Managing product reviews and ratings on Amazon

Most people today look at the product review and other customers’ experiences with the product before buying it. This makes the product rating and reviews an important part of online selling. But managing negative reviews can get tricky sometimes. Here are some tips on how to manage and build positive reviews for your products and services.

Did you know?
77% of consumers read product reviews before buying on Amazon.

Reviews and feedback are very crucial and influential for making a buying decision for most online shoppers. That means your product rating and feedback can impact your business and sales. After all, the customer is the king for a business, and providing a great experience becomes your responsibility as a seller. For an online business, getting positive reviews is extremely important to build trust and credibility among the existing customers and attract new customers.

Although, it may be possible sometimes that a customer receives a damaged or defective product or that it didn’t match their expectations. And they go on to write negative feedback about it. What to do then? Well, like with every other crisis, you need to handle such cases calmly and objectively. Managing your reviews is also a part of your Amazon business, and here’s how you should approach it.

Build a habit to constantly check your product reviews. Listen to what people are talking about your product or service. Understand what their issues are and what they like about it. This information can help you in improving your products or services, or who knows, it may even give you an idea to implement new features or a new product altogether. So, always listen to your customers.

Such an interesting term. What does it do?
Voice of the Customer or VoC is a tool on your Seller Central dashboard that lets you track the product issues highlighted by customers, review feedback, and take action to fix them. To be more precise, VoC lets you know the not-so-good reviews and customer feedback. There are mainly four channels to observe this feedback:

a. Customer returns and refunds - Helps you understand the reason for returns
b. Customer service calls and chats - Customers may reach out to the help assistant to deal with their order issues
c. Buyer-seller messages - Direct conversations will help in finding out the root cause for customer dissatisfaction
d. Product reviews - Poor ratings on different features of your product/service helps you in narrowing down the real issue

The VoC helps you visualize the customer experience through color-coding, making it easier to understand. Using this, you can edit or improve your listing.

Superior customer service is the ultimate hack to improve your product reviews. Make sure to do everything possible for you to please your customers. This may include correct product information, great packaging, fast delivery, no damaged or defective delivery, instant attention to queries, easy return and refund, etc. Customers like special attention and adding such details to your business may bring more positive reviews to you.

Strike while the iron is hot.

The best time to reach out to a customer is right when the order is delivered. As a customer receives their product, Amazon automatically sends an email asking about their buying experience. The request includes both a product review and seller feedback for the order. It uses standardized language and is even auto-translated into the customer’s preferred language. If you wish, you can also send a request on your own by using the ‘Request a review feature’ on the ‘Order Details’ page of your Seller Central account.

If they really like the product, they’ll be happy to leave a positive review. And if not, they can instantly get in touch to inform what went wrong, allowing you to attend to their grievances at the earliest. This can probably save you from negative feedback. Most of the customers simply don’t add any review. For them, giving a reason for review can be a nice way. You can send a personalized Thank You note for the purchase. Such a small warm gesture goes a long way in building a buyer-seller bond, leaving you with positive feedback.

This one’s a real pain.

Most of the sellers may not know how to deal with negative feedback or comment. The basic rule is: ignoring them won’t make them disappear. In fact, it may act as adding fuel to the fire, since customers are facing issues with your product and you’re not doing anything about it. The ideal thing to do is reach out to them, ask them what the issue is, and if it’s fixable, make the amends by doing whatever helps like replacing the product. If not, the next best thing you can do is take it as an opportunity to learn and improve your products and business.

Who doesn’t love surprises!

Incentives are a big deal for online shoppers. You can offer discounts every now and then to make your customers happy. Offer a discounted price for a product, or offer them coupons, etc. This will bring more customers to your product and happy customers will leave positive feedback too.

Managing your reviews is not a tough nut to crack if your product quality and customer services are good. These two factors make your life much easier as a seller. For the rest, just make sure that you follow these simple steps mentioned above to attend the feedback. Amazon helps you at every step to guide you in improving your business. Join Amazon.in today and kickstart your business.