How to Use Skype for Business

If you do business internationally, you need Skype. Skype is an amazing Internet phone service that offers free calling anywhere in the world, between two Skype subscribers, via the computer. We use Skype to maintain a much closer level of direct communication with our international clients, vendors and contacts which has helped build our business and drive more sales. There is also something much more personal about being able to talk to another person, offering more of a personal connection, than mere email contact.

I've been working with my son who has a new independent record label, SHP Records. They have music artists on the label from all over the world, and those artists are also constantly on the road and touring all over the world. Our business uses Skype to now maintain a much closer relationship with those contacts. As we also sometimes fund the tours and travel costs, we are also now saving on those expenses as well.

Email is still used constantly, the but lack of cost for international calls now makes it free and easy to just talk directly. To us, it really has made a enormous impact, allowing us to strengthen and build those international relationships which is key to generating more revenue in these difficult times. This ability to have better and more communication unrestricted by a ticking meter has been the biggest benefit of using Skype for our business.

There has been a nice financial savings as well. We looked at some bills from 2009 before we started using Skype, and found an average monthly expense of $300 in international calls between the land line and our mobile phones. So Skype is saving us almost $4000 per year in money we were spending on international long distance calling.

We have Skype installed on a MAC laptop, which has a built-in microphone and built-in speakers. We simply click the person we want to call and it dials them and connects several seconds later. We then have the call via the laptop, it's loud and clear. And completely free. Some people use headsets with headphones and microphone built-in.

The free Skype-to-Skype calls are just the start. Video chat is also free, single Skype-to-Skype calls. Skype can also be used to call regular phones, at low pay-as-you-go rates of about $0.02 per minute. They also offer monthly subscription plans including an unlimited USA plan for $2.99 a month and a unlimited world plan for $13.99 a month. These prices don't include taxes and fees and they do have a "fair usage" policy limiting the unlimited calls to 10,000 minutes per month, six hours per day and no more than 50 different numbers can be called each day. The group video chat plan is $8.99 per month, and is a great option for business to conduct video conferences. The monthly subscriptions are discounted with six month and twelve month commitments.

Skype is available for multiple operating systems, for both MAC and PC. The quality is excellent, sometimes too good. When we have a conference call, the voices are clear with no noise. You can even hear papers being shuffled around or people clicking their mouse in the background during the call, far better quality than my mobile phone and certainly equal to our landline.

Skype now offers an app for most mobile phones and tablets, allowing the service to be used anywhere, making it possible to make free international Skype-to-Skype calls from anywhere in the world you can get a wifi signal.

We have Android phones and use the app when traveling to keep in touch with the office and many of the artists are now using it as well. The mobile app doesn't always work perfectly, and you do need a reliable wireless gateway, but it's a great alternative to your phone service, which you can always use instead of the Skype service.

What You Can Do For Free
We use the system for free Skype-to-Skype calls and for Skype conference calls, which are also free. Single Skype-to-Skype video calls are free. To call regular landline phones you need to pay-per-minute or subscribe to a monthly plan.

The Downside
As an Internet-based system, if the Internet goes down, you can't communicate. There have also been some outages. No emergency calls can be made on Skype, you can't dial 911 and it should be used as a secondary or backup phone system.

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