The way you ask for Amazon customer feedback greatly affects your results. Asking the right way can spike up your success rate and influence the ratio of positive feedback on your Amazon account.
In this helpful article we are going to cover all you need to know about making seller feedback requests and asking for product reviews, why is it important, how to adhere to Amazon’s feedback policies, how to get seller feedback and reviews, what are the best Amazon tools to use, how to increase your chances of getting positive reviews and decrease the risk of negative feedback, how to remove a negative feedback and basically how to get the feedback that can grow your Amazon business.
The same rules apply both to seller feedback and product reviews, so what you learn here is very powerful. You can read this article as a whole (best for sellers with less experience) or jump to the section you are less familiar with (ideal for sellers experienced with making feedback requests).
- The importance of getting more Amazon seller feedback
- Be aware of Amazon’s guidelines
- Getting buyers to leave Amazon customer feedback and review
- Amazon tools to help you getting feedback and reviews
- Quick summary
The importance of getting more Amazon seller feedback
Getting more positive Amazon seller feedback and product reviews is your key tactic in order to dominate the Amazon marketplace.
These metrics carry with them enormous importance to all relevant players, the buyers, Amazon and you as a seller.
Why are seller feedback and product reviews so important
The importance of all sorts of ratings are that they give an unbiased approximation of the potential business transaction with the seller. This can prevent questionable transactions from happening in advance and ensure the superb buyer’s experience Amazon prides on.
Here’s a bit more detail of the benefits for each stakeholder:
Feedback importance for the Amazon buyer
The buyers, first and foremost, see the feedback and product reviews as a seal of quality for the product and for the seller.
A product with a high seller feedback ensures the buyer that if there will be any problems they’ll have a responsive person to speak with that can solve their issues and questions.
A product with a high product review rating means it’s a good product that is worth its price.
These assuring metrics ease the buying dilemma many buyers have and increase the purchase likelihood. However, bad ratings have the opposite effect.
Feedback importance for Amazon
Amazon views these metrics very similarly to the way buyers view them, as an assurance that the product is worthy, that the seller is someone that can be trusted and that buyer seller relationship are positive. This is why Amazon encourages sellers to collect reviews on Amazon as we will discuss later.
These are factored into the Amazon algorithm and result in your placement in the relevant searches, your seller health and Amazon account health, and your chances of winning the buy box.
Another important thing to note is that not all feedback is treated equally. Amazon gives a higher emphasis on recent reviews and feedback which means you should always collect reviews.
Feedback importance for the Amazon seller
Your seller review and feedback are the best seller performance indicator. If you have unhappy customers that give you a negative seller rating you must deal with it before it becomes a problem and affects your sales.
This is why it’s important to not only look at the feedback but read the entire feedback comment. Doing this will allow you to up your game and improve.
Be aware of Amazon’s guidelines
Getting and asking for seller feedback is important and is crucial to your success as a seller, but you must always be aware that while you are asking for feedback you are not provoking Amazon and transgressing their guidelines. Violating any of Amazon’s rules can result in harmful consequences to your Amazon seller account.
Amazon’s guidelines for requesting feedback and review
Before we jump into a few examples of Amazon’s customer product reviews policies it is important to understand where Amazon comes from. Amazon is trying to give buyers the best possible solution and a key ingredient is to provide them with accurate and unbiased feedback and reviews.
This is why Amazon severely punishes third party sellers who request feedback in a way that will affect the result. For example, if you offer free or discounted products in exchange for a positive review you will get punished. If you incentivize reviews or pressure buyers, you can get suspended. If you request a customer to remove a neutral feedback or if you are collecting positive feedback by contacting family members only you are also in violation of Amazon’s terms. The worst is of course getting fake reviews. Smart sellers avoid such practices altogether.
In the next paragraphs we will touch on the ways you can get buyers to leave seller feedback that are safe and those that are dangerous from a compliance perspective. You can read the specific guidelines you need to follow in order to request reviews here.
The negative outcomes of not following the guidelines
Amazon has a zero-tolerance policy towards any such violations. Any manipulation they detect can result in an immediate and strict action.
For example, they may suspend your Amazon seller account, withhold your funds, remove all your reviews on Amazon, take legal action against you and so on.
While the temptation to manipulate buyers into leaving a positive review and feedback is high, the punishment is so grave that we advise you to prevent doing it altogether. There are legitimate ways you can take to increase your feedback score and feedback rating that will win the buy box algorithm without jeopardizing your Amazon business.
Getting buyers to leave Amazon customer feedback and review
Feedbacks, reviews, ratings, okay, I need them. What should I do next?
You definitely came to the right place. We are going to quickly go over the ways you can solicit buyers to leave you feedback and run over the methods to improve your chances of positive reviews and avoid negative seller feedback. Follow these and you can dramatically improve your Amazon feedback score.
Different methods of requesting feedback
There are a few methods you can take to solicit a review from a buyer. We are going to briefly go over the main options and read about them in greater depth here.
Use the Amazon review programs for new products
Amazon understands the importance of feedback and reviews and made special programs for new products, the Amazon Vine program and the Early Reviewer program. You can read more about them here.
These are great options but will only get you your first reviews. Afterwards you will need to use the other methods.
Request reviews using Product inserts
Product inserts are actual notes you are adding to the packaging of your products. In the notes you can ask for a review and feedback and add links. However, you must take care and not violate Amazon’s rules.
