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Motorola apologizes for Moto X order issues, offers two additional days of sales

 

Update: Motorla has just detailed the full process for obtaining a Moto X at $350 on its blog. The company will now issue coupon codes to obtain the device at a discount, and customers will have one week to redeem the code and design their device with Moto Maker. Visit Motorola’s blog for the detailed instructions.

While plenty of retailers and online stores will take the time this week to discuss the great sales they had, Motorola will likely be a lone sad face as they apologize for their website downtime. Originally planned as a sale for the Moto X with a $150 Cyber Monday discount, the Motorola website was slammed to the point of oblivion and the company even missed its self-imposed deadline to come back online.

The issues led Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside to pen a late night apology for the entire situation and promise two additional days of sales. In order to make up for the troubles, Motorola will offer the same $150 discount beginning at 12pm EST this Wednesday, December 4th and Monday, December 9th. That’s two additional days to grab the Moto X for $349, arguably one of the best deals in the Android world right now.

“Here is what we are going to do: Starting at 12 pm EST/9 am PST this Wednesday, we will relaunch the $349 promotion. To help make up for this major inconvenience to shoppers, we will also add an additional promotional day on Monday, December 9. We will double the quantity of phones available, while supplies last, to allow as many people as possible to take advantage of the promotion. We’re also extending the 30% off offer on accessories to these two days,” wrote Woodside.

It’s a heartfelt apology and as someone who has watched the tech community for years Motorola is hardly alone in their website downtime. Unfortunately, it was also the butt of a few jokes as many wondered how a Google-owned company could have such trouble staying online amidst the crush of Cyber Monday.

Regardless of what happened, the company is making good in a big way and for that I’m ready to forgive their troubles yesterday.

We owe you an apology.

I want to apologize to our customers and fans for the issues we experienced on our website with our Cyber Monday promotion. I want you to understand what happened, and what we are doing to rectify the situation.
First, we misjudged the overwhelming consumer demand for Moto X, which was far greater than we expected. 
Second, our pre-sale site testing was not sufficiently extensive. Testing failed to reveal weaknesses caused by large volumes of concurrent orders flowing through the MotoMaker customization engine.
Thus, when we opened the promotion this morning, an extraordinary spike in concurrent orders caused our website to go down. We couldn’t fulfill orders. The site became unstable. While some orders were filled, many customers tried all day to place their orders, unsuccessfully. Customers were left frustrated.
We have since found a solution that we believe addresses the concurrent order issue. Motorolans are hard at work right now, implementing that solution.
Here is what we are going to do: Starting at 12 pm EST/9 am PST this Wednesday, we will relaunch the $349 promotion. To help make up for this major inconvenience to shoppers, we will also add an additional promotional day on Monday, December 9. We will double the quantity of phones available, while supplies last, to allow as many people as possible to take advantage of the promotion. We’re also extending the 30% off offer on accessories to these two days.
Please note that MotoMaker.com will open up for regular business tomorrow (Tuesday, December 3). We will stay the course on our regular sales as we restore our promotional prices for Wednesday and Monday.
Stay tuned to our TwitterG+ and Facebook pages for more updates. We understand people want frequent communications from us so we will do a better job at keeping you informed.
On behalf of all Motorolans, I apologize for what occurred today. I appreciate your understanding as we get this fixed in time for Wednesday and Monday.
Posted by Dennis Woodside, CEO

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