The next stage in Skype's brand journey
I’m Neil, Skype’s General Manager for our global consumer business. What does that mean in simple terms? That I’m responsible for managing our desktop product lineup – Skype for Windows, Mac and Linux – as well as looking after our website, our online marketing and the Skype brand as a whole.
I don’t do this all single-handedly, thankfully, and I have a great team here at Skype who contribute to the incredible products we make. Nevertheless, there are some areas where an outside perspective can be invaluable, and that’s why we’ve just appointed three great agencies to help us develop the Skype brand and help us with our global advertising. The Skype brand isn’t just about our logo, or clouds and rainbows. It’s about what you, the Skype user, think about us as a company and the products we make. How you feel about your experience of using the Skype software, and how you describe Skype to your friends.
Wolff Olins, TBWA and Rapp will be our partners on our journey to enhance this iconic global brand and all that it means to you, and I’m looking forward to working with them in the months to come.
I don’t know how else to reach Skype so I will do it here. My youngest son who is in the Army just left for Italy to await being deployed in Afganistan. He is in a hotel outside the post as the post is full and it’s a four day weekend for the Army. He is away from his pregnant wife, in an area he is unfamiliar with, and in a hotel by himself. Thanks to Skype, we have been able to spend most of the day with him via the internet. We played games, ate lunch together (we at lunch, he ate dinner), we were able to see each other, laugh, cry, and talk all day. Thank you Skype for being our “Saving our Sanity” tool. I appreciate that we were able to spend the day with my son rather than him being alone for 4 days. This is truly amazing and I encourage everyone to get on Skype!!!!!
You have an incredible brand, known worldwide, and paying customers to boot! Yet, the software is buggy (witness my IE8 crashing constantly due to Skype add-ons) and the ‘Extras’ offered that are often times worse than useless (see comments on geo-locator).
Skype needs to do a better job with software development and with managing the extras that are being sold/offered to their customers.
Dear Mr. Silverman
I wanted to post this blog and tell you about my personal experience with your customer service department. I spoke with Rita. On April 17, of this year my skype credit was almost $10 USD. I have had an unlimited account with your company for 1 year and have been satisfied with my service. I purchased that credit on February 9, 2010 and at that time I also went under my payment options and changed my credit card information.
On Feb 14 of this year skype tried to run an automatic renewal charge and it failed. I found out today (by my own research Rita was no help at all) that skype tried to renew my acct with my old credit card information which had since been closed.
Today I went online and renewed my unlimited plan manually because my phone quit working and i could not make a call.
The reason I IM’ed customer service was to find out why my renewal didnt go thru and also to get a credit for the $10 that your company had been using up in my acct thru per minute charges. Rita kindly told me that she was not authorized to fix the incorrect charges on my acct even though Skype tried to authorize the charges on the wrong card. She was more than happy to cancel my account all together though and refund the brand new unlimited plan i just paid for.
Mr. Silverman here is my question. Why would you lose a paying customer over a $10 charge that was your companies error, Instead of just fixing it and apologizing? I was so frustrated by your customer service that i agreed with her and let her close my account. She happily refunded the $35 yearly subscription but refused to fix the $10 billing error.
Mr. Silverman I was satisfied with your technical service so much so that I cancelled my unlimited long distance on my home phone and was using your service exclusively on my I-phone. Mr. Silverman you need to give your customer support agents more authority to fix your companies billing issues and keep the good paying customer you have. This was my first call to your customer support and unfortunately it will probably be my last. I want to give my money to a company who actually treats its customers who have issues with as much respect and ease as the ones it just signed up.
Respectfully
matt_wagoner@hotmail.com