There is a delicate balance in soliciting feedback from customers. Navigating this terrain requires tact, fairness, and a firm understanding of the rules of engagement. It's much like walking a tightrope - one wrong step, and it's a long way down.
Amazon, the world's largest online marketplace, is clear about these rules. Their stance is a testament to their commitment to maintaining the integrity of customer reviews - a critical aspect of their business model.
In their universe, it's clear - neutrality is paramount when asking for reviews. The ask should never swing towards the positive, nor should it shy away from the potential negative. It might seem a challenging task, but it is not just a rule; it's an opportunity.
An opportunity to engage with your customers honestly, to hear their voice unfiltered, and to improve your product or service based on their feedback. It's not about avoiding the negative; it's about transforming it into a win.
Make no mistake, manipulating reviews is a strictly forbidden act, a breach of trust. Amazon's stance on this is firm and unyielding. Yet, within these constraints, there's room for creativity, for connection, for growth.
Remember - in this world, neutrality is power. It's the keystone of your relationship with your customers, the foundation of your credibility, and ultimately, the key to your success.
In this journey, let the rules guide you, let fairness lead you, and let your customers' voice inspire you. For at the end of the day, in business, as in life, it's about the journey, not just the destination.
Tips for effective Amazon sellers
- Always Ask for Reviews: Never assume that because you have many reviews already, you don’t need more. Your work in this aspect is never done.
- Don’t let your success make you complacent
- Continuous effort is needed to maintain your position and sales.
- Understand that reviews on Amazon are a deciding factor for many buyers. They can make or break your success.
- Turn Customers into Reviewers. Work towards transforming customers who have purchased your product into reviewers that will give you a 5-star rating.
- Start Your Day Right. Make it a habit to start your day by requesting a review for all new orders. This ensures that you don’t miss out on any potential reviews.
- Consistency is key to ensuring you always have fresh reviews coming in.
- Realize that a dip in reviews could result in fewer sales, and it might be hard to recover from this.
- Aim for high-quality reviews. A 5-star review has a bigger impact than multiple lower-rated ones.
- Engage with your customers. Respond to their reviews to show that you value their feedback.
- Always respect Amazon’s policies when requesting reviews. Violating them can lead to penalties.
- Use automated tools that can help you request reviews in a more efficient manner.
- Be Polite: Always be polite and respectful when asking for reviews. Customers are more likely to respond positively to a respectful request.
- Keep an eye on your reviews. This can help you identify any issues with your product and address them quickly.
- Respond to Negative Reviews. Use them as an opportunity to improve your product and customer service.
- Provide clear instructions on how to leave a review to make the process easy for your customers.
- Keep Improving: Use the feedback from reviews to continuously improve your product and customer service. The better your product is, the better your reviews will be.
Amazon Review Requests and How to Do Them Right
A review is feedback about any of your products that you get from a buyer that bought that product. Obviously, this means you need buyers to buy your products.
Mmm.. this is circular logic, isn’t it?
If you already have some activity, getting more product reviews is fairly simple and we’ll touch on that in a second. But what can you do with a newly launched product?
How to get reviews on amazon
There are a few Amazon programs that are designed to get reviews on Amazon.
Amazon Early Reviewer program
The Early Reviewer Program is a program where Amazon incentivizes shoppers to try out new products for a small token of appreciation (e.g. a $1-3 gift card).
The early reviewer program is made for newly launched products and is designed to help you make the first sales as well as get reviews on Amazon from the users who purchased.
The program lets you get up to 5 reviews, after which your product will be removed from the program. As the first review is given by a customer, you will be charged $60 one time fee
Amazon Vine
The quite famous Amazon Vine program is destined for products with fewer than 30 Amazon product reviews. Amazon basically helps you get your products in front of a select group of reviewers to help you kick start your sales by gaining reviews and ratings. This serves as a sign of trustworthiness and can be a game changer for newly launched products.
Amazon is here to help
Ok, now for the fun part. Once you get your first Amazon reviews and ratings your chances of making new sales go up dramatically.
