Bill Campbell

US Robotics adopts Skype in its Support Call Center

March 27, 2006 06:15 PM

Topics: Business

The adage, “Use your own products”, may be followed by USRobotics. A couple of weeks ago (March 15) USR introduced the USR9620 ATA (Analog Phone Adapter) at CEBit in Germany.

Today they announced something more impressive: the ability for a USRobotics’ customers to call Customer Support via Skype instead of a landline telephones or SkypeOut. This is the USR Support page:

USR.png

My guess is USRobotics used their USR9620 ATA to link Skype to their PBX in the same way Jeremy at Z-Tech did as explained in this article. When you click the “Call with Skype Icon” a lovely recorded voice greets you and you are placed in the call queue with background music.

Using ATA’s as a Gateway between the office phone system and the Skype network is a great idea with many dividends for organizations, customers, employees and suppliers.

This is a hot market led by vendors like ZipCom and VoSKY.

"Support through Skype gives our customers one more way to get in touch with our technical support agents. Customer and technical support is now offered via the phone, through email, and now via Skype," says Mary Galbavy, Director of Customer Support. "We are constantly looking for ways to improve our customers' experience and this is another way we've found to do that within our support organization. The satisfaction of our customers is key to our service delivery choices."

The Skype theme for 2006 is Skype for small and medium business. USRobotics seems fits squarely in the middle of the demographics for this sector─


A global company, USRobotics’ operates from offices in the United States and United Kingdom, as well as satellite offices in seven other countries. Today, more than 125 employees worldwide support the millions of users of USRobotics modems, routers, and security devices.
http://www.usr.com/press/pr-backgrounder.asp




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Comments

Posted by: John S. Richards at March 27, 2006 7:29 PM

When may business users call Skype? Currently there is no Skype Customer Service you can call. They seem to be the first telephone company that does not take calls.

Posted by: MuppetMaster at March 27, 2006 11:07 PM

I tried to call, it said 'Failed user not found'... Indeed, not very impressive.

Posted by: julian.bond [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 27, 2006 11:20 PM

Let's say you have a small support desk of 4 or 5 people working from home. Is there a simple answer to offering Skype as a Support contact route?

The problem with using a group chat is that people needing support can't invite themselves in.

The problem of having a group Skype ID that you all log into is that running two copies of Skype simultaneously is slightly tricky.

Posted by: Kevin Delaney at March 28, 2006 12:53 PM

Wow I blogged this like two weeks ago :O

-kevin

Posted by: Bill Campbell at March 28, 2006 5:19 PM

Heu muppetmaster!

Where have you been? I guess USR installed a muppet filter. It works for everyone but you. (Grin)
Regards, Bill

Posted by: MuppetMaster at March 28, 2006 11:44 PM

While they may have a Muppet filter, it is just another example of the anamolies that pop-up in a P2P network such as:

- Not able to see the proper status of people when you know they are online
- Intermittantly not being able to reach people, such as this example
- etc
- etc

Hence why Skype, even in its basic form, is not ready for such hefty tasks as reliable customer care. Or could it be a problem with my OSX versio of Skype???

Posted by: cyril lamblard at March 29, 2006 2:01 AM

SKY-click is the right product when you do not have your own call center. SKY-click is a fully featured call center based on SKYPE and 100% web based, which means no implementation costs. With SKY-click, callers are automatically redirected to the right & available operators that know what the caller is looking for. On each “call me button”, you can associate business rules depending on where the button is pasted. If nobody is available, callers can leave a message, a phone number and propose a time and day to be called back. Everything is tracked and recorded, including the feedback from the calls. SKY-click solution has been designed to fit companies of any size that wish to sell, offer support or training via an easy to use Skype Video, IM or VOIP call center to their clients. A great way to humanize your business relationships!

SKY-click will be released in a couple of weeks. Go on http://www.sky-click.com/blog/?p=1 if you want to know more...

Posted by: Bill Campbell at March 29, 2006 8:40 PM

Hey Cyril!

Thanks for the update! I look forward to test Sky-Click. I bet others will too.

Regards, Bill

Posted by: Terry Jones at September 15, 2006 1:57 PM

I bought a us robotics turbo card. Doesn't work!
Does anybody know the customer service # for these people?

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