Amazon is a customer-centric platform, and given its customer priority shopping service, it’s a popular first choice for online shoppers. To be a successful seller, your number one priority is to know how to please Amazon customers.
Amazon favors the shop that offers the best service, if you enjoy high customer satisfaction, you are likely to enjoy a high ranking on the platform which means a higher conversion rate too. If your service remains top-notch, you will receive more positive customer feedback and reviews, and this maintains your high ranking. Fail to offer great satisfaction, and you will see negative impacts on your ranking and sales conversions.
Amazon has put customers above the competition. Successful Amazon sellers understand what their target customer needs, and they know how to deliver a consistent experience that meets their expectations. How do you improve your Amazon customer satisfaction? It’s a big question, but we have the answers for you, now, in this article. Hopefully, you will find them helpful for your business on Amazon.
1. Follow the Amazon Rules
To begin with, you need a full understanding of the Amazon rules and regulations and make sure your business complies with them. The rules tell you what you can leverage on the platform to increase your conversion and rankings. For instance, in terms of customer convenience, Amazon FBA is one of the best options provided by the platform. Amazon FBA will ship your products quickly and accurately.
You also have to follow the Amazon rules related to customer feedback. Amazon defends the integrity of customer reviews, so this is extremely important. Don’t try to cheat the system. The platform published its policy to prosecute false, misleading, and inauthentic content. Pay attention to these regulations, and make sure your business strategy complies. If you break the rules, you will face serious punishment and risk the suspension of your Amazon account.
2. Improve Order Fulfillment Process
To enjoy a high customer satisfaction rate, you need to offer the best shopping experience; it’s the cornerstone of a successful business. Amazon retailers not only have to offer quality products at a competitive price but also, in terms of order fulfillment, a competitive shopping experience.
To offer a satisfying shopping experience, you have to maintain inventory levels, monitor your product inventory and manage the stocked item. To accurately manage and maintain your inventory, you need quick delivery that is accurately labeled and counted. Accuracy ensures an efficient order fulfillment process and greatly impacts the availability of orders for new arrivals. Effective product inventory management enables you to justify consistent marketing efforts too. Online inventory management systems are available for you to use or you can cooperate with an order fulfillment center to keep the inventory levels consistent. Monitoring levels of stock helps you avoid overselling or business suspension. Customers are disappointed if they have to wait for a long time for their purchase because it is out of stock. As such, you have to keep your inventory levels accurate.
Apart from monitoring your inventory, you have to pay attention to the order process. Customers want their products quickly which means that you have to process the orders quickly and accurately and ensure a short delivery time.
The shipping time is mostly out of your control, but you can make sure an order is processed quickly and ready for delivery as soon as possible. Pay attention to orders placed in the holidays too. To offer clarity for the customer, work with carriers that offer an order tracking service so the customer can see their expected order delivery dates and shipping updates.
It’s important to fulfill the order accurately and successfully; make sure you deliver the right products in the right quantities every time; otherwise, you will lose repeat orders.
Remember that you need to offer a returns process, and this also needs to be of a high standard. An easy to follow and efficient returns process will leave an excellent impression and help you gain customers’ trust for future purchases.
3. Improve Customer Service
It’s true that your customer service matters to your conversions as well as customer satisfaction. Improve your customer service, and you will retain customers and increase your business conversions. For Amazon retailers, it’s important to keep making improvements to your customer service. Customer service normally includes the support you provide your customers both before, during, and after they buy and use your products and service. Providing great support is not only how you attract and retain loyal customers, but it’s also a great way for you to build your reputation and improve customers’ shopping experience.
To offer the best customer service, you have to listen to and understand the needs of your customers. Simple as it is, you have to offer a comprehensive solution with a proper understanding. When you get a call from a customer, remember to listen to what they are asking. Customer inquiries provide you with information to understand what the customer wants from your products or services. These contacts can provide marketing insights to boost your business. Can you address the customers’ needs with your products or service, or offer the info the customer wants to know? Gathering this information helps you figure out what aspects or features of your product the customer cares about.
The second step goes to answer questions and address customers’ concerns. Remember to offer a friendly and personal service answering inquiries with a friendly tone. Try to make your customers happy by offering the best answers and solutions. If there is something you do not know, remember to be honest about it. Keep an open dialogue with your customers and try to help them as best you can by providing the relevant details related to your products and services. It’s important for you to understand and work towards the needs of customers.
When communicating with your customers, be enthusiastic and professional. Deliver your appreciation for the customer contacting you, tell them you’re glad to help, inquire if they need something else. Try to be enthusiastic when answering their inquiry and delivering your solutions. If you have negative feedback, remember to contact the customers politely and professionally to understand their problems and figure out how you can improve customer experience.
