Skype: Talk with clients, family and friends

Listen to this article

I’ve heard many people say that when they have a technology question, they turn to their teenagers for help. In the case of Skype, however, it’s possible that your stay-at-home spouse or mom could tell you about it.

That’s because, per Oprah.com, Oprah Winfrey has viewers “Skyping” from around the world for her Monday-night classes on the book “A New Earth.” In addition, some of Oprah’s guests are appearing on her show via webcams from their homes using Skype.

Given Oprah’s popularity, that’s a lot of people, presumably women Baby Boomers and up, who know about Skype. (Although, to be precise, it appears that participants in her class are merely watching a live webcast, and a few are offering feedback via Skype. But, since Skype is a sponsor of the webcast, my guess is they’ve asked Oprah to use the verb “Skyping” as much as possible.)

So, what’s Skyping all about?

Skype is a program for making free calls over the Internet to anyone else who has Skype.

Calls from one computer to another are free, from anywhere to anywhere in the world, and they take place via an Internet connection. If you want to call someone’s land line or cell, you can SkypeOut, as it’s called. The rates on these calls vary, but in general are very inexpensive.

Skype uses VOIP, which stands for voice over Internet protocol. VOIP technology is not exclusive to Skype; among its many competitors are Vonage and Google Talk.

Skype’s Web site says it’s free to download and easy to use. That’s true. It took me less than 10 minutes to download. It’s important to note that I am not techy. Like many of you, I believe, I employ technology when it’s been proven to help me with something. I don’t seek out technology for fun in my spare time. I hate using help tutorials. So, when I say something computer-related is easy to use, that means anyone can do it.

You need a Broadband connection to use Skype — if there’s anyone out there who’s still using dial-up to save money … STOP.

I began my Skype experiment with a test call from my laptop and learned that I needed a microphone. Skype sells equipment such as headsets on its Web site, or you can buy official Skype products at Wal-Mart. I prefer Target and spent $15 on a non-Skype approved GE PC Stereo Headset. It’s pretty cool. I’ve never used a headset before, so I felt a little bit like I was at mission control at NASA when I made my first SkypeOut call, to my mom. It worked just fine, for 2.1 cents per minute. I had to buy Skype credit up front to do so; the minimum purchase is $10, and it expires in 180 days if you don’t use it.

Rest assured, being the cheapie that I am, I will use it before it expires.

I have since discussed with my extremely techy husband the prospect of buying webcams for my family and my mother-in-law who lives in South Carolina. I envision my kids especially enjoying the ability to call and see her, and we’ll enjoy its cost — free.

I found a nice little personal use for Skype. And I would not hesitate to SkypeOut for my work long distance — it has utility for a journalist. What about a practicing lawyer?

Wausau attorney Timothy J. Nuckles, a sole practitioner with the Nuckles Law Firm, has been using Skype for at least two years now with his clients. Nuckles is licensed in Wisconsin and Illinois, in a niche practice representing buyers in technology product and service deals. When he’s not practicing law, he works as a consultant to clients across the country. In either capacity, very few of his business calls are local.

The fact is, long distance has become remarkably cheap in the last decade, but saving money isn’t Nuckles’ primary motivation for using Skype. Rather, it’s how his clients, techy people in general, want to talk to him. Probably his most frequent use of Skype, he says, is to have it running in the background when he and his clients are on land line conference calls with technology vendors. He can message his client’s conference call participants through Skype in near real time (“Let’s get off this issue for the time being,” “Don’t volunteer any more information on budget,” etc.) and if he and his client need to go offline during the conference call, Skype is waiting there for the offline verbal discussion. Three or four times per day, he uses Skype in this fashion.

As previously noted, calls are free from one Skyper to another. Nuckles says that probably no one in his Skype contacts list is another lawyer. Clearly, he’s an early adopter of technology — so don’t download Skype thinking it will be a free way to talk to non-local opposing counsel. Not yet, anyway. Although if you SkypeOut to them, it’s probably less than you’re paying using a land line, so there would be some savings there.

Perhaps the greatest limitation with Skype that Nuckles has encountered is that sometimes, his clients want to communicate with him via Skype from their work computers, only to realize that their IT policies do not allow such downloads.

When I Googled “Skype,” I did notice a few blog posts criticizing Skype’s customer service. Nuckles, however, says he’s never had any problems with Skype customer service — but then again, he’s never had to use it. As long as he keeps up-to-date with the most current version of Skype, it works just fine. He reminds that Google owns a competitor service, Google Talk — which he has tried, and had many more dropped calls, compared to Skype. He does have dropped calls with Skype occasionally, maybe once a month. Not enough for him to consider it a problem.

In sum, Skype made a believer out of me. Whether you’re calling a client, Oprah, or your mom across the country, with Skype you can easily do it for free or very cheaply. Why not check it out?

Send your cheap law office management and legal marketing ideas to [email protected].