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Telstra says ‘thanks’ but faces a social media backlash instead

A Telstra promotion offering loyal customers discounted Bon Jovi tickets has sparked a social media backlash against the telco after customer demand crashed the ticketing website Bang Tango.

The Bon Jovi promotion was part of Telstra “Thanks” program, which was launched in February, and has seen the company spend millions of dollars rewarding customers.

Telstra1The Bon Jovi tickets were meant to be available this morning at 9am Eastern on live music website Bang Tango. However, customer demand crashed the site for most of the morning.

“When we announced our partnership with Bon Jovi customers were asked to register and receive a unique code which would allow them to buy tickets this morning,” said a Telstra spokesman.

“What’s happened is that many more customers went to the site than had actually registered for the unique code. That is what caused the problems.”

The crash saw many users take to social media sites Facebook and Twitter to vent their anger. “If Telstra can’t support it, then don’t supply it! I didn’t know we had to pre-sign for Bang Tango either,” wrote user Chris Currie on Facebook.

“Yeah, I clicked buy right on 9 and made no friggin difference. it let me create an account and then told me I couldn’t log on,” wrote Maria Molinari.

By 12.30pm the Bang Tango website was back up and running. However, sources have told Mumbrella that Telstra chose to go with the untested Bang Tango website rather than with its normal ticket provider Ticketek.

Telstra did not comment on why Ticketek’s systems were not used for the promotion. However the company has since apologised for the inconvenience.

“Access to the pre-sale site has now been restored and we encourage customers to go online to complete their ticket  purchase”, said a spokesman.

“We apologise to affected customers for any inconvenience caused.”

Nic Christensen

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