Skype and the Olympics
Heather McPhie is an Olympic freestyle skier, who competed in the Ladies’ Moguls in Vancouver this year. I invited her to write about her experience of the Olympics and of Skype. Watch out for the second post about her competition day in the coming weeks.
One of my favorite things about the Olympics is the sense of connection. Athletes, staff, family, fans, and Olympic enthusiasts from all over the world coming together to watch the dreams and dedication of the worlds top athletes. When I say coming together I do not mean solely the people who travel to the Olympics; I mean everyone who watches, thinks about, and becomes involved in the Olympics and what it represents. In my opinion it does not matter which athletes or what country you are cheering for or representing, it matters that you are part of it. It matters that the world is coming together to celebrate something positive.
My world has exponentially expanded from becoming an Olympian. The amount of people I have gotten to meet, who have sent me encouraging words and been a part of my journey so far have made me feel more a part of the whole than ever. Made me feel closer to my hometown, my family and friends, my country and the world.
What an amazing gift to be able to connect people. Skype does that for me almost every day, and especially when I am on the road, away from many of my family and friends. To be able to see my sister and my nephew the morning of my event at the Olympics meant the world to me. I got a cyber hug from my sister, and got to listen to my nephew babble and laugh and play. To listen to my friend Susan talk about her Heather McPhie Olympic party in Park City and getting to Skype with people during the event brought tears to my eyes. It is an amazing sense of support and comfort to me, and I think of all the ways it has positively affected my life and I can not imagine how many other people feel the same way.
Pursuing my dreams in freestyle mogul skiing has taught me so much about myself, and taken me all over the world. It has been a wonderful journey, but also one that has felt lonely at times. My trip to Olympics and the coming World Cups has me away from home for two months. That is a long time for me to not see my family and friends. Skype has shortened the distance, made it easier for me to feel a part of things at home, while being on the road.
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
My experience with SKYPE Customer Service is almost EXACTLY the same: They were not helpful, refused [at first] to say where they were located or why they were refusing a payment from my MaterCard — which they had accepted numerous times before. When I got the Supervisor online [this thru IM & I cut&pasted the entire conversation if you are at all interested] the Supervisor said they were in Budapest, Hungary & their decision — they wanted me to wait 72hrs!!~! before I could again try to buy more SKYPE Credits — to disable my phone service until they got around to “reviewing” this matter — was “Final”. SKYPE needs to understand that they are operating under FCC Federal Law here in the USA. SKYPE is only as good as their customer service wants it to be: and CLEARLY these people in Budapest who you have hired, are violating both United States Federal Law & Restraint of Trade & First Amendment issues. Eventually you will be sued here in USA — a class action lawsuit must surely be in the works against you — if you do not wake up & hire some people with ethics who treat your customers with respect & dignity. Your being based, apparently, in Budapest, Hungary, is not going to make a whit of difference. ~ejw/Asheville, NC. USA~