments about Skype and Phil Wolf clearly hasn't suffered at their hands to write such placatory rubbish. He has it absolutely wrong. If Skype can get you to sign on and pay in a dozen clicks then they can fix it so it only takes a dozen clicks to cancel your account but you try doing it! Complaints about the lack of this most basic facility are all over the web. Additionally, and most dangerously, Skype's personal confidentiality aspects are VERY poor. It is impossible for you to change your Skypename (the one shown to the public) but this is not explained to customers when they give it - hence many thousands of new customers, like me, want to change their Skypename as soon as they realise how the system works but CANNOT DO IT! Skype has no facility for changing Skypenames AND you can't Cancel either. A classic Catch22 if ever there was one. It is the wrong thing to do to apologise for this firm as you have done. You should be demanding improvements. After a while their lack of customer care begins to look like planned obfuscation and constructive disobedience. I'm off to Yahoo instead.
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