Reviews are critical to success on Amazon. They can boost your ranking, conversion and sales. Bad reviews can also wipe out your product business.
Knowing how to effectively deal with customer service issues is vital to the ongoing running of your business. In this article we cover our top tips for dealing with customer service issues on Amazon.
Customer service starts before the product even arrives in Amazon. If you choose a bad supplier and have a lot of defects – that will show up in reviews. So a lot of customer service is done by preventing issues in the first place.
Tip 1 Start Small
When dealing with a new product or factory, it’s best to start with a small test order because the risk is lower. You can then see how it sells on Amazon and monitor the quality and customer feedback easily.
If you start with 100 pieces and there are 10 defects, you know the factory has a quality issue. Testing a smaller sample saves you from getting caught up in a serious customer service problem.
If you order 5000 units then find you have an issue – fixing it is going to cost big. Start small then scale up orders once you know the supplier and product is great.
Tip 2 Do an Inspection
You can prevent most customer service issues by doing a comprehensive inspection of the products at the factory before they get shipped to Amazon.
There are many services to do this remotely. Checking for problems with the shipment before it leaves your supplier will prevent a lot of headaches later!
Tip 3 Partial Refund for Minor Issues
If a customer has a minor issue, offer them a 25% refund and ask them if that is fair.
This is particularly appropriate for such things as damaged packaging or slightly wrong colors. The customer will usually be happy to keep the product if you offer them a discount.
It is better to lose 25% of the sales value then to get a negative review. This may result in the customer leaving a positive review instead.
Tip 4 Full Refund
Promptly refund in full any customers who have a critical issue with your product, for example if it’s damaged or broken on arrival.
Any negative reviews on your product or account can impact your rankings and future sales. It’s best to be generous with customers who have an issue, trust that they are being fair, and be seen as a professional and responsible seller.
Tip 5 Returns
You’ll often get emails from customers asking to return a product. Make sure you know the process so you can promptly help them to return the goods and get their refund.
There are some people that cheat the system and try to get returns for products that they damaged themselves. But it is not worth trying to fight or prevent this from happening as often they are the loudest when it comes to leaving negative feedback also.
Promptly refund any customer with issues even if you think they are trying to game the system. Don’t give people a reason to complain.
Tip 6 Questions
Some customers might ask silly questions, or complain about issues that are not your fault.
For example, your listing may be for an iphone 6 case, and you specifically said that it doesn’t fit iphone 6 plus. The customer didn’t read the listing but still blames you.
Always be courteous and friendly and answer any questions as quickly as possible.
Tip 7 Outsourcing
For every issue you come across, create a set of templates that you can use to copy and paste the response for future customers with the same issue.
You can then give these templates and a set of instructions to a virtual assistant to answer the emails on your behalf. You should check periodically that they are answering quickly in the account health section of your Amazon seller central account.
Also check the content of the emails they are sending in the sent folder to make sure they are being polite and courteous.