Ugh, the dreaded 1-star review you get for a product on Amazon. No matter what lengths you’ve gone to, that 1-star can feel like a kick in the seat. If you’ve ever suffered such ignominy, then FeedbackExpress is here to help and we’re going to show you the steps you need to take.
Step 1: Find Out About It as Soon as You Can
The earlier you learn about a 1-star review, the sooner you can act on it — for many reasons. One, the longer that 1-star product review is up on your page, the higher the chances of other buyers seeing it and possibly getting scared off. Two, the sooner you find out about it, the less chance you have of missing it (which can easily happen if you sell tonnes of things). And three, the less time it’s been up there translates to more time for you to act on it — and hopefully get it removed or changed.
Step 2: Do Your Best to Contact the Buyer
While it’s not always possible to get in touch with the buyer, you have to try. Sometimes buyers leave scant information on the review, like not including their whole name. But if they use their first name, or (even better) their first AND last name, then you’ve got a do-able shot of emailing them. If you’re having trouble, then cross-reference the date of their review with when it was possibly ordered, and see if you can narrow things down using their name.
If you’ve successfully located the buyer, then send them a short but friendly email. It’s important to keep two things in mind:
- You’re not allowed to ask them to change their review
- You’re not allowed to offer them an incentive to change their review
If you’re wondering how it is possible to have that review changed, the answer is to try and solve whatever issue they had and hope they take it upon themselves to change the review. Ask them why they felt so negatively about it, and do some soul-searching on your part to see if/where you went wrong. Maybe it involves an apology (there’s almost always something you can apologise for), or maybe it involves issuing a refund. Whatever it is, find a way to make it right.
Now, if you can’t email the buyer, here’s what you do next.
Step 3: Address the 1-Star By Writing Under the Review
It’s time to share your side of the story. But by this, we don’t mean to attack the buyer and tell them just how wrong they were. No, what we mean is you write a little paragraph that says the following:
- You’ve apologised for their experience
- You’ve addressed their concern
- You’ve requested that they contact you so you can take extra steps to make things right
Keep things short and to the point, but civil and polite. You want to highlight that your goal is to always provide excellent customer service and you’re willing to do what it takes, and you want to acknowledge that goal wasn’t met somewhere in the process. As well, you want to take the conversation off Amazon and into private messaging where other eyes won’t see it. Put in your business contact information and/or direct the buyer to the profile page where they can ask a question so that it’s as easy as possible for them to get in touch with you.
Step 4: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
If you can’t email the buyer because you can’t find them and if they don’t get in contact with you, then your other option is to try and bury the 1-star review. What you want to do is try and get that negative review so far down the list, the only thing future buyers can see are the great reviews that are more recent and visible.
While there’s no guarantee of shielding yourself from 1-star product reviews on Amazon, there are several steps you can take to minimise your chances. One of your best bets, an action you can take that combines all the points in this post, is to use feedback software that does the work for you. FeedbackExpress will send notifications to your phone so you can act on reviews quickly, filters reviews so it’s more organised for you, and will alert you when negative reviews are gone. But to enjoy all these perks, you need to start your free 14 day trial first.
