Apple Gives $100 Store Credit To iPhone Customers

MooRogue writes "In an open letter to all iPhone customers, Steve Jobs responds to hundreds of emails from upset iPhone customers. Apple will be giving early adopters who are not receiving rebates or any other consideration $100 store credit at the Apple store. Details will be posted on the Apple website next week"

Comments

How to make a fanatic fan

[chriss]

1. Sell him something
2. Kick him in the balls
3. Wait till he complains and declares to hate you
4. Give him a band aid and a lollipop
5. He now loves the big brother again

I'm myself bordering the state of Apple fan boy, but this is scary. People crying fool yesterday now praise the company for being responsive. I'm not into conspiracy theories, but if Apple had had this planed, this would be pure genius. Lowering the price and then getting the people who payed more to cheer you. Just scary how perfectly they play their crowd.

I don't think this was planed. But I think Apple knows that we now live in an attention society and that people highly regard companies who admit errors and change. In fact people overvalue this since they do not expect it (yet. Microsoft will obviously copy it someday). They did it with "greener Apple", they do it again with credits for iPhones which will generate more money for them due to people buying stuff in the Apple store.

Re:Steve; make it retroactive to all Apple product

[peacefinder]

"If you give $100 Apple Store credit to the sort of people who bought an iPhone on iPhone Day, that's all the excuse they need to buy a new iPod, or a MacBook or another iPhone."

Even better if most of them spend it on Apple software. Such as, I dunno, maybe Leopard? Due out next month?

Teh Steve is laughing all the way to the bank, and this time I'm laughing right along. This is so brilliant it almost has to be on purpose.

Re:Wow, that was quick

[Kelson]

After venting their rage for a day, many of the upset early adopters become even more loyal to the company than before. They get a lot of good PR for listening to their customers.

Good point. I recall reading somewhere that people are more impressed by a company resolving a bad experience to their satisfaction than they are simply by good experience. (This is, of course, self-limiting. If every initial experience is bad, most people will stop slogging through repeated bad experiences to get to the good ones. Well, software .0 versions notwithstanding.)

Re:Why not $200 store credit?

[happyemoticon]

Apple structures their prices in this manner so that people do not wait to they purchase products. This is also the reason they do not engage in price trickery (different prices for different verticals for no reason, arbitrary, limited-time rebates).

In practice, as long as I've been following these things, I have not seen the actual prices change muchh. The units get upgraded and the prices stay the same. Therefore, while it is true to say that your unit is worth less, it is difficult to make a direct dollar comparison. You just get more for your money - sometimes incrementally, sometimes radically. In this case, well, they probably weren't selling as many units as they wanted, or figured they were losing points with the demographic that made the iPod famous because of the outrageous prices.

The only other area I've noticed with radical price drops was the monitors. There are good reasons to lower their prices. For one, they have price competition from other companies who are making very similar or identical products, and it's harder to push the idea that a monitor worth just more for being Apple. Secondly, the iMacs are so cheap, and the desktops so expensive, that the potential market for the monitors is much smaller.

Re:Why not $200 store credit?

[dr00g911]

I'm with you on this one.

I bought two: an 8gb for myself and a 4gb for the wife, and we stood in line on opening day.

I honestly believe that the phones were worth every penny that we paid for both of them ($499/$599 retail).

For the record, my wife let her phone slip while she was walking out of her parking garage, and smacked it at the pavement while flailing to catch it. The sleep/wake button got jammed inside the buckled aluminum, and we had to bring the phone in for service.

Apple took the phone back, offered us a loaner ($25ish, IIRC... we didn't take it), and had a *brand*new*phone* shipped to us the very next morning. Priority overnight Fedex, 7:45am, I might add. For a phone that my wife admitted to beating up and was ready to pay for repairs.

So, that was two weeks ago, now Apple offers us $100 apiece for being early adopters.

You just don't get that kind of service in the technology industry anywhere else these days that I've experienced.

I mean, I bought a Vista OEM copy and an nVidia "Vista Ready" mobo on launch day (it's my job to know how to support *everything*, turd or not). You don't see MS or nVidia offering to make things right because little things like on-board sound and networking don't function...at all...nVidia passes the buck to MS, and MS passes the buck to nVidia, and eight months later now, I still have to use USB dongles on that particular mobo for sound and ethernet. And neither of those companies have any intention of making things right. And that's just driver issues. Let's not even get into Vista quality (utter pile of refuse, kthanxbye). No rebate, no exchange for something that actually functions as described. Not even an option to downgrade to XP from MS.

Anyhow, I contrast that experience with something like buying my iPhone, Macbook Pro or any of the dozens of other Apple products I've purchased over the years and there's just no comparison. The iPhone is a *killer* product, and they're going to gain a ton more goodwill out of a gesture that they didn't have to make.

Long story short, the wife is now an absolutely fanatical Apple supporter just from these experiences.

Blogging Whiners are whining because they paid a premium to be an early adopter? Well, duh. I had no illusions that it wouldn't be substantially cheaper by EU launch or the holidays.

Reminds me of a T-shirt I saw recently.

--d

It's all because of the iPod touch

[EccentricAnomaly]

Usually when Apple announces something like this in a special event they get tons of free press describing their new product becuase their events are interesting enough to be news. Just look at the recent iMac announcement and the articles on cnn.com and other places. But now what made the news was this price drop that was uncharacteristic for Apple and how the drop made the early adopters mad and how it must be a sign that their not selling enough iPods. All this and barely a mention of the iPod touch outside of the tech websites like ars....

But C'mon the iPod touch is freakin' cool, and way more newsworthy than the iMac. The Steve really f*cked up by announcing the price drop at the same time as the iPod touch. This $100 rebate is his effort to try an recover from this and hopefully get some positive press.

Yeah, the rebate is good customer relations and preserves the brand... but I think the main benefit is in squashing the 'disgruntaled iPhone people' meme before it got out of control.

I'm not saying this to be critical of his motives, but to admire him for doing a good job protecting shareholder value. As a little-guy shareholder I am really greatful that he works so hard to protect my investment's value even though most of his personal wealth comes from his other business (Disney/Pixar). This rebate is really good (and timely) damage control. Next step: he has to give Pouge and Mossburg free iPod touches :)