November 26th, 2007
Hey Skype, how about some phone-based customer service?
Skype 
has some serious customer service and support issues. It was one thing to provide minimum four-day Web-based response when Skype was Web-based only. But now with Skype’s video chat, third-party plug-ins and mobile devices, it is time for eBay owned Skype to grow up and act like a real company that releases products for which customers have questions.
In fact, U.K.-based blogger J.A. Watson nails it in his post, What’s Going On At Skype? Watson writes in part:
Skype has no customer service telephone number. They have no customer service live chat. They have no customer service email. The only way to contact them for help is to submit a support request through their web page, and then wait a MINIMUM of FOUR DAYS to even get the first acknowledgment that they have received it! This applies not only to free Skype service users, but to paying customers as well.
It is very difficult to comprehend a situation where a company can take your money in advance for a service, and then choose not to provide that service - and please note that I am saying “choose not to”, rather than “be unable to” - and then not even respond to queries as to why the service has been cut off for four days! The actual time to sort out the problem and restore service can easily run into weeks. Skype says that they are doing this to protect their customers from fraud; that is certainly necessary in some situations, but with these sort of contact problems and response times, the worst of the “fraud” is being perpetuated by Skype themselves!
Watson couldn’t be any more spot-on than he is. Given that eBay seems to be making or at least influencing most of the big moves at Skype, it is time for them to suck it up and either establish Skype-specific, phone-based tech support, or (I seldom type these words) hire it out.
What do you think? Does Skype need to provide phone-based tech support? Even outsourced?
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
