Our new tool to manage Skype in your business
You already know that using Skype can save your business time and money, but how about managing all those different accounts?
If your company uses Skype, you’ll love Skype Manager. It lets you centrally manage Skype in your business, create accounts for your employees, allocate Skype Credit and assign features for them to use.
With Skype manager, you can:
- Create accounts – easily set up accounts for every employee; you can even do this in bulk by importing a CSV file of employees
- Allocate Skype Credit – centrally manage balances and automatic top-ups; it’ll automatically convert into your employees’ local currencies
- Assign features – turn features like online numbers, call forwarding, subscriptions or voicemail on or off by individual accounts
- Analyse usage – get real-time reporting about Skype usage and costs
and of course, all of your employees can use the features they love, including IM and file transfer.
We’re offering everyone a trial of Skype Manager until October 2010 – just head this way to get started.
You can also see some screenshots of Skype Manager in action over on our Flickr account.
A trial until october? Do you mean Skype Manager won’t be free? That can’t be right.
I agree, what does until October mean? Also, as with a lot of Skype items it’s not as user-friendly as it seems. I am using it to manage around 28 skype accounts in my company. However, if a business invite to your colleague doesn’t work there isn’t a easy way to just re-send an invite. In fact the only way to do it is to remove the account (which of course doesn’t actually get deleted..) and then create an entirely new one – thus ruining any skype name formatting you are trying to preserve. Really, really annoying….
And another comment… Under Add members > create business accounts is says
‘You can choose the Skype Name for your employees and when an employee leaves the company, you can close his account.’
However… the account of course doesn’t actually close down, it just disappears from your business manager. So, on the off-chance that the person needs to be added back into business manager you can’t do it because it just says that that skype name already exists.
Mark, I had the same problem with several of my employees, assigning credit and adding them to my account. There should be a much more user friendly way of doing this. Same thing when you are adding new contacts, If they are already in there it tells you with a pop up, but does not highlight them for you. Then you need to go searching through your whole contact list looking for them, and if you have 100′s it is a pain. Just a few simple changes would make it much user friendly.
Are they going to charge for this? I just use the control panel to keep my geographically dispersed family funded. It would not be worth paying extra just to do that!
What a downfall after the business controll panel …
I greatly appreciate you mention future possible price list. This gives me the opportunity for some feedback: at 10 € / month / user, I clearly have no interest with a Skype based solution using Skype Manager.
Current situations for companies like mine is that VOIP hardware based solution have a monthly fee between 15 to 30 € (all inclusive of communication fees at various geographies/mobile coverage) per month per user.
This means that whatever real usage my employees have of their dedicated phone, I have a minimum cost of 200-300 € per year per user. This is clearly a waste of money for many job positions that do not so heavily rely on phone, especially when they mostly use email, but need a phone from time to time.
Clearly, Skype Manager adoption would depend on having the lowest possible (zero?) per user / per time period fee, as this would make Skype a competitive replacement for “traditional” VOIP telephony. At 10 € / user / month, that’s a yearly fee of 120 € per user, WITHOUT any communication yet. That gives little room for savings compared to other solutions, and not worth the hassle of having two systems.
My 2 cents.
@esasse
From May 6, 2010 you will no longer be able to use the Business Control Panel, and your free trial of Skype Manager will begin.
Initially, Skype Manager will operate on a free trial basis until October 31, 2010. After this time we’ll be developing a pricing model which is based on a per seat arrangement, whereby each member of your Skype Manager is considered as one seat.
Currently, we’re expecting a suggested charge of between €2 to €10 per seat per month. Price tiering will take place dependent on the number of members present in your Skype Manager.
@mclark_london_edu
We’re aware of this problem and plan to address it – in the meantime, you can reset the password for the account. This will prompt another email to be sent. In response to your second point, Skype names can only be used once, in order to prevent confusion (and a range of other potential problems).
Peter Parkes, so spending money with skype credits is not enough? Please, dont make us pay for Skype Manager if we spend money in credits every month for all of our users.
What about charging this 2-10 euros per seat only if no Skype credit is spend during the month?
Please, consider this suggetion.
What happens to existing business accounts if we choose not to use the paid-for Skype Manager? Can we turn them into regular accounts to continue using them?
