Nobody likes getting suspended on Amazon. It means you’ve screwed up badly, and putting yourself at risk for not being allowed on the marketplace at all. But luckily, FeedbackExpress has some concrete advice you can use to steer well clear of getting suspended, so read on and learn how to stay in their good graces.
Step 1: Be On Very Good and Close Terms with Your Customers
Familiarity does a lot of things: it builds trusting relationships, makes it easier to get someone to say yes, and allows for more flexibility to fix things when they go wrong. As an Amazon seller, you want to get to know your customers as though they’re the only ones you’re dealing with.
But if you have hundreds or even thousands of buyers, this can seem difficult. Two of the best ways around this are:
- Send a follow-up email after every sale. Not only does this action create a deeper bond between you and your buyers, but it also allows you to nip potential problems in the bud before they result in things like negative product or seller feedback. Conversely, sending follow-up emails greatly increases your chances of buyers leaving positive feedback, which tells other customers you’re a trusted and reliable merchant.
- Respond to concerns, questions and issues right away. Your goal is to get back to each buyer less than 24 hours after they posted, but try and do it much sooner than that. Think about it from their perspective: they’re interested in an item and don’t want to spend a week making a decision on who to buy it from. If they’ve narrowed it down to a few sellers, they’re likely to go with the one who answers their questions the fastest. Plus, it also makes them feel like if the seller was that fast to respond to them, it’ll bode well if anything goes wrong in the future — a huge reassurance for them.
Related: Amazon Account Suspension Myths
Step 2: Do Everything You Can to Make Customers Happy
This might seem a bit like a no-brainer, but keeping customers happy is/should be your absolute top priority. However, happiness can be a bit hard to quantify…or can it? According to Amazon, you can most definitely quantify happiness, and that’s by logging into your Seller Central account. From there, click on the Performance tab, navigate to Customer Satisfaction, and then check out your stats under the Account Health tab.
Your Account Health measures the following:
- Order Defect Rate (should be as close to 0% as possible, although Amazon will allow anything under 1%)
- Cancellation Rate (also should be as close to 0% as possible, but you can get away with a number that’s under 2.5%)
- Late Shipment Rate (going with the same as-close-to-0%-as-possible theme here, but the flexibility goes up to under 4%)
To really stay on top of how happy you’re making your customers, check your Account Health once a week, or more frequently if you deal in high-volume sales.
Step 3: Have Your Customers Go Home Satisfied at the End of the Day
Anytime a customer exchanges money for a product, there’s always the risk (on their end) that something will go wrong and they’ll want their money back, or to be compensated some other way. I got a breakfast at McDonald’s the other day and watched in increased frustration as person after person after person got their order and left the restaurant. I finally voiced my frustration to the manager, and he apologised, explained the reason for the delay, then offered me a free muffin. In the end, I didn’t get my time back, but I did have an extra little snack for later in the day.
You want to do the same with your buyers, even more so because they’re shopping online and don’t have the same luxury of face-to-face contact. Show them clearly the kinds of safety nets you have in place, whether it’s free shipping, free returns, money-back guarantee, or anything else that will put their minds at ease. You never want a sale to go down that route, but just in case it does, the buyer will be satisfied they won’t be getting the rotten end of the stick.
Plus, guarantees like these tend to increase conversion rates, which is also a nice bonus to have on your end.
If you practice these three steps, you’ll be doing a lot of work to steer clear of the Amazon suspension zone. Another way of doing so is to build up the number of positive reviews on your page, which is something FeedbackExpress is amazing at helping with (among many other things). But don’t just take our word for it; sign up right now and start the magic going with a 14 day free trial.
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