Afrihost's absurd TopUp gifts...

DJ...

DJ...

Banned
Joined
Jan 24, 2007
Messages
70,285
Reaction score
3,556
Location
Gauteng
Afrihost, what is the point of giving people gigs of data, in the hope of saving face after your MTN balls-up, and then placing ridiculous limitations on its use, to the point that it can only be used up in a matter of a few days. Let's take for example Nicci, from this very forum. Here's what you did:

We've added your 31 GB Bonus TopUp to your account already! Don't forget that, as a TopUp, the data will expire at the end of this month - so make sure you get the most out of it! And thank you - for playing, for being you, and for being part of the Afrihost family.
Click to expand...

Now what the hell is the point of 31 gigs if you've given her 4 days to use it? It just smacks of opportunistic PR bullschit. The fact that you explicitly state the limitations leads me to believe that you are well aware of this, and did so at the end of the month intentionally, knowing full-well that there is no way that people are likely to use it.

So big up for choosing to do something. Massive thumbs-down for the opportunistic, unbalanced PR package that you've chosen to use. This is hardly a sincere apology...
 
DJ... said:
Afrihost, what is the point of giving people gigs of data, in the hope of saving face after your MTN balls-up, and then placing ridiculous limitations on its use, to the point that it can only be used up in a matter of a few days. Let's take for example Nicci, from this very forum. Here's what you did:



Now what the hell is the point of 31 gigs if you've given her 4 days to use it? It just smacks of opportunistic PR bullschit. The fact that you explicitly state the limitations leads me to believe that you are well aware of this, and did so at the end of the month intentionally, knowing full-well that there is no way that people are likely to use it.

So big up for choosing to do something. Massive thumbs-down for the opportunistic, unbalanced PR package that you've chosen to use. This is hardly a sincere apology...
Click to expand...

+ 1
 
Well I am not with Afrihost so am not trying to defend them, or can't comment from my experience about them, but I wonder how many (if any) other ISP's would do something like this. I applaud Afrihost for at least making some form of effort and can think of a few times when other ISP's would have done well to follow this example.
 
Fulton17 said:
Well I am not with Afrihost so am not trying to defend them, or can't comment from my experience about them, but I wonder how many (if any) other ISP's would do something like this. I applaud Afrihost for at least making some form of effort and can think of a few times when other ISP's would have done well to follow this example.
Click to expand...

I love the fact that they engage with the forum to the extent that they do, and that they do legitimately appear to be customer-centric. This on the other hand comes across as opportunistic PR, masked as a gift. Not something I'd have expected from them...
 
To me it sounded like it was uncapped ones only at first getting anything special (reduced bill), so this weird topup might be a last minute addition to their plan type thing.
 
Thanks DJ... you are a good friend!

I have received a PM from Afriman, and he explained how it works, and it is random, so unlucky I have rolled on a top up and not a discount, but it is totally random, so I understand where he is also coming from. I suppose I was wrong looking a gift horse in the mouth.
 
Griz said:
Complaining about free stuff.


Legit
Click to expand...

Do you understand the gist of the objection? I suspect not. It is about taking advantage of their very own customers by wrapping up horse manure in a pretty box and pretend that you're doing them a favour. At the end of the day, you're still giving them schit...
 
Nicci said:
I suppose I was wrong looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Click to expand...

No you weren't. They cocked up and are in a PR-phase trying to save face. Doing so by slapping lipstick on a fugly whore and telling you to use her is just insulting to their customers...
 
DJ... said:
No you weren't. They cocked up and are in a PR-phase trying to save face. Doing so by slapping lipstick on a fugly whore and telling you to use her is just insulting to their customers...
Click to expand...

What other ISP makes any effort when things go wrong to do anything for their customers on a mass scale?

Guess this is one of those "is the glass half full or half empty" situations. I am going with half full
 
Fulton17 said:
What other ISP makes any effort when things go wrong to do anything for their customers on a mass scale?
Click to expand...

I fail to see what Mweb, Telkom, Neotel, Openweb, Axxess etc have to do with this issue. Do we not hold companies accountable on the basis of the industry being a bunch of schits? No...
 
Hi

I can with complete honesty say this was a sincere attempt to thank our subscribers for trusting us with their Internet.

Many clients were very grateful for the extra GBs and I am sincerely sorry if this made you upset in any way - if you would not like to receive any promotions or specials in the future please PM Afriman and we will add you to our Unsubscribe list.