Use the buyer seller messaging service
Amazon buyer seller messaging is the way to contact buyers and can be considered Amazon’s equivalent of email. It’s a good way to contact a user and ask for a product review. However, this method is the most dangerous from the Amazon guidelines perspective. This is because you are using your own words and should be careful, and because you are using a channel that is easily monitored by Amazon.
Request safely with the Request a Review button
Amazon made it very easy for third party sellers to bring feedback from Amazon customers. They’ve created a Request a Review button (available in each order page in the seller central). Once clicked, the customer will receive an email asking them to rate the seller and product in the buyer’s native language. Since Amazon formulates the email it is completely safe to use, making this the safest and most effective way to get reviews.
Make sure requesting feedback is done efficiently
The methods discussed for feedback requests are manual by nature. Since you have to keep asking for feedback (recent feedback counts more in the Amazon algorithm) it means that you’ll need to make the request for each order. This takes a long time and might interfere with your Amazon seller activities.
Luckily, there are a bunch of apps, tools and Amazon feedback software to assist you with this task. Since we believe the most effective way to get users to feedback on your product is the Request a Review button, let’s review the automation tool for it.
Instead of going to each Amazon seller central order, just use HighFive. This is a powerful Amazon tool that automates the request review process and lets you collect Amazon
feedback easily and without risk. This is one of our acclaimed free tools you can use immediately to boost your score and we’ll go into more details in the next paragraphs.
Increase your chances of getting positive reviews
While you can’t control your customers’ feedback and while you can’t request specifically a 5 star review or positive ratings, you can still influence them and increase your chances of getting good feedback ratings in legitimate ways.
Customer satisfaction is crucial
Unhappy customers leave negative feedback and negative reviews. Happy clients will boost your Amazon feedback score.
Make sure you are over delivering whenever you can. Give Amazon buyers the best quality product and service you can and you’ll keep the negative reviews to a minimum.
Excellent customer service brings more positive feedback and improves your seller feedback rating. Think about the purchase as a whole. From the price, through product packaging and up to your responses to client’s request – everything counts.
Always, pay attention to feedback management. Make it a habit to go to Amazon seller central, go to the Amazon feedback page and read the entire feedback comment. This will allow you to improve your offering and win future positive reviews. It will also allow you to respond to bad reviews and maybe the buyer will remove negative feedback following your actions.
Removing negative feedback
You can and should provide excellent post purchase service and hope that the buyer will remove the negative feedback. However, there are other ways of removing negative feedback. If a negative feedback doesn’t meet Amazon’s standards, for example if a review contains personally identifiable information, you can ask Amazon to remove it. To learn more click this link.
Another thing you must always remember is that adding a positive feedback will dilute negative feedback that you’ve got in the past.
Remember, removing feedback is much harder than not getting it in the first place, so make sure you provide the best service you can to ensure positive feedback that will keep your seller feedback rating high.
Find out the perfect time to ask for a review
One of the most overlooked yet important factors is timing. When you are asking for a review, asking in the right time might be the difference between no feedback, a neutral feedback and a customer leaving feedback and a 5 star rating. HighFive has added review functionality since it allows you to assign different ask times for different ASINs. This request review feature is exactly what can spike your average feedback rating.
Amazon tools to help you getting feedback and reviews
Transforming your game from a reactive approach, like many sellers do, to a proactive approach, like top sellers do can win you the buy box.
Use powerful tools to request a review after each order and conduct experiments to find out the best timing for an Amazon feedback.
Reviews matter – let HighFive get them for you
HighFive is the best tool to grow your Amazon feedback rating. It sends a review request after each order and lets you decide on the timing per product.
The feedback management capabilities don’t stop there. HighFive also offers you email updates so you know when you’ve got new reviews and feedback and also offers you dashboards where you can keep track of where you are at.
Quick summary
Improving your feedback rating and feedback score and getting the right amount of reviews on Amazon is important for your success.
When should you ask for a product review and feedback? After each order. This is what will make you a top seller who dominates the buy box.
Getting feedback and review are your most important habits
Learning how to get more Amazon seller feedback and reviews are of the most potent tools in your arsenal. Make sure you religiously collect new reviews and that you are always checking the pulse of your overall ratings. Even when you manage to get to the top you must not lose focus. A new competitor can rise and eat out your market share. Meticulously building your feedback score creates a moat that few competitors can overcome.
There are ways to remove negative feedback
We’ve touched upon this topic. You can remove a negative feedback and negative review if it doesn’t meet Amazon’s TOS. You can read more about it here.
Tips to remember
We’ve covered quite a lot of ground so here’s a quick recap to make sure you didn’t miss any of the tips.
- Feedback and product reviews are crucial for your success as an Amazon seller
- Your Amazon seller rating is an important part of the buy box algorithm.
- Recent feedbacks count more than older ones to make a feedback request after each order.
- Do not violate Amazon TOS and guidelines under no circumstance. The penalty can be unbearable.
- Avoid negative feedback and remove any negative feedback whenever possible.
- The more positive reviews you get you can offset an occasional negative review received.
- Get positive feedback by being the best seller you can. This will reflect in your seller feedback.
- The safest way to request feedback is the Request a Review button since it’s generated by Amazon
- Use a Request a Review automation tool to effectively gather feedback.
- Use the proper time per product to ask a customer to leave feedback. It can dramatically increase your feedback score.
- HighFive can automate the review request process, allow you to ask at the perfect timing per product and give you analytics on your feedback scores to help you grow.