As sales start to come organically, you must regularly request reviews from your customer. This serves for two purposes.
Not to lose the edge you have and to further strengthen your position.
There are a few ways to get the reviews flowing which we will cover next.
Requesting reviews with product inserts
Product inserts are physical elements Amazon sellers add to the product. The most common example is a card the seller adds with instructions and more information.
Noramlly such a product insert will include a request for the customer to leave a review and star rating. This is a powerful method with a good conversion rate. However, syou must handle it with extreme care. When an Amazon seller solicit a buyer to leave a review they MUST follow Amazon’s rules and guidelines. Failing to do so can result in financial damage and many sellers have been banned from further selling on Amazon. We will address review manipulation in the next paragraphs.
Using the Buyer-Seller platform
Amazon buyer seller messaging is another common way to request a product review from a buyer. The buyer-seller communication exchange is done through your seller central account and is Amazon’s equivalent of an email. It is often used for a seller feedback request and as a way to get reviews.
You can ask buyers for a rating by messaging them one by one or in bulk. To do so in bulk, you can use one of the apps that offer this functionality, usually for a hefty fee.
While Amazon’s seller messaging system is effective, you must be cautious not to break any of Amazon’s regulations, which is a huge risk you must be aware of.
Amazon guidelines and limitations
As we mentioned above, using any of the mentioned methods requires you to familiarize yourself with limitations by Amazon. Amazon’s guidelines not only impede you from asking for fake reviews, requesting to remove a negative review and so on, they also strictly require you to keep your tone neutral when asking for Amazon reviews.
Amazon will only accept honest reviews.
You can not ask family members or friends to review your products and brand.
You can not influence the buyers in any way to leave positive reviews or a five star review and ratings.
Basically a review request must be neutral and you can not hint in any way that you would like a positive review or try to avoid negative reviews. Any review manipulation is strictly forbidden.
We suggest taking these rules seriously. Many sellers lost their business by breaking these rules, whether by doing something as simple as contacting friends and family or something harsh like using a verified fake reviews generator. You can’t tell in advance the factors Amazon will take into account so the best advice is to stay in the safe zone, avoid fake reviews, and not directly ask for positive reviews.
Complying with the above is tricky and troublesome, but don’t despair! Amazon released a perfect solution.
Getting more reviews
Amazon understand the propensity of users to avoid negative reviews and the temptation to request a positive review. That is why the’ve created the ‘Request a Review’ feature.
The ‘Request a Review’ functionality
The Request a Review button allows you to send an email to the seller that is formulated by Amazon. This email is automatically translated to the shoppers language and asks them for a product review and seller feedback.
What is this
On each order in your seller central you will see a button that says ‘Request a Review’. It will appear 5 days after delivery and will stop functioning after 30 days.
Where can I find it
As mentioned, the email is generated by Amazon. Therefore it is perfectly compliant with Amazon’s guidelines, making it the safest way to request more reviews and seller feedback from users.
This is a slick and risk free solution that results in a lot of Amazon reviews and ratings.
What is it good for
Well, as written above, the button will appear on each order. This means you have to manually click it for each and every order.
This makes the process tiresome and easy to forget and neglect. If you want to get reviews on Amazon relying on a manual process is a problem. A big Problem
Is there a downside
Yes, there is good news. You can use an automation to click the button for you for every order made. There are a few Amazon seller apps that can automate the process for you, most notable is HighFive which is dedicated to that action.
HighFive is a free seller app that not only automates the Request a Review usage, it also lets you set smart rules and get notifications so you are always on top of your ratings.
The solution – automation
As you build your Amazon business there are a lot of things on your mind. You need to keep an eye on your listings, follow the competition, familiarize yourself with trends, keep track of stock and oh so much more.
Asking for a review, especially when you already have many reviews, might not seem like an urgent task. However, this is a mistake you need to avoid. Losing your edge here may result in fewer and fewer sales which might be hard to recover from.
Make it a habit to constantly ask Amazon buyers for product reviews, since Reviews on Amazon is a deciding factor. Transforming clients who spent money on a product into reviewers that will rank you 5 stars is key to your success.