To address the accusation that this was a quickly thought out PR stunt:

We in fact gave away these topup GBs in exactly the same method LAST month to our oldest clients (you can search the forum threads for mentions of this last month)

We also gave away more of these topups at the beginning of Feb to other of our oldest clients.

It was never our intention to skimp our clients in any way.

So why did we only give this batch of topups away this weekend and not earlier in the month?

Quite simply because this was the weekend our network's extra IPC capacity went live.

We could not give it away any earlier due to the fact that our network was at capacity - if we gave away a load of Capped unshaped GBs before this weekend to all of our Capped clients it would have flattened our network.

So all I can say is that this was a sincere attempt to thank our loyal clients - If you took this the wrong way I do apologise.

To those of you that appreciated this small token of our appreciation for your trust and your business I hope you enjoy your extra GBs!

Have an awesome eve!

Gian
 
Oh let's not flirt around the issue and call it something else. This is an attempt to save face for the MTN transition balls-up. I actually think that it's quite a respectable and admirable move on your part (and I addressed this in the OP). I simply think that it's a bit opportunistic and disrespectful to your customers to give them an allotment and then give them 4 days to use it.

I have a lot of respect for Afrihost. I don't have an ounce of respect for a PR campaign that manipulates the customer. Perhaps it wasn't your intention, but it comes across that way. Why not just extend the topup freebies to expire in the following month instead?
 
I'm siding with Afrihost on this one. As far as i can tell uncapped users are getting a helluva deal next month and capped users are getting something for nothing.
 
Zyzzyva said:
I'm siding with Afrihost on this one. As far as i can tell uncapped users are getting a helluva deal next month and capped users are getting something for nothing.
Click to expand...

Following a month of hell. They're saying thank you for remaining loyal during a really schitty period with the ISP. Fantastic. Do it properly is all I'm saying. Providing freebies results in free referral and word of mouth marketing. No problem with that. Just do it honestly - 4 days, 31 gigs. Sounds great. Right at the end of the month? No, that's hardly a legitimate freebie, and tied into an apology, makes the apology come across as insincere...
 
Afrihost-Gian said:
Hi

I can with complete honesty say this was a sincere attempt to thank our subscribers for trusting us with their Internet.

Many clients were very grateful for the extra GBs and I am sincerely sorry if this made you upset in any way - if you would not like to receive any promotions or specials in the future please PM Afriman and we will add you to our Unsubscribe list.

To address the accusation that this was a quickly thought out PR stunt:

We in fact gave away these topup GBs in exactly the same method LAST month to our oldest clients (you can search the forum threads for mentions of this last month)

We also gave away more of these topups at the beginning of Feb to other of our oldest clients.

It was never our intention to skimp our clients in any way.

So why did we only give this batch of topups away this weekend and not earlier in the month?

Quite simply because this was the weekend our network's extra IPC capacity went live.

We could not give it away any earlier due to the fact that our network was at capacity - if we gave away a load of Capped unshaped GBs before this weekend to all of our Capped clients it would have flattened our network.

So all I can say is that this was a sincere attempt to thank our loyal clients - If you took this the wrong way I do apologise.

To those of you that appreciated this small token of our appreciation for your trust and your business I hope you enjoy your extra GBs!

Have an awesome eve!

Gian
Click to expand...

That is my problem. I understand that you want to give something to apologize for the super slow speeds and continuous disconnecting that we have suffered, but again, it seems that it has been done at your own convenience, and it feels more like "here, take the scraps of what ever is left over" and NOT to say thank you or w,e the reason was. I am not ungrateful, but I was more annoyed by the fact that I am supposed to use 31 gig in 4 days... I would have preferred nothing instead, because I am even more annoyed with AH than I was before. If you want to be sincere and give something to say thank you for being loyal client, then at least make it roll over or something. I can just see people trying to download the internet and being inconvenienced rather than grateful. It's like saying thank you, here you go, have some gig that you cant use. Pointless.
 
Zyzzyva said:
I'm siding with Afrihost on this one. As far as i can tell uncapped users are getting a helluva deal next month and capped users are getting something for nothing.
Click to expand...

So what makes uncapped users better than a capped user? Why should some benefit and get a helluva deal and some capped get gigs you cant use?
 
Pass one, pass all!!!!!!!!!!!!! :mad:

It is free, I can not believe what I am reading here.

In the grander scale of things capped users were ''wronged'' a lot less that the uncapped users.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X