When you get complaints from customers, remember to be empathetic and sincere to lower customers’ anxiety. Responding with sentences like “That’s awful!” and “You are totally right” will demonstrate empathy, show the customer you understand and that you are on their side ready to remedy the problem. If you’ve made a mistake or the problem is a result of a fulfillment error, you have to apologize with great sincerity and offer a possible solution.
It’s important to figure out a solution that the customers are pleased to agree with; this demonstrates your capability to deal with the customer’s complaints.
4. Monitor and Manage all Feedback Factors
If you are an Amazon seller, there are many ways to track key measures affecting your sales performance such as customer reviews, the order defect rate, the pre fulfillment cancellation rate, the late shipment rate, the seller’s refund rate.
All of them are also great ways to monitor the performance of your order fulfillment rate. Analyzing these performance indicators shows areas for improvement and allows you to figure out strategies to improve areas which are lacking.
You have to monitor seller feedback and pay special attention to the negative feedback. Negative feedback indicates which part of your performance is not meeting customer expectations. If customers are not satisfied with the product or service, remember to negotiate an acceptable way to remedy the situation. Besides, negative feedback also contributes to the order defect rate. It’s best to keep your order defect rate below 1%.
The pre fulfillment cancellation rate refers to the number of people who cancel their orders before you ship, and this is because you are out of stock. To avoid this situation, you have to manage your inventory properly and keep it updated. The late shipment rate represents the total number of orders that have been shipped after the scheduled date. It is also related to inventory management. The sellers’ refund rate is the number of refunded orders divided by all orders in a given time period.
Sometimes, you are unable to control these matrixes. What you should do is to focus on the quality of your service; update your inventory in a timely fashion and offer the best service to increase your sales performance and customer satisfaction. Keep an eye on the negative matrix, figure out the reason and implement relevant solutions to prevent the same issue arising in the future.
5. Tackle the Negative Feedback
What solutions do you have for resolving negative feedback? Keep calm when you find negative feedback on your page. You have to figure out solutions to fix it. Normally, you will find the product reviews and seller feedback on your customer’s reviews section. Find out who should be accountable for the complaints and take action to tackle it to improve customers’ shopping experience.
If you find the negative feedback is about the Amazon FBA service such as the late delivery because of the national holiday, you can file a ticket, and the Amazon platform will remove it. Also if the customer’s complaint in the seller feedback section has nothing to do with your business, you can also file a ticket with Amazon seller support and ask them to remove irrelevant feedback to increase your seller rating.
But what should do you do in case of a complaint about your seller performance? It is troublesome, but you can still do something for the buyer. You can reach out to the customer to comfort them first. Express your understanding, the lesson you’ve learned from his/her feedback, and the willingness to do something to make up for poor service. You can offer a gift card with great sincerity and request the buyer to remove the feedback politely. Your aim should be to fix the problem amicably and get them to remove the negative feedback.
In addition, you can send a problem-solving follow-up email for possible reviews from your buyers. This is a great way to show your emphasis on customers. You can ask buyers who leave negative feedback to leave a follow-up review to show your attention to customers’ feedback, and the effort you make to present your business values.
After reading this post, you should have a clear understanding of how to improve your customer satisfaction. Given the platform’s customer focus, Amazon favors you with privilege if you gain higher customer satisfaction. If you are a beginner, hopefully, you will find these tips helpful for your business. Incorporate some of them into your daily business practice to test if you get a benefit or not. In conclusion, we hope you can gain higher customer satisfaction for your Amazon business and grow successfully.
About the Author
Sharline Shaw, the founder of leelineSourcing.com, is an expert on Chinese export trade. With 10 years experiences in the field of sourcing in China, she is familiar with all relevant regulations and laws about China’s exporting. She’d love to share her experience with people and has written many helpful articles.
Great article and information. The only problem here after, is Amazon.com and related, do not follow or even hold up themselves “good customer service” in resolving customer service issues at a first notice In a timely manner when a customer calls with an issue or problem. This is due to the initial call to an Amazon representative (that cannot help you and has no account answers or information ultimately only able to forward confirmed information to what could have been achieved if calls went direct to actual support/customer service) reads a script as if a technician that could and is actually going to resolve issues right then.
[Rep: ” Hi I’m _____ , before I can help you let me get some information…. name and email or phone # associated with your acct. “Etc..]
This is nothing more than a waste of time for the customer and is a waiting room as in thanks for calling, an account specialist will call you back within 24 hours.]
This is nothing but a step for a company to buy time for unknown reasons that really creates a “bottle neck” of customers issues that relatively could have 99.9% been handled and resolved if a customer service line went directly to a real person or interactive functioning system of to resolve on the spot. They do exist and Majorty of major or big companies do have them.
Thanks for ready and yes it’s me venting.