My wife is a big user of SkypeOut, the paid-for part of the Skype internet phone service. Using SkypeOut for making international calls to normal phones saves a small fortune on our phone bill (see this example).
We have family and friends in Costa Rica, so using SkypeOut to call there makes great sense for money saving compared to the cost in making a call with the normal phone service. You don't have to worry about peak rates or anything like that - same low price per minute whatever the time of day.
But all is not well in Skype land as my wife has been telling me.
For some time, she's been experiencing 100% failure in making calls to numbers in Costa Rica. Failure primarily in just being unable to connect at all and so not make a successful call. Yet a call does goes through if you make it from a normal phone.
To save myself the headaches and grief in trying to convince her that the likely cause of the problem is the phone network in Costa Rica once the call emerges out of the internet, and not the Skype part of the call, I suggested she visit the SkypeOut forum and see what others are saying. (This forum, by the way, is user supported like all Skype forums, not run by the company.)
And wow! are they saying things! I was really surprised indeed to see the sheer volume of complaints in there by people who are having real issues with making phone calls via SkypeOut, to many countries. Even if you take away the more emotional and rude postings in that forum, there are a lot of people who are very unhappy with the quality of service.
These people are paying customers. They have coughed up money to buy credit to use a service which, for one reason or another, doesn't seem to be delivering (and actually isn't, in my wife's case). And they don't seem to be getting answers from Skype.
Whether the problems relate to the normal phone network or not, people really couldn't care less. All they know is the service doesn't seem to work. And that translates into a dissatisfaction of the service overall. And they'll tell their friends: "Yeah, Skype's cool but calling [friend X] in [country Y] just doesn't work."
While I'm no telecommunications expert, I think a lot of SkypeOut issues are indeed to do with the normal phone network and not Skype itself or the internet. I also decided that telling my wife that I rarely have such problems when I use SkypeOut probably wouldn't be too helpful ;)
Skype has been highly successful so far. Every time I log in, there are over 1.8 million users connected at any one time. Downloads of the free software now exceed 66 million copies. And they've just signed a partnership deal with HGC to promote internet phone services in Hong Kong.
I've yet to hear any sustaining criticisms of the service overall. Indeed, the free Skype-to-Skype service is just great.
Yet if customers' poor impressions of a significant part of the service continue unaddressed, that could spell trouble for Skype going forward, especially with the added-value services they hope to sell to customers. New voice messaging, for instance (which I'm trialing - it really is very good indeed).
What could happen is some other company that offers a reliable paid-for service comes along and attracts customers. There are quite a few other companies out there already. Then I could see one scenario - you stick with Skype for the free service and use the other company for a reliable pay-for service. And 'reliable' is the key word.
Then it wouldn't matter much whether Skype is getting very interesting or not.
Update 14 Feb: It looks as though problems in making SkypeOut calls to Costa Rica have been resolved, as calls now get through. But there are bigger issues re VoIP in Costa Rica - see Use VoIP and go to jail.
The Skype forum is actually moderated and created by Skype, their are a large group of beta testers dubbed "superusers" that volunteer time to help people solve Skype related issues. This is probably the only company forum that isn't censored for content, by the manufacturer, which is actually quite refreshing.
There are an estimated 400 000 + SkypeOut customers; the few that constantly complain are the minority, but Skype has improved payment and SkypeOut services - the growing pains are tough when you go from zero customers to 400 000 in 6 months..
Posted by: Andrew Hansen | 09 February 2005 at 00:27
I had nine some-odd euros in my account a week ago. I haven't made any Skype Out calls. Yesterday I went and checked and I had zero euros. Indeed, there is big trouble in Skype-out land.
Posted by: Shel Holtz | 09 February 2005 at 01:21
Thanks for the clarification re the forums, Andrew. I've seen a lot of 'superusers' in there, ID'd as such by a little avatar saying that. Not seen anyone ID'd from the company, although I haven't studied every forum or every post.
It may well be that the minority constantly complain, as you say. Indeed, from looking at some of the posts, there are many from the same people going on about the same things. And I also noticed lots of complaints re payment (ie, being unable to make them) and disappearing credits, such as Shel mentioned in his comment here.
I'm a big fan of Skype, and I've posted lots of positive commentary in my blog since I started using the service last July. By and large, I have no complaints. But it seems to me that the story I highlighted re my wife's negative SkypeOut experiences isn't a minor complaint and it's one that many others complain about. It doesn't appear that anyone is getting any answers or satisfaction. Or is it that some are and we don't know who they are because no one is saying good things in the forum, only complaining?
The live help feature isn't much good, either, if my wife's experiences with that are anything to go by. Probably overloaded as she's waited a good 15 minutes for someone to respond each time before giving up.
So unsuccessful attempts at getting help = continuing unhappy customer.
I agree with you that the customer growth has been amazing in such a short time. The improvements you mention are great company perspectives. But if you have customers experiencing real problems in using the service, would they care much about that? That's not their experience.
Having also been a volunteer in a user forum (not Skype), I know it can often be a thankless task when what you constantly see are lots of constantly complaining customers. But that surely must send a big alarm signal to the company. Is anyone there listening to that? Doesn't look like it.
Posted by: Neville Hobson | 09 February 2005 at 09:57
I'm having a lot of trouble purchesing minutes, i think the program is great but i'd really like to get started. Is there anyway i can trial minutes like 5 or so minutes free for a trial? I wanna talk but i cant even buy minutes. Please help.
Posted by: Sean Langheim | 23 February 2005 at 21:18
Sean, that's a question you need to direct to Skype.
http://www.skype.com/feedback/billing/
Posted by: Neville Hobson | 25 February 2005 at 10:10
SkypeOut is also not usually the cheapest provider for international calls - you can compare providers rates at: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/callchecker/index.php
You can often find others with similar or slightly lower rates, eg when I selected Costa Rica:
Abroadtel 3p/min (08448960003)
SkypeOut: 3.6p/ min ex vat 4.1p/min inc vat
Posted by: Mark | 28 June 2005 at 14:32