Amazon product reviews are among the building blocks of the Amazon marketplace. This feature is very important for shoppers, most of whom check the review section first before making their purchases.
Positive product reviews provide your Amazon business with strong social proof and increased credibility. A positive Amazon review can:
- Persuade customers to buy your product over similar, competing products
- Move buyers from indecision to finalizing their purchase decision
- Set customer expectations on product quality and performance
- Serve as “personal recommendations” to other interested buyers
Given the highly competitive arena of the Amazon marketplace, it’s crucial that you strive to consistently get good reviews from your customers. With thousands of products appearing in a single search, having high review ratings can help yours stand out from the crowd.
Imagine if your product appeared alongside the Amazon search results in the image below. You’d easily see why Amazon buyers wouldn’t even consider clicking on the product tile if it had 0 or negative reviews. They’d naturally choose one that had thousands of positive reviews from other Amazon customers.
Here’s another reason good reviews are important: Amazon uses them to grade sellers. An Amazon seller with higher ratings is always going to have an edge over others when it comes to the BuyBox. With more exposure, that seller is definitely going to have more sales.
Now you can see why successful Amazon sellers also gain an unfair advantage.
Majority of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations so they are also more likely to trust Amazon sellers who already have good product reviews. Of course, all this takes quite an effort. But there are tried and tested practices for getting reasonably good ratings every time.
Let’s get started!
Provide great customer service
A low review usually means an unsatisfied customer. This wouldn’t happen with good customer service.
Customer service entails several things. First, you have to ship items on time. Then, you have to be very transparent with the customer especially if there are problems. Being nice and courteous is also a must. Ignore your customers, deliver items late, etc. and you’re on their bad side.
Yes, there are things that are out of your control as an Amazon seller. When you sell on the Amazon marketplace long enough, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll encounter an issue sooner or later. It could be with your product itself, the logistics, or with customer expectations. But you can totally control how you deal with the customer. That requires time and effort especially if you’re a high volume seller. Catering to individual customers isn’t going to be easy. But it’ll be worth it in the long run because a single low rating can significantly harm your reputation.
Remember, Amazon prioritizes customers over sellers. Take customer requests, their concerns, and queries, very seriously.
Write accurate product listings
One of the major reasons customers give low ratings goes like this: “The item wasn’t how it was described.”
This is a scenario that can be easily prevented by Amazon sellers. Just give enough attention to your product listings, from the description down to the product specifications. Amazon has product listing guidelines but it doesn’t hurt to make sure that your listings provide customers with as clear and accurate information as possible. Keep in mind that buyers depend a lot on the information written on your description and specification for an informed purchase decision.
In the same vein, resist the urge to embellish the product information. It’s ok to describe how certain features or functionalities make your product unique or highly useful to prospective buyers. But you shouldn’t exaggerate your claims to the point that they become inaccurate and misleading.
Doing so might get you more sales in the short term, but you should get ready to deal with the deluge of negative reviews once shoppers discover that you somehow deceived them. Not only that, but be prepared to lose potential buyers who read the negative reviews of your product. In the long run, you stand to lose not just existing but future customers as well.
Ensure High Product Quality
Shoppers expect the quality of your products to be more or less equal to the price they’ve paid for it. Otherwise, they automatically think they’ve been ripped off.
Which is why you can’t be overzealous with product quality standards.
This is true even when you’re selling low-cost items. As an Amazon seller, you have to make sure that your product meets customers’ minimum quality expectations. If you’re selling cheap items, you want your shoppers to be pleasantly surprised that your product is of better quality than they expected for the price.
You can’t do this if you’re not taking quality assurance seriously. For instance, it’s a common mistake for new Amazon sellers to ship their products directly from the supplier to Amazon without checking if some of the items are damaged, defective or not-to-specs. It isn’t until they start getting the customer returns and/or the negative reviews that they realize the need to either have someone working with the supplier for quality assurance checking or to do the quality checking themselves.
Bad product quality can be expensive for your business over time. Not only that, it can be bad for your Amazon seller account especially if you’re getting negative reviews because of it.
Contact a disappointed customer
Communication is an essential part of providing great customer service.
It’s even more important if you’re just starting out as an Amazon seller. When you still have fewer sales, each and every review you get will carry a lot more weight than it would if you were selling in larger volumes. A single negative review could upend your reputation and become your biggest obstacle.
So you need to focus on every single customer and make sure you’re giving them the best experience. Reach out to your buyers to learn if they encountered any problems and figure out a way to resolve their issues. When they do have issues, you should try to make it up to them as much as you can. By doing so, you’d be earning the goodwill of your customers, which would encourage them to do more business with you. Your actions might even persuade them to write a good review despite their issues.
While you can’t directly ask customers to change a review, being proactive with customer communications lets them know that you’re a responsive Amazon seller who wants to take care of them.
Address negative reviews or posts by customers
We’ve previously tackled how you can deal with bad Amazon reviews. We showed you why replying to a negative review on your product listing is a good step towards diffusing customer dissatisfaction.
You can do the same on a public comment or post made by the customer on social media, a forum or any other online channel. When you take the effort to respond to bad comments about your product or service, it demonstrates to shoppers that you’re committed to their satisfaction. Keep your responses short, respectful, and in a helpful tone.
Addressing posts that are outside of the Amazon platform may not have a direct impact on your product reviews and ratings. It can, however, generate positive word-of-mouth and attract new customers to your business.
Your Commitment to Customer Service is Key
Consistently getting positive product reviews from your customers isn’t easy. It takes dedication and effort to constantly provide exceptional product quality and customer service. But if you’re committed to growing your Amazon business, getting and maintaining high review ratings should be among your top priorities. Focus on ensuring customer satisfaction and meeting buyer expectations and the rest will naturally follow.