I would also add my voice to all of the above that a monthly charge per user of even 2 euros would just send me towards an in-house solution open source or otherwise. Particularly considering that the previous system worked better, for example, unless I am missing something terribly obvious, there seems to be no way for all the users to appear in everybody’s contact list automatically. They appear on mine as I am the administrator, but not in other users.
Please consider a sliding scale for non-profit or charity organizations. Paying per seat for the manager would make us really reconsider our use of Skype in this manner since it would eliminate the primary benefit of the product – cost savings! Perhaps a flat rate of $2-10/ month for the manager makes more sense if you really feel like you must charge something.
As a compromise, I like the suggestion of paying a fee per month for users in your list who don’t use credit that month.
One other thought – if the price tiering will charge more per user for managers with fewer users it makes it even more difficult for a small company or non-profit to continue using it. Perhaps it will work the other way? That seems very expensive as well.
I agree with many of the comments already posted. Given the low per minute costs for making calls, a charge of 2 to 10 euros/month is excessive. Charging only if no credit is spent is a better idea. We have plans to expand our corporate use of Skype, but we would look to other solutions if there were a standard per user charge.
I also agree with many previous comments. I used the Skype Business Panel only to work around Skype’s deficient credit card billing process, to be able to allocate funds from one credit card (that happens to be the one that Skype accepts from our family’s cards) to all family members. At the time, a few years back, that was the solution suggested by Skype support (apparently the only solution they could come up with). Now Skype wants to charge me for being able to pay? Having to pay a fee just to be able to work around Skype’s deficient credit card processing doesn’t sit quite right with me.
As a general comment on using the Skype Manager (Business Control Panel), has anyone else run into problems with the monthly limits on purchasing Skype credits? I manage approximately 60 accounts for my company, and when it comes time to allocate new subscriptions, I simply am not able to purchase enough credits for the 12-month allocations to all 60 accounts. Has anyone found a way around this? I’ve tried contacting Skype for a one-off payment authorization, but they’ve never gotten back to me.
@elizabeth.t.lee Sorry about that! I’ve asked someone from our support team to get in touch with you to begin the process.
Dear Skype Administrator,
I used business control panel – now skype manager – to manage the credits for myself, my husband and my in-laws, since that was the best solution once the same credit card could not be used to charge different accounts (a major flaw at that time on my opinion). Now, if skype charges me between 2 to 10 euros per account, per month, let´s suppose i´d have to pay 30 euros per month PLUS the credits… It does not seem fair.
I think skype should, at least consider letting people with up to 5 users, let´s say, still use the skype manager for free – or the maximum, pay a single fee for the administrator (but any charge more than 2 euros would still be rather expensive).
I understand that skype wants to make profit (and it should like all other organizations) but it would be much more fair if accounts wich have a certain number of users (let´s say, over 5) are charged – and not the small accounts…
Can you please take that into account?
Much appreciated,
Rosane
I really can’t believe that Skype is heading this way. Currently I use the manager to replenish my wife’s, mother’s ans father-in-law’s accounts (too complex for them to put credit on it), and we chose Skype because we could do that. If we have to pay, we will just move to other platform that allows me to remotely put credit for them (like Betamax’s companies).
Peter,
If you are seriously considering any charge, even 2 then there needs to be a lot of extra features and a much more open API. At the moment we use Asterisk for the majority of our phone system and use skype for internal calls, we therefore would abandon it as a tool straight away.
If however all the functions of a PBX like hunt groups, call routing, call recording, reporting and an API to query from our CRM then 2 euro a month per user would make sense, we would also move our entire business onto the platform which is 120 staff and several thousand euro a month in call charges.
On a separate note is there a roadmap for future business features?
Skype just changes the rules all the time. Very undependable organization. After learning that this new and unimproved control manager is free UNTIL October, I bought 4 Magic Jacks, which give me unlimited calling throughout the US for $19.95 PER YEAR. Through their poor customer service, policy changes, reduction is service, increase in pricing and questionable ethics, Skype has done a good job of creating room for competition. I think we are going to see numerous and better options emerge as Skype continues along its path of self destruction.
I **was** investigating the use of Skype for a business client of mine, but not anymore.
I can understand that there are costs associated with developing and maintaining the application, but there is no way this app is worth €240 per year per user.
