David Silverberg
T-Mobile at its latest "Un-carrier" event on Monday announced a fresh set of incentives designed to woo subscribers, including a stock program for customers, weekly giveaways and free Gogo Wi-Fi service on domestic flights.
Announced by CEO John Legere in his usual over-the-top fashion, the new set of offers is part of continued efforts to boost customer churn from competing networks, while at the same time solidifying T-Mobile retention rates. As with past T-Mobile incentives, existing subscribers net the greatest rewards from today's "Un-carrier 11" promotions.
For example, the stock program, called Stock Up, provides T-Mobile postpaid customers a single share of the company's common stock. Subscribers can net an additional share — up to 100 shares per year — by referring a friend, while customers who have been with the network for five or more years get an additional two shares for each recommendation until 2017.
The stock program is run through T-Mobile's brokerage partner, Loyal3. Owners receive the first share free through the T-Mobile Tuesdays app and pay no maintenance fees as long as they're active customers.
Users of the T-Mobile Tuesday app can also redeem a pizza from Domino's, a Wendy's drink and a special gift each week. Prizes come from a variety of brand partners including American Giant, Buffalo Wild Wings, Condé Nast, Fanatics, Fandango, Gilt, HotelTonight, JackThreads, Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures, Lyft, Major League Baseball, MGM Resorts International, Samsung Electronics America, Inc., Shell, StubHub, The Clymb, The Grommet and Warner Brothers. This week's special gift is a movie from the VUDU movie rental service.
T-Mobile plans to vary prizes with new partners and each week award a major prize like a trip, private movie screening or sports event to a single customer drawn at random. Such prizes include stays in Las Vegas hotels, attendance at major league baseball all-star week in San Diego, a trip to the Peruvian ruins at Machu Picchu and a shopping spree in New York City.
Finally, T-Mobile is offering users an hour of free Wi-Fi access on Gogo-equipped domestic air flights in an expansion to the carrier's in-flight texting program. The initiative starts on June 13.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
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19 Comments
"T-Mobile entices subscribers with stock options...
By David Silverberg"
Mr. Silverberg,
My understanding is that T-Mobile will be giving shares of stock to its subscribers, not stock options.
Clearly the best telecom CEO in the world.
Damn I wish they had better coverage :-(
Left AT&T for T-Mobile in Jan, because time after time, since 1998, AT&T treated me badly.
But now, despite living in T-Mobile's best coverage zone, calls break up, and sometime drop.
Looking into alternatives now. Back to AT&T I suppose.
T-Mobile, you've got the right attitude, but without decent service, you've got nothing.
Too bad T-Mobile's coverage is deteriorating here in NYC. A few dead spots on my commute where none existed in the past. Seriously have to consider AT&T this fall when I buy a new cell phone. (Still can't bring myself to use Verizon after sh!tty customer service several years ago. And I already suffered through extremely poor overall service with Sprint)