AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) has launched two promotions aimed at rewarding DirecTV Now customers for sticking with the streaming service. This was made public through an announcement that was posted on the wireless carrier’s website.
One loyalty promotion will involve offering free Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) HBO access for a period of 12 months. This, however, will require customers to be on the ‘Gotta Have It’ or the ‘Go Big’ package. The second promotion involves offering a $5 monthly discount to subscribers of the ‘Just Right’ and ‘Live a Little’ packages for the next half a year.
Active subscribers
In order to qualify for AT&T’s loyalty reward promotion, one must have had an active subscription before March 6, 2017. One must also not have a pending cancellation.
For subscribers who are already signed up to HBO, their accounts will be credited for the period that the promotion will be running. And for subscribers who had prepaid by one month or three months, their accounts will be credited starting with the expiry of their prepaid period and they will get free HBO access beginning then. New subscribers will also be able to access DirecTV NOW content on a trial period that runs for seven days.
Apology gift
While AT&T is hailing the promotion as a way to thank its customer many will see it as an apology for the numerous technical issues that plagued the rollout of the streaming service soon after its launch. This included blocking of content for some subscribers and sign-in errors. At the time, angry subscribers took to social media to vent their frustrations under the hashtag #QP1502 in reference to the error code that they constantly had to deal with.
Some subscribers even took to petitioning the Federal Communication Commission to step in. AT&T defended itself saying that those were teething problems which affected only a small number of subscribers. Currently, AT&T seems to have resolved most of the bugs after promising that the company’s focus for 2017 would be performance improvement.
On Wednesday shares of AT&T Inc fell by 0.26% to close the day at $41.77.