@elizabeth.t.lee we couldn’t contact you on the email address registered to your account – could you check that it’s correct – or just drop our support team a line directly.
I have had no luck setting up the Manager. I created an account 4 days ago and every time I try to “Buy Skype credits” I get the error “An internal error has occurred” Upon many contacts to support over the last four days the only option they have is “Try again later…”
Very disappointment especially finding out they are going to charge for the manager as well. Hard to believe.
@durkin.computing sorry to hear that – our support team should be able to help you out.
Skype, What we need for businesses is a redirect after customers download Skype.
I have a download link for Skype on my site but after new customers have finished down loading I need them returned back to my site. I think this would be an easy feature to implement. Thanks Craig
Peter, do you plan to add a load of new business features for your planned costs. We are just evaluating whether to further invest in another Asterisk server or whether there may be another option and if Skye for business had all the PBX features that would be strong option at 2 euro per user
@ Peter Parkes:
Hey Mr. before u starting to charge some for the skype manager just think once that will it b a fair policy for customer loyalty. We r paying for the accounts and why should i pay for the manger accounts again. If u do so, let us shift the balance to our skype accounts. If u guys do not provide any service for free then why we will b loyal to u. This is a caution, just remember if u guys do so, its not that far away a new company is coming in the field….
I only ever used the Business Control Panel so that my purchases could be zero-rated for Skype’s Luxembourg VAT (I am a VAT-registered business in the UK and I need a zero-rated VAT invoice). There is no other way to do this. Effectively, by charging for the new Skype Manager (with effect from October 2010) Skype will be charging me for providing a zero-rated VAT invoice. This cannot be logical.
Peter, I manage the elearning environment for a business school where we had intentions of rolling out Skype accounts this Fall for our 2000+ students (80% of whom are executive level professionals taking what they learn here to work with them including great products.) Like others who’ve commented, this new pricing makes it absolutely impossible for us to do that. In fact, this pricing would end up being more expensive than the Online Meeting with VOIP and Application Share tools we provide. Our circumstances may be quite different than others in that the accounts we’d be managing would be changing frequently given open enrollments and 3/yr graduations. Also, most students would be using their accounts simply for school teamwork, thus keeping actual usage very low. Nonetheless most would get to experience Skype, perhaps for the first time, then take off on their own in their own businesses. If there’s a sales rep who could help work something out with us, we’d be happy to talk. Otherwise, this pricing is a very sad dealbreaker.
Susan
…maybe its just time to abandon any SKYPE link whatsoever. It looks like from Oct 2010 we will be having to pay a fee PER USER in the business accounts! Possibly between 2-10 EUR per user!
This is in addition to the skype in/out credits per minute, the per month SIP channel charge, AND the per month Skype-in number charge.
I am sure SKYPE will be very careful NOT to provide a business account down to consumer account migration function once they are charging per month for the business accounts.
Definitely time to look at other alternatives. Actually, dialing normal long distanct through our TelCo may almost be cheaper!! and a lot less headache.
Hi,
Is possible I allocate subscription for users or only credits, will be charged connection tax for these credits purchased ?
This is hilarious!
If your average users consume 2 E a month, then the E10 is a 500% addition!
I might think about E2 a YEAR!
Anybody knows arithmetics? For each million user, at E120 a yr, then Skype has revenues of .12BILLION?
This is hilarious!
If your average users consume 2 E a month, then the E10 is a 500% addition!
I might consider about E2 a YEAR!
Anybody knows arithmetics? For each million user, at E120 a yr, then Skype has gross revenues of….. .12BILLION?….. To run a few colocated admin servers?
Dummies swarmed to the “free” PC to PC skype -now they are hooked! I know lots of people that spend really big bucks to run their monster desktop 24/7… to get free skype! Many years ago my brother got me hooked on closed AOL…. I still remember the pain!
To begin with: are Skype minutes cheaper than SIP minutes, etc? At least with SIP one is free to roam the market place. This very freedom *guarantees* you are never paying over the *right* price. Not locked in the Skype jail!
I came here to investigate Skype biz (completely new to it), as I’m going to get into a bit of VoIP; SIP as much as I can. But of course I’ll have to contend with plenty of people already addicted to “free Skype”. So I’m here…. Doesn’t look good.
