Skype apologizes to paying customers with contract extensions

Filed under: VoIP

Skype apologizes to paying customers with contract extensions

by Brad Linder Aug 21st 2007

Like any corporation recovering from a major service interruption, Skype is doing everything in its power to make sure customers don't jump ship and start using competing VoIP services. For two days last week, millions of Skype users were unable to connect. For some folks, this just meant you had to switch to a different chat program or pick up the cellphone to call your friends long distance. For some small businesses who had already cut their land line, this was the equivalent of the phones going down after a hurricane.

Today, Skype sent out an e-mail to customers who have signed up for services like Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn or Skype Voicemail. In a nutshells, since these customers are paying on a subscription basis, the closest Skype can give to a cash incentive is a contract extension. So the company is giving all its paying customers an extra 7 days on their contract.

On the one hand, 7 days free for a 2 day outage seems like a good deal. But reliability? Priceless.

It's not clear whether Skype is offering any cash apologies to customers who sign up for SkypeOut credit but don't have a long term calling plan. You can read the entire e-mail after the jump.

Here is Skype's email:

Hello

You may or may not know but last week Skype wasn't available for a couple of days. There were a number of reasons for this and I am delighted to say that the problem is now well and truly sorted and everything is back to normal. For those of you who tried to use Skype during that time but couldn't, we're very sorry. For those of you who didn't try to use Skype - well thankfully you were not affected but we want to reassure everyone that Skype is now working happily and the problem is fixed.

We know we have many faithful users out there who give us feedback (good and bad) on what we're doing as a company. The Skype community makes us what we are. Without you, our users, we simply wouldn't exist. We've helped people stay in touch with their friends and family over the past four years without any massive hitch and we want it to stay that way.

When the unexpected happens, it's important to remember the people who stuck behind us and whose loyalty humbled us. I want to thank everyone for their support, patience and being part of the Skype community. And for those of you who missed out on using Skype last week - I want to especially thank you as well.

As a goodwill gesture to all you faithful Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn or Skype Voicemail customers, we're adding an additional seven days to your current subscription, free of charge. And even if you didn't miss out on using Skype last week - you can still have a week free on Skype, on the house!

So please enjoy it, call your loved ones, friends, family and colleagues and thanks again.

Talk soon, The people at Skype

Tags: apology, email, outage, skype

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Taomyn said 3:59AM on 8-22-2007

"On the one hand, 7 days free for a 2 day outage seems like a good deal. But reliability? Priceless."

So you think a 100% uptime since 2003 is unreliable?

When was the last time your DSL/Cable/Telco provider didn't go down for a period time and when it did, did your provider "extend" your contract?

In this context I think Skype have done pretty well.

Sean said 8:13AM on 8-22-2007

Age of Empires

Taomyn said 8:16AM on 8-22-2007

Jeebus said 2:47PM on 8-23-2007

We have Skype-in/out and was out for 3 days, but haven't received any emails.

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