January 2008

As many of you have already experienced, we have recently made some improvements to the Control Panel to help you further manage the use of Skype in your business. A lot of these features are a direct result of feedback from you – so keep on telling us what you want. We have more improvements underway during 2008 and hope that you enjoy using Skype in your business.

Here is a short list of the things we have updated.

• Allocation reporting: see allocations per group, person or administrator for each month.

• User-centric management: Click on a user and all available settings are shown for that user on one single page.

• Start screen to help new users get up and running

• Improved grouping functionality and credit allocation for large groups of people at the same time.

• Users can now detach themselves from the Control Panel on their MyAccount page.

• E-mail notifications: administrators are notified if credit is running low within the Control Panel and other events

• Show CLI settings for SkypeIn numbers allocated within the Control Panel. (Coming soon)

• Ability to re-invite users who have not yet accepted.

• …and other minor changes that will improve load times and usability.

A reminder to all businesses based within the EU - by entering your EU VAT number, your purchases are VAT exempt.

PrettyMay Call Center for Skype (PMCCS) is a 100% software-based call center solution for Skype. It allows small or medium sized businesses to quickly and affordably implement a Skype PBX (aka PABX) system with auto-attendant, interactive voice response (IVR), extension transferring, call recording and personalized voicemail capabilities - and a lot more as well.

How does PMCCS work?

Your customers contact you by calling your Skype Name, a Skype Button displayed on your website, or a SkypeIn number , PMCCS automatically answers the call, and leads the caller into the built-in IVR system, then transfers the call to the appropriate agent or staff member depending on the button the caller pressed.

You can have up to 30 simultaneous Skype or SkypeIn lines supported with the PrettyMay Call Center for Skype. The diagram below shows how the system works for inbound calling.

Pretty May can also be used to route outbound calls via Skype. Find out more here

You can follow these step by step instructions to see how to set up and install Pretty May Call Center for Skype.

You can find out more by visiting the Pretty May Website

If you would like to find out how to get the best quality voice recordings using Skype, then check out this great audiovisual presentation prepared by Doug Kaye and Paul Figgiani at the Conversation Network.

This very detailed tutorial called ‘Skype for Interviews - A How-To Video’ contains a wealth of information. These guys really know their stuff. It’s over 20 minutes long so you may want to grab yourself a cup of coffee. But if you are interested in recording interviews using Skype so you can use them for podcasts, or if you just want to learn a bit more about how to improve voice quality, then it is well worth the time.