As well, with the new Skype-SIP gateways, what’s the point? A Skype user connects to Skype with the Skype protocol, and then *someone* painfully converts it to SIP anyways…. Why not keep it simple to begin with. If Skype is feeling the pressure to compete with SIP by offering interconnection, isn’t that a sign their separate biz model is failing behind? Look at AOL…
Looks like I’ll just go for Skype trunks, and manage a few individual accounts to accomodate my future “legacy” Skype customers. Glad I found this thread before I got in too deep.
Christian
Hey!
Does anyone have an idea how many people are using Skype for business? We were thinking about using it but if it is going to start costing money, is it worth it? Of the total universe of 520 million users, how many are business?
@susan.hobart a user study we carried out in 2008 suggests that 35% of our customers use Skype for business purposes.
As a point of information for the community, I just got out of a chat with Skype tech support about the new Skype Manager. There is something everyone needs to know, once a number has been transferred into Skype Manager, it can not be transferred back out. So, if you use Skype as your main business line, for instance, and you transferred the online number from your personal account into the Skype Manager (or at the time the FREE Business Control Panel) you CANNOT transfer it back out. Your options are:
– Cancel the Skype Manager account and LOSE the online number.
– Pay the Skype Manager fee and keep the online number.
– Cancel the online number and have it unavailable for 90 days, after which time you can repurchase it under the personal account.
All of these are awful options especially since I didn’t want the trial of the Skype manager anyway. I was perfectly happy with the Business Control Panel; and had I know there would be a per seat charge, I never would have transferred what is now my main business line over from a personal account. Essentially, at this point I feel like Skype is holding my main business number hostage. Guess we’ll all just have to deal with it. I am happy to post the chat conversation I had the with support representative so that it can be validated that I am not making this up.
Hi all, I will wait till the manager control panel is sorted, but I will need lots more functionality e.g. logging of IM messages, logging of files being transferred – taking into consideration the legal requirements that is needed nowadays for business. Should this exists, please point me in the right direction … JJ
I’m not sure if anyone has told Skype about the recession, but choosing now to levy a flat charge after enticing business customers in is rather shocking. And the worrying reports that you can’t extract the inidividual accounts from the Business Manager need to be addressed.
Charging a per month per user fee is impossible for small businesses to sustain. A single per month fee for the administrator (at the 5 euro level) would probably be acceptable. We have 14 members so 2 to 10 euros per user per month means between 336 and 1680 euros per year costs – there’s no way can I justify that cost in addition to call charges – we may as well use our landlines and mobiles for all calls and it would be cheaper.
We buy pooled Skype credit and allocate it. Some users use no credit (they just use chat and could use another instant messenger), some use a lot. A monthly fee per user is a total barrier to Skype use for us. A charge for users who make no use of the credit is also not acceptable.
I spent more than an hour in a telephone interview with Skype where they asked for my opinions – you can be sure I did not suggest a per user fee!!
If you have to charge a fee for the control panel then make it a LOW per-administrator fee banded according to number of users, otherwise prepare to lose loyal paying customers. For example
10 users free
11-20 users 4 eur per month ie 48 eur per year total
21-50 users 8 eur per month ie 96 eur per year total
51-100 users 12 eur per month ie 144 per year total
etc
Hello there!
Yes, i agree a charge per user on the Skype Manager is not exactly my definition of a “good call”…
Now on the other hand…Our colleague here @chriswlan@ did the math and make some important notes… wich i agree with…
Well lets do the math again, its better if we all worked with each other, rather than if we work against each other… all of you here know how much could we benefit if everything worked perfeclty.
Im sure Skype team would work out something for us.
besides they are creating great features like the video camara for the tv, great market for that out there… the Skype me button couldn’t be better that one really helps…
So Skype Team im with you, you have my support, but i need your support as well, and i think i speak for all of us here when i say that.
check your data base you have an e-mail i sent you, im working on a huge project, and
B E L I V E M E when i say…. You Do Not Want To Miss This.
here… i’ll give you a hint *Hotel* (some times the client just wont see the idea, you have to take it right in front of there faces, wouldn’t you agree my business colleagues… )
Skype team i send you a sincere business Handshake.
