T-Mobile Offers Upgrade Credit to Loyal BlackBerry Customers After Marketing Blunder

zRwfrZoKicking someone while he or she is down is looked down upon, and T-Mobile sort of did that to BlackBerry recently. T-Mobile attempt at luring BlackBerry customers over to the competition backfired and now they are offering a $200 dollar credit if you trade in your old device for a new one. If you are just now hearing about this, T-Mobile tried to get BlackBerry customers to upgrade over to the iPhone. Whoever came up with this bad marketing move wasn’t really thinking. If any BlackBerry customers were to jump ship they already did it most BlackBerry customers left are the most loyal ones. Now the BlackBerry community did not stay quiet about it and express their opinion to the T-Mobile CEO on twitter. BlackBerry did not stay quiet about it and the CEO himself fired back in a blog post to highlight their dislike of the move. The ordeal had been evolving through twitter as well with T-Mobile CEO John Legere making snarky remarks about John Chen’s blog post. John is known for being unconventional type CEO and says whatever he is thinking so I was expecting him that type of response from him. You can check out the exchange T-Mobile CEO has had today with customers on twitter at this link.
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T-Mobile’s full announcement can be read below or at their official page.

The Un-carrier + BlackBerry = One Sweet Deal
By Mike Sievert, Chief Marketing Officer
February 19, 2014

Wow. Mind blown.

The passion we’ve seen from the BlackBerry Loyal over the past couple days has been pretty amazing. I want you to know we’ve heard you.
Yesterday BlackBerry CEO John Chen posted a blog criticizing T-Mobile’s marketing to BlackBerry users. The premise of his article was that it’s best for customers if we restrict the free flow of information and limit consumer choice. At T-Mobile we totally reject that premise. We believe the best wireless service gives customers complete freedom and choice, and that’s what we are doing with a new offer for BlackBerry users we are announcing today.
We’ve been working overtime here to find the best possible way to show BlackBerry users exactly how much we appreciate and respect your passion for and loyalty to T-Mobile and to BlackBerry.
So this is what we’re going to do.
Starting this Friday, we’re offering $200 credit toward a new device when you trade in your current BlackBerry and upgrade to one of the latest, greatest devices. Purchase any device we offer at T-Mobile. It’s that simple. Bring in your old, working BlackBerry and we’ll give you $200 toward a new BlackBerry or any of our other state-of-the-art smartphones.i In addition, for those existing T-Mobile BlackBerry customers trading-in and choosing a new BlackBerry Q10 or Z10, we’re offering an ADDITIONAL $50 off the purchase price of that new BlackBerry. These offers will be available for a limited time.

With our new $200 trade-in offer, combined with our Contract Freedom program (which pays off your early termination fees when you switch to T-Mobile and trade-in your eligible device), that’s a pretty sweet deal for any BlackBerry user. Whoever your current carrier may be.ii There has never been a better time for BlackBerry users to switch to T-Mobile.

As I mentioned above, if you’re a BlackBerry user and already with T-Mobile, we’re going to sweeten the deal even more. Simply trade in your current working BlackBerry and get an extra $50 toward a new BlackBerry 10 device. That’s a total of $250 toward a beautiful new BlackBerry Q10 or Z10 or $200 toward any other device. Got a working BlackBerry 6820 (or other retro-cool BlackBerry) you’re ready to part with? Bring it in and upgrade to your new dream machine. Boom.

As the Un-carrier, we believe in advocating for the customer and delivering choice. So, for example, if you’re a BlackBerry user enrolled in JUMP!, we’ll take a look at both options available to you and give you the very best deal. The market value of used BlackBerry’s ranges from $5 per device to a little over $100. Our new offer of $200 for your BlackBerry is intended to go way beyond current market value, as a thank-you to our customers and those BlackBerry users switching to T-Mobile.

So come in to any of our more than 3,000 T-Mobile retail stores across the country to take advantage of this BlackBerry Loyalty Reward offer. BTW, even if we don’t have a BlackBerry device you want in-store, we’re offering free expedited shipping of every new BlackBerry in our portfolio to make sure you get your new device fast.

Again, I love all the passion I’ve seen pouring in from the BlackBerry loyal these past several days. Thanks for the Tweets. We hear you.

We simply have a different point of view on the matter of choice than the one expressed yesterday by Mr. Chen. The Un-carrier is fundamentally about delivering real flexibility and freedom to wireless customers. It’s just not in us to lock customers in to annual service contracts, make them wait for upgrades … or limit them to one or the other type of device or OS. That’s not what we’re about. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to express these values once again.

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i. Eligible phones must power on, no cracked screens or water-damage.
ii. Qual’g service & device purchase with voice line port-in from eligible carrier req’d. See www.T-Mobile.com for requirements and payment details.

Image credit: Imgur

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