Afrihost: 4,000 more free MiFi devices

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munky82 said:
By saying that there is no more devices, thus turning eager customers away. Only to actually go fetch a box (the other 7000) from the back and tell the new casual walk-ins that yes we have more. How is this not clear.

Yes it was a marketing stunt, but due to a lie, or an error in their marketing strategy a customer got a jibed. If they stuck with their 1000 I would not have been annoyed. But the fact is they posted that there is no more and in fact there were 7000 more.

Like I said I don't care about the actual Mifi (well ok a little :) ), I can live without it, but fact of the matter is that a lie was told, the technical execution was flawed and that nobody recognizes that now is scary. Everybody is just saying that we are happy the marketing stunt happened. I am happy. It was great. Kudos to Afrihost. But they also made a mistake, and now because I am pointing it out I have entitlement issues?
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You are making an assumption for which there is not a shred of evidence. Namely that there were always 8000 devices up for handing out.

Daily there are promotions running in South Africa "until stocks last" and it is a damn common occurrence in retail for something to be given away to customers who do XYZ "while promotional material last". I've staffed at promotional events twice where the stuff being given away runs out and more later arrives - and we were not expecting more stock. In the first instance promotional material (CDs at a discount price) where shipped from another store because the feet traffic at that store was "insufficient" and in the other instance when we had given away half of the promotional material I phoned headoffice to request more. In neither instance was anybody lied to when it was said "out of stock but we are seeing if we can make a plan" and that is what happened here. Before the first 1000 devices were given out Afrihost indicated that they were making a plan, on reaching 1000 devices their website said check in in a few minutes. What in all probability happened was that on the demand being gauged the executives of the company made the call to see what they could do to extend and somebody phoned their suppliers to extend their order of devices (having an extra 145k coming into the bank within 48 hours allows you to buy more hardware) and were probably also checking what other devices they could get as promotional stuff - I am sure that if the maths worked a particular way they would have sent out there awesomeness marketing pack (stress ball, pen, flashstick, but all with really clever marketing slogans) that they used for the NAG gaming thingy or something of that sort. Instead of coming back with promotional freebies equal to 1/10th of the purchase in question Afrihost returned to giving you something worth 6 times what you paid for in addition to a well priced purchase - and you are complaining.

Go to any fete or bazaar in the country and watch as stock of a good uptake runs out - pancakes or whatnot - and see if a decision to make more is taken. Afrihost sent out an invitation to do business which provided for the first 1000 people who completed their purchase to get a promotional device for free. They then extended another invitation for further devices but thus far there is not a shred of evidence that anybody was induced into purchasing one thing and got less than what they were induced into purchasing.

Unlike the majority of retail promotions where there is limited promotional stock this promotion does not appear to have had a stranded middle (customers who took up the requisite sale but did so when there was no promotional material available to be given for free) and on your own account you aren't in the stranded middle - instead you are the guy who arrived at Walmart before Black Friday bashed around in the pre-opening madness got to the middle of the queue to think that the free stuff you wanted might just actually run out and decided to piss off and not return only to complain that you bashed people around in the pre-opening. The only thing that engaging in this promotion cost you was a little bit of your time and if 5 minutes around 10am and then 5 minutes at another part of the day is not worth more than R1000 then you should not have taken the decision to try purchase on a promotion at 10am, you also probably grossly over estimate the value of your time and importance.
You are therefore behaving like an asswipe.
 
AfricanTech said:
Yeah and that deal is not equivalent IMO

1. Night Surfer is carp - you want mobile gigs for when you are mobile - which tends to be during the day
2. 10 gigs @ 299 (excluding the Night Surfer - see above) is R9 more than 5gigs for 145
3. They lock into the a 24 month contract :mad:
4. Coverage questionable
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Aah, that's a pity.
It was an awesome deal.
I had great coverage in my area and got 8mb download speeds.
My contract has finished and they have continued the deal on a month to month basis at R199.
 
Paul Hjul said:
The only thing that engaging in this promotion cost you was a little bit of your time and if 5 minutes around 10am and then 5 minutes at another part of the day is not worth more than R1000 then you should not have taken the decision to try purchase on a promotion at 10am, you also probably grossly over estimate the value of your time and importance.
You are therefore behaving like an asswipe.
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You know what, whatever. Yes I am butthurt because I missed out. I am annoyed that I took part actively in the campaign and casual drop-ins later to the website actually got something I was eager for. I do respect Afrihost for doing stunts like this in the first place. Yes I am acting like an "asswipe" (thanks for the name calling, that is a real mature move there) because I missed out, and I am pointing out errors in the process that caused me to miss out. I am annoyed that I believed Afrihost when they said they were sold out and didn't bother to check in again. Whatever, I don't care anymore, such is life.
 
no you are being an asswipe
If you read the their banner you would have known that more is on its way - what more was unknown and unexpected

You are making irrational assumptions that are contradicted by the evidence. Afrihost were by all evidence sold out on the first 1000 devices when they said they were. The bought more stock, nothing has ever contradicted this.
 
munky82 said:
Yeah, how did Afrihost generate a marketing budget? By having customers. They then invite these customers to participate in a marketing stunt for a new product. So they are giving back some of their gains from the customers. A customer, like me, follows the rules of the stunt. The stunt is over and they tell customers, like me, the stunt is over. Customers, like me, go home. Only 20 minutes later, they continue the stunt. Casual walk bys gain from the stunt.

