Negative feedback is commonplace when it comes to being an online seller. Even with your greatest efforts, there will always be one or two or maybe groups of customers who might not be satisfied with your service or how you do your business. Responding negatively into their opinions about you and your product is usually their way of expressing their disappointment. Negative seller feedback definitely reflects badly on you but it is something that you just cannot control, at least not directly.
It is essential to have a huge amount of patience if you’re in this line of work because you will be transacting with different types of people on a day-to-day basis. Knowing the most effective ways of dealing with customers’ negative feedback would prevent you from encountering further problems ahead.
7 Ways to Deal with Negative Seller Feedback on Amazon
1. Respond in a respectful manner
You should respect your customers at all times even if they don’t do the same. Your customers are the ones who get to decide if your business is good or not, and whether you will succeed or not. Customer confidence is what brings consumers back to your product and ensures long-term success. How you respond to their issues is what makes or breaks that customer confidence.
Be polite at all times when you’re dealing with your customers. Also, when responding to their feedback, always start with a nice greeting before anything else. It might change your customer’s impression about you and your online business.
2. Take it privately
To resolve things quickly and keep any negative seller feedback that you might have with a displeased customer from the public, ask for that customer’s contact information. Contact them privately and start a conversation to properly address their concerns with your business.
3. Know the reason behind the negative feedback
If a customer posted a negative review about your product or you as a seller, contact the said customer immediately and ask what could be the problem. Knowing the root cause of their disappointment will enable you to address the issue at hand more accurately and may guide you on how you do your business moving forward.
4. Treat it as an opportunity
Negative seller feedback will definitely reflect badly on you and your Amazon business, but you can use this particular situation as a learning opportunity to help you become a much better business owner. You may take this chance to make necessary adjustments within your business to improve your standard operating procedures (SOPs), customer service, or even your products themselves based on your customers’ comments and suggestions.
5. Learn to accept criticisms
Be open with whatever your customers say about you, your products, or your business. Again, it’s better to know what is inside your customer’s mind than be kept in the dark. Take your customers’ feedback and product reviews in a positive light and use them as a guide to improve your business and service.
6. Keep calm
Being emotionally intelligent is an important requirement when it comes to online marketing. This is so because you deal with different kinds of people from different walks of life on a daily basis. You may encounter stubborn customers who might tease you and push you over the edge. There are also angry shoppers you have to deal with. In times like this, you need to maintain your composure and always keep your cool. Otherwise, acting in anger can cost you their business.
7. Remove the negative feedback
Your final resort is to remove the customer’s negative feedback so it will no longer affect other customer’s impressions about you or your product. However, Amazon provides its own policy in terms of removing feedback. You can only request the removal of feedback which falls under these criteria:
- The feedback includes words commonly understood to be obscene or profane.
- The feedback includes seller-specific, personally identifiable information, including e-mail addresses, full names, or telephone numbers.
- The entire feedback comment is a product review and not feedback.
Negative seller feedback could either make or break you. It may surely offend you in some way or cause you so much stress. However, you should always look at the bright side and try to learn from these negative feedback as they can improve you into a much better online seller.
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