March 04, 2013

Skype Service and Customer Service Fails Big Time

My wife has family in South Korea.  She likes to talk with them, and online phone services have become the norm for doing so.  However, the people that she talks to are not always available online.  For this, she used to use Yahoo Voice to call the landline/mobile number of those family members.  Occasionally, she'd load up a few dollars on the Voice service and use it to make first contact.  

Unfortunately, Yahoo ended their Yahoo Voice calling service.  I suggested to her that Skype offers these same services, and I put $10 in Skype credit on her account.  She loaded in the phone numbers of her family members, and tried to make contact.  Well, it connected to someone in South Korea - the language was right (so the country code was correct), but the phone number she was connected to was different than the one she called.

I attempted to connect to Skype's customer service via online chat.  I probably should have known better.  Here's all the things that went wrong on this call:
  1. The first CSR I was connected to immediately hung up.
  2. I was reconnected to that same CSR, and it took them 3 minutes to acknowledge my presence.
  3. The CSR did not understand my problem.
  4. The CSR continually used cut and paste 'feel good' customer service speak to communicate.  While attempting to make me feel cared for and understood - they only lent to the feeling that I was talking to a brick wall.
  5. The CSR could not help me and transferred me to another CSR
  6. This first half of the call took 12 minutes.
  7. The second half of the call with a different CSR had problem number 4 as well.
  8. The second CSR told me that since I had initiated the calls that I would not get a credit.  (Thus #3 again).
  9. After 22 minutes, I hung up the call with the CSR.  35 cents was not worth my time and frustration with the idiots on the other end of the call.

This is customer service done WRONG!  I hope that I save you from making the mistake of trying to use Skype to landline/mobile for overseas numbers.  I hope I save you from even making a deposit with their service.  Their website says they will not refund deposited funds after any of the funds have been used.  I have lost $10.  I hope you do not.


1 comment:

w8sdz said...

Rich, please consider Google Voice to call South Korea. They claim low rates for International calls.

You might want to check Callcentric rates too. It's an excellent VoIP service.

In any case I recommend the Obihai Obi100 or OBi110 VoIP adaptor which provides a hard wire local connection for Google Voice and Callcentic. (Use normal phone instruments, optionally on existing house wiring provided original landline is physically disconnected from it.