I am happy the stunt happened. But I followed the rules, got lied to and other less enthusiastic participants gained.
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It may be that there were some who wandered in late and took the deal, but there were plenty of people stymied by the server overload who were trying from 10 a.m. to get all the way through the order process and who then stuck around because they really wanted the deal.
 
Paul Hjul said:
no you are being an asswipe
If you read the their banner you would have known that more is on its way - what more was unknown and unexpected
You are making irrational assumptions that are contradicted by the evidence.
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There were no such banner on their unstable website when I looked at it, as I mentioned twice on this thread, that is why I abandoned the promo in the first place.
Do YOU have evidence of said banner?

Oh and if you revert to name calling to empower your argument, you are clearly losing the argument. Like I said, whatever, such is life. Good day sir.
 
noxibox said:
then stuck around because they really wanted the deal.
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Some of us had better things to do than F5'ing the whole day, besides I believed Afrihost when they said the promotion ended, **** me right?(http://qkme.me/3vk27k) So what I missed out, it it is just annoying how I missed out and the fact that fanbois just can't grasp the facts is astounding.
 
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munky82 said:
Some of us had better things to do than F5'ing the whole day, besides I believed Afrihost when they said the promotion ended, **** me right?(http://qkme.me/3vk27k) So what I missed out, it it is just annoying how I missed out and the fact that fanbois just can't grasp the facts is astounding.
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Do u have proof that the banner did not say check back in 15 min? for more details

I was there and so a lot of other people who also saw it
 
DTBA said:
Do u have proof that the banner did not say check back in 15 min? for more details

I was there and so a lot of other people who also saw it
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No, I am being dead serious. Maybe they changed it in the minutes after I gave up. Like I said, such is life.
 
munky82 said:
Some of us had better things to do than F5'ing the whole day, besides I believed Afrihost when they said the promotion ended, **** me right?(http://qkme.me/3vk27k) So what I missed out, it it is just annoying how I missed out and the fact that fanbois just can't grasp the facts is astounding.
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You spelled "believed" wrong.
 
munky82 said:
Some of us had better things to do than F5'ing the whole day, besides I believed Afrihost when they said the promotion ended
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And hence you should really classify yourself as one of the less enthusiastic participants. Undoubtedly the initial signup process was flawed and frustrating. I'm not disputing that. I am instead disputing your belief that the beneficiaries of more devices being handed out were primarily people who happened to be wandering by rather than those who had spent an annoying 20 minutes trying to make it all the way through the signup procedure, but hung on a bit longer to see how Afrihost would respond.
 
noxibox said:
And hence you should really classify yourself as one of the less enthusiastic participants. Undoubtedly the initial signup process was flawed and frustrating. I'm not disputing that. I am instead disputing your belief that the beneficiaries of more devices being handed out were primarily people who happened to be wandering by rather than those who had spent an annoying 20 minutes trying to make it all the way through the signup procedure, but hung on a bit longer to see how Afrihost would respond.
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Thanks for posting this, but just note that we do sincerely apologise to clients who had a frustrating experience.

But yes, we don't leave our clients hanging. When we know we've messed up, we always do whatever we can to make it right (and where possible even go 1 further)
 
We spent 23 minutes on 2 computers trying to signup, managed to complete our details and the delivery address but never any further as the page would simply crash. Of course myself and many others moved on after viewing the updated page saying "sorry but we're all out now", were we suppose to stick around and hope that there would be some sort of miracle? How am I or anyone else suppose to know that Afrihost would be giving out another 7k devices if they ONLY informed their customers (as well as non customers) about this via social media, why didn't Afrihost email ALL customers as they did to initially inform us of the deal to now also inform us that "we have another 7k devices available"?

This is really pathetic and emailing Afrihost and receiving poor excuses and a "sorry but not all customers can get it" is utter BS. If I got to the signup page, proceeded and it took me to the page where I filled in my details, then that clearly means that we were on-time and that our signup was accepted. It's not my fault that the server couldn't handle the load and bombed out continuously now is it?

I'm pissed off right now a) because your servers crashed like crazy and b) that Afrihost failed to directly inform their customers that we have more devices available.

I'm already looking for a new ISP based merely on this, Afrihost can expect my business uncapped services will be moved elsewhere pretty soon..
 
claude.m said:
I'm already looking for a new ISP based merely on this, Afrihost can expect my business uncapped services will be moved elsewhere pretty soon..
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:wtf: Just because you didn't get your free modem?

And what if they never ran a promotion? Would you have moved then?
 
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