Skype—simple, fast, flexible
December 14, 2018

Skype—simple, fast, flexible

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Skype

Skype is currently being used organization wide, every employee has a skype account. Currently using it for quick communications, coordinating trouble shooting efforts through out a geographically distributed area. We use it for communication and document sharing when email is down or when quick comms are necessary. The ease of use and rapid group chat are awesome for the needs of our organization. We can drag and drop files or use the snipping tool to share images of screens. unfortunately actual call with video and voice are disabled, as well as real time screen sharing. I hope in the future this changes.
  • Ease of managing contacts, with a few clicks I can add, move or delete contacts into my Skype home screen. Adding members to group chat is also extremely easy.
  • The away feature, if you miss a conversation an email with a summary of that conversation is sent to your email. This is handy if you're often away from your desk like I am.
  • Emoticons, haha, but in all reality the widely available emoticons adds a certain human touch to the text only conversations. Use of video and voice emoticons give us a way to express emotions over chat. This is good when you're often talking to people you don't see in person or talk to on the phone very often.
  • While adding can modifying contacts is relatively easy after you figure it out, new users may struggle with this. Adding a simple plus button next to a persons name in a chat window would be a great help. a simple stream lined single or double click option would be great.
  • A gif repository. While Skype is a business tool some business isn't always so serious. My coworkers and I like to share links and other things quickly with each other over Skype to keep morale high. Being able to respond quickly to your buddy down the hall with a witty gif would make a difference.
  • Not exactly a bad thing but the group chat window could be confusing for new users. Streamlining this and allowing the user to drag themselves out of a chat instead of having to close a window or something similar may help with this.
  • It has really helped overall communications between colleagues. We've found it easy to share information quickly when trouble shooting an issue or attempting to correct a problem remotely.
  • I think for the most part it has had a positive ROI; we use it daily, it serves its purpose while providing some nice features.
  • It doesn't go overboard on the features or fancy knobs and buttons. The authentication is nice because a user gets their contacts list no matter where they log in. Overall it's been a great experience using the product and I'd say money well spent.
Slack, WebEx, and Google Hangouts. Skype is not as fancy as Slack or WebEx, and not as international or widespread as Google Hangouts, however. As I've stated, it really shines in our closed environment and isolated domain. The truth is we have been using a Windows-only domain on our isolated environment and Skype fits very nicely into that. The simple integration into our current setup was easy and fast.
It's well suited to help desk situations, office environments, collaborative situations and overall IRC type situations. One of the biggest reasons we like Skype is the fact it's easy to use, quick, and relatively easy to monitor. I don't believe Skype would do so well in a remote work situation, where a user works from home or from a remote location over a public network. I think Skype really shines in an isolated network where all users are on the same domain / building / geographic area. Our users are spread over 2 states; however, they're all on the same domain and connected by a long haul link directly.

Skype Feature Ratings

High quality audio
Not Rated
High quality video
Not Rated
Low bandwidth requirements
10
Mobile support
7
Desktop sharing
7
Whiteboards
Not Rated
Calendar integration
Not Rated
Meeting initiation
Not Rated
Integrates with social media
Not Rated
Record meetings / events
Not Rated
Slideshows
Not Rated
Live chat
10
Audience polling
Not Rated
Q&A
Not Rated
User authentication
10
Participant roles & permissions
8
Confidential attendee list
Not Rated