Skype Eats More Young: RIP Skype's software developers relations program.

Skype clients have APIs. Thousands of developers wrote Mac, Windows, and Linux software controlling a Skype client through the API. Call recording, desktop sharing, games, commerce; thousands of products.

While Skype will maintain the API, the developer relations program around it is over. The commerce component: Dead. "Skype Certified" software: Dead. Support: Dead.

Skype will continue to engineer the communications API.

They won't help you promote your software.
They won't help you test and improve your software.
They won't help you co-brand your software.
They won't help you distribute your software.
They won't help you sell your software.
They won't help you process payments.
They won't help you keep up to date on API changes.

Not that they'd executed terribly well on these in the past.

But that's what they're defunding.

Presumably all that energy and money will go into a new program for developers. Skype moved some of its devrels people to new teams, some to a team working on the public version of Skype's future cloud communications platform.

Was there a good reason to kill off the old program before the new one was up? Skype won't say. Will the old community fare poorly on the new platform? Does the current community of developers not build a million dollars in yearly value to the Skype brand? Do these developers have anywhere else to turn?

This Dear John letter went out today to registered developers along with a blog post saying much the same thing. 

Subject: The future of Skype Extras Program
From: [Someone at Skype]

Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:52:23 +0100

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am contacting you on behalf of the Skype Extras Program.

Unfortunately I have to announce that the Skype Extras program will be shut down, effective September 11rd 2009.  Despite the incredible breadth of Extras developed for Skype, simply not enough people were using them to justify our continued support of the Extras program.  It was a tough decision for us, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our time and resources to deliver our core products such as voice and video, expanding Skype among business users, and expanding Skype into mobile and other platforms. The following changes will be effective from September 11th onwards:

• We have decided that we will no longer certify new Extras. However, all existing Extras will stay certified until their expiration dates and all unused test tickets will be reimbursed.
• We will continue to distribute applications through the existing Extras Manager in Skype for Windows but will no longer add new Extras to the Extras Manager.
• All public API documents will continue to be maintained Skype will also support accessories via the Public API.
• The Skype Shop <http://shop.skype.com/extras/>  will continue to support the currently listed Extras

This decision also influences the payment terms that are currently in place. After December 11, Skype will no longer allow the use of Skype credit by 3rd Party Extras developers. A final invoice detailing the full amount of the gross revenue received from Skype users must be submitted within 45 days of this date. After the 25th of January, Skype will no longer be able to process publisher invoices.

We understand the impact that this decision will have on our community. If you have any additional questions regarding the payment terms or any of the other listed changes please don't hesitate to contact me.

Best Regards,

See also: Alec Saunders' Go Big, or Go Home. But Please, Spare Us The Whinging….

tags: skype, devrels, extras

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.

Why Skype doesn't offer phone support

"What's the phone number for Skype customer service?" is the most common question I've been asked this year. 

There isn't one. All support is provided through Skype.com.

Why not let customers call?

The back of the napkin arithmetic is simple.

• 100 Skype customer support representatives (roughly) serve 400,000,000 user accounts (roughly). So each rep has about four million customers.
• Let's suppose Skype has the happiest customers on earth. In any given year, 99 out of 100 don't have any problems with recovering passwords, payments, fraud, harassment, hardware, networking, or anything at all.
• That leaves one percent of account-holders per year with a problem. One percent of 400 million is 4 million accounts with a problem sometime in the year. Let's assume all the problems take the same effort/time and that they arrive smoothly throughout the year; so no need to allow for demand spikes.
• If 1% of customers have one customer service issue per year (a low, conservative guess), then each rep works 40,000 issues each year.
• That's about 160 issues per day (assuming fifty weeks of work, no holidays), or 27 issues per working hour. At six hours worked per day, that's about 2.3 minutes to solve a customer's problem; 135 seconds.

Voice calls in call centers don't work at this scale with these resources.

So what does Skype do?

• Avoid problems. An ounce of prevention is worth millions in call center operations.
  • Design your software and web site to minimize customer issues. 
  • Improve self service. Help customers help themselves through help pages.
  • Help customers help each other. Skype's forums are very active.
• Efficiently solve customer problems.
  • Text takes less time and effort than voice or video.
  • Asynchronous text takes less time than interactive chat. No hold times or waiting times.
  • Structured, templated complaints find their ways to the right people more often and trigger appropriate scripts for the reps.
• Tiered support.
• Registered developers and enterprise customers can purchase priority engineering support from Skype.
• How much would you pay per user account per month for a Skype customer service rep to pick up the phone (or Skype) when you ring?
• Add resources smartly.

Demand for support will grow. Skype's user base continues to grow with millions of new customers every month. Skype opens up platforms, runs on more kinds of devices and computers, as Skype operates in more countries with many languages and cultural views. Demand for support will grow in volume, intensity, and variety.

The pre-IPO stakes are high. Skype wants to avoid customer dissatisfaction breeding more class action lawsuits, like the class filed in December 2008 on behalf of Washington State Skype users.

tags: skype, customerservice, support, techsupport

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.