Skype this week has added SIP support, essentially meaning that it’s possible to integrate Skype calling with a business PABX. Potential VOIP call rates aside, a big selling point being pushed by Skype that companies can add a “dial us” link to their sites and allow customers to call them (for free) while maintaining their given telephone infrastructure. Personally, I hate this kind of click-to-call feature — my first step after a Skype install is to disable the Skype Firefox extension, which otherwise mangles phone numbers every time you encounter them online. But I’m frequently not a representative human being. Would you like the ability to call companies via Skype direct from their site, or would you prefer a focus on other modes of communication? Share your preferences in the comments.
mr-crash
March 24, 2009 at 4:15 PM
I also am not a big fan of the extension, however I think it’s mostly a cosmetic thing that irritates me about it rather than any real objection to the functionality. When I work on a site for a client, I just don’t really need its little button thing turning up in place of the regular number.
However, if they had something less intrusive (also unacceptable would be some crazy rollover pseudo-popup), that didn’t change the look of the number on the page, I might not uninstall it.
Report PermalinkWobble
March 24, 2009 at 7:31 PM
I too do not like those skype browser extensions. It’s the first thing I also uninstall. You are not the odd one out in this case.
Report PermalinkLakshan
March 25, 2009 at 7:15 AM
I also hate the browser extension, it messes up the layout of pages and I never use it anyway, However, if I could make free calls from the browser to a particular company, I might try it if they tone down the extension a bit,
Report PermalinkKel
March 25, 2009 at 1:56 PM
Recently we were trying to book some accommodation for a holiday overseas, and after we had some issues the hotel asked us to contact them. If they had a link to just call them using skype for free it would have made it a lot easier for us, rather than having to pay for an international call. Needless to say, they didn’t get our business because having to make an international phone call was the last straw in the difficulties we’d had booking…
The skype extension would have meant it was free and less hassle (though I can’t say if we still would have booked with that hotel or not).
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