You are doing great things. Thanks for your time.
Like i said we need you, but you need us too…
Regards to everyone.
oscz.
If Skype charge, I go. I’ve just tried to port my number out of Skype to another provider, and now I’ve been told that the number is not portable.
I will be complaining to OfCom to get my number transferred. I’ve been a good customer to Skype. I’ve bought credit, online numbers, subscriptions. I don’t think they are a “fair” company though.
@richard_plant you should be able to port your number if it’s a UK one – drop our support team a line.
@peter parkes
Peter, I am growing disappointed in discovering I will not be able to manage my Online number by Skype Manager because I created it using a personal account before Skype Manager existed. I do hope Skype devotes the appropriate resources to making this possible as I am not alone in valuing my local business phone number more than my relationship to Skype.
Limitations such as this within Skype Manager point to a deeper gap in understanding customers that must be filled before Skype will truly be accepted as a business solution.
In brief follow-up to my above comment, and reference to @mikecostanza’s comment from the 6th, I understand there has been something of a “freeze” placed on the ability to move an established online number in to (and, in mike’s case, back out of) Skype Manager depending on whether or not the account was set up before June 3, 2010.
This project has promise, but this particular niche of Skype’s clientèle has far more stringent needs than the general population.
It’s really too bad that Skype is not being communicative about this issue. I really like Skype, but all of this uncertainty is just something I can not afford for my business. I started the porting process for my online number to a new carrier today. This is something I really didn’t want to have to do because I like Skype so much. My number came up for renewal in Sept, so I had to make my decision now, and with no official response from Skype I choose to port and have some control over the future of my phone bill. I will probably just get a new online number through Skype under my personal account and just forward to it. I just wish I didn’t have to do this just to avoid a fee I didn’t sign up for.
It was my understanding that even before June 3rd one could not move an Online Number out of the business control panel once it was transferred into it.
I started investigating Skype for our company a few months ago and did not realize that the manager was going to cost something. I thought the thinking behind it, was to make things easier for companies to bring people on board and therefore get more usage (and $$), so I don’t see the logic of charging for something that will bring them more revenue?
Wow. This is sad to hear. I represent an NGO with 850 users all over the world. We are evaluating a strategy for Skype to play a central role in our telecom solutions but a fee of €2-10 / account / month + call charges makes Skype business use simply unworkable. Especially when you add in the lack of standard business PBX features (central contact lists, pre-payment, detail reporting, AD & Single Sign-On integration options, mobile integration, call groups, hunt groups, routing, auto attendant options, etc.
Skype Manager is going to cost money? I want to cancel RIGHT NOW. I will keep my individual Skype Account but not the Manager service. Will someone please post instructions on how to cancel Skype Manager and just have individual Skype Accounts. I know if I don’t cancel now it will be just like any other trial where I end up getting charged in November because I didn’t cancel in time. This is Pathetic Skype.
Dear Google, please re-launch Gizmo-5 and package it with Google Voice and Google Chat as one product for all of us who are going to close our Skype accounts when the individual Skype accounts start coming with a monthly fee.
I am sorry but having began testing the Skype Manager I don’t see any value in it at all other than simplifying the credit purchases. In order to operate within a company (and to be worth the suggested monthly prices) Skype should have the following centralised management features:
1. Configuration of user settings set per groups, eg who can use file transfers
2. Centralised User listing – IE Automatically publish all users to Skype contacts within an organisation.
3. Blocking of users from communicating with people outside the organisation.
4. More integration with Outlook, schedule meetings, etc
5. Storage of chat messages and communications centrally for review.
6. Reporting of time spent using skype per user/group
7. Desktop sharing / Presentation sharing
If these features were implemented it would rival such offerings as Microsoft Communicator/Live meeting. From a price point you should try to compete with the licensing costs of such services. MS charge around 200€ per enterprise licence thus if this is taken over a 4 year period Skype should be looking at costs of around 4€ per user per month to be cost effective. Charging just to be able to simplify their credit processes just isnt workable especially when you are a corporation spread across several different and separate companies each requiring separate invoicing.
The end of october is now over, and we are still waiting for the price…
We can imagine to use skype for our business, but as the other people above
I would suggest to collect the money with skypeout-credits, but WITHOUT monthly fee!