So you do as Skype suggest and look in the knowledge base to see if there is any help or advice on your problem. After typing in many questions regarding your problem, you are given many answers which, in quite a few cases, have nothing at all to do with your problem. So it is back to the support request page to fill in your information all over again, only to be told AGAIN your problem is dealt with in the knowledge base.

Knowing this not to be true, you try for a third time, thinking you might have given some wrong information but, no, having checked and re-checked your submission, you find it is correct.

Now by this time you are getting very very frustrated because you KNOW you have done everything they have asked you to do, so this is where you scroll to the bottom of the submission page to see if there is any other way to report your problem and, what do you see, surprise surprise, a little button that says 'click here to send your report anyway,' therefore you press it and away goes your report into the wide blue yonder, hopefully on its way to the Skype help desk.

According to Skype you should receive an acknowledgement that your request has been received, together with a ticket number that is supposed to correspond with your report.

This reply is an automated reply and should arrive in your email box within a minimum of four WORKING days. I ask you: four working days? Now this makes you even more angry because you could, through no fault on your part, be without your Skype service for a minimum of four working days before any attempt is made to contact you regarding your problem. In some cases there has been NO contact made at all, not even the automatic answer.

In my opinion this action by Skype is a total and utter disgrace and need a very serious rethink on how it MUST be improved or even scrapped and a new system put in its place.

Jira Bug Reporting

Now we come to reporting in the Jira zone which, by the way, I will say is nothing like as complicated as the Support request system. At the moment there are currently 653 unresolved issues outstanding alone. I ask you, what chance do people have of getting their problem solved by Skype via either system; very little by the look of it.

All I can say to this is please come to the Skype forum where you will almost always get an answer to your post on the same day you make it and hopefully a fix, which if you wait for Skype Support who knows when or if anything will happen.

Now we come to the way I think the support structure should be organised. Skype's support structure should consist of one method and one method only be it the Support request ticket or the report to Jira in the development section. Personally I think all requests for support should be made via Jira. That was where all the development was done to produce the product and they are the people who should be able to resolve a large percentage of these issues and know what you are talking about, even if they involve third party applications that have been added to Skype.

Community supporting itself

At the moment neither of these methods are working as they should or maybe not even at all. What are Skype doing about it? Well if you look at the forum as often as I do, which is every day, nothing. It is all down to the moderators, super users and helpers to try and sort out these problems. Why? The only person who makes any attempt at trying to help with these problems is Raul but I am sorry to say that his input on its own is just not enough. We the paying customer need more and expect more. You are very quick to take our money but not to help when it is required.

So, come on, Skype. Let's see some action from all of you that will take some of the strain and frustration away not only from the forum helpers but, more important, the paying customers.