To make it easier to remember and do, you can make it a habit – start everyday with requesting a rating for all new orders. As long as you don’t break the habit you are in safe territory.
You can also use an automation. The HighFive App offers the perfect example. It offers a Request a Review automation that makes sure you are not missing out on any order and is asking for a review at the right time. This can help you decrease negative reviews and get more positive product reviews. This, in turn, lets you keep your product and account health at a top grade.
HighFive is a top seller app that takes care of the review requests for you. You can decide on a request strategy per product (e.g. ask after a week for a simple product, and after 3 weeks for a complex product where the user needs more time to value the product).
You will also get notifications, to know when reviews come in, and statistics to show the different products ratings and your products health. HighFive is one of the free apps we offer. You can use it free forever even if you don’t purchase any of our paid apps.
Asking for Reviews is a Habit, not an Activity
While you can not directly ask for a positive Amazon review or specifically ask for 5 stars , you can increase your chances of getting 5 stars and high grade positive reviews from customers. This can determine the success of your Amazon experience. Here are the actions you can take to decrease the chance to get a negative review and to make sure your product reviews are favorable:
Increasing the likelihood of positive customer reviews
First and foremost, you need to make sure you are selling worthwhile products that bring good value for money for your customers. No one expects to get products for free, but if a client feels they were overcharged and paid too much or that the seller wasn’t honest or legitimate, they will not give you the star review you desire.
Make sure the pricing is reasonable for a product of this sort and that the client feels they paid an honest price.
Value for money
As potential shoppers search for a product online on Amazon, they actually search for a good shopping experience. Make sure to deliver on time (FBA is a great option) and that you reply to any concern the client has in a timely manner. Remember that the sale and shopping experience don’t end when the purchase is made.
Provide a good shopping experience
Online shoppers don’t always know what they want. It’s our job, as sellers, to give them the info they need to help them make the right decision and determine what they want to purchase. While it’s easier to do on websites, you can still help shoppers by providing the required data before they make the decision.
Manage shopper ‘s expectations
As we are looking into solutions that help you analyze and manage your ratings we must remember an important post purchase element – replying to a client’s questions and complaints. This can turn a negative review around.
Reply to clients concerns
Delivering your A game and over delivering to your buyer will result in the ratings you desire. It will prevent negative reviews and low grade seller feedback. When you are over delivering and customer satisfaction is high, you can expect it to immediately reflect in your seller feedback. Clients will also be more likely to give back meaning you will get more reviews even if you send the amount of review requests.
Just be awesome
Getting verified reviews is an ongoing process. We already talked about the importance of automation with the right tool instead of manually sending review requests. This is a helpful practice used by the top companies and when you use such a product, it can help put your brand in the perfect spot, on par with the top companies that you compete with or even outshine them.
There aren’t many legitimate products that are designed for reviews and allow you to analyze where you stand. Those that are available are usually paid products and part of multi purpose apps, meaning getting more reviews isn’t their focus. HighFive, on the other hand, is focused on getting verified reviews from a large number of clients with zero effort on your side. Our service also offers you analysis and dashboard which are part of the product’s offering so you always know where you stand and heading towards.
Using a powerful tool is your way to master Amazon, make sure your Amazon rating is positive and allows you to succeed.
Use this link and automate your Amazon reviews collection.
Up your game with the right tool belt and analysis
When you are methodical about gathering and understanding user rating you can make sure you are at the right spot. Following the rating report from the App will let you pivot your way into the right spot that will allow you to make money and optimize your listings. This is the perfect sign that your efforts are in the right direction.
Remember, in the race to get more reviews some sellers use fake reviews or ask buyers to leave reviews in an unauthorized manner using personalized review requests. Some use social media review groups which is also frowned upon. This can destroy their Amazon business. Amazon created the request a review button exactly for this purpose.
Being at the right spot
In this post, we covered all there is to know about getting product reviews on Amazon.
Follow this link to get HighFive free for life and automate collecting reviews as well as analyze where you stand.
