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Seller Central
How to remove negative feedback?
It’s relatively common knowledge that almost all Amazon sales occur through a listing’s Buy Box (at least 82%). To remain competitive, it’s important to maintain positive seller metrics.
One of the metrics you should be monitoring is your average feedback rating based on your feedback over the last 12 months. To remain highly competitive for Buy Box shares, you’d want to maintain a feedback rating of at least 95%.
What should I do when I receive negative feedback?
It’s given that sometimes, even with our best efforts, we receive negative feedback from some of our customers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as negative feedback can be constructive for our businesses since these comments may help identify areas in our operations that need improvement.
However, it’s still important to remove negative feedback (even neutral ones) as this may impact your sales and Buy Box shares. Before requesting to remove negative feedback, make sure to read it and keep the following in mind:
When will Amazon remove negative customer feedback?
In some situations, Amazon may remove or strike through negative customer feedback. These situations are:
Feedback contains obscene or profane language
Feedback contains the seller’s personally identifiable information (full name, home address, phone number, email address, etc.)
Feedback is a product review (however, if the feedback includes comments about the service you provided, Amazon will not remove it)
Feedback is about the delivery experience facilitated by Amazon (Amazon FBA or Buy Shipping Service)
How to remove negative feedback?
Go to the Feedback Manager. Hover over Performance, then click Feedback.
Select Request Feedback Removal in the recent feedback table by clicking on the dropdown box under the Actions column.
Remember
Feedback removal requests must be made within 90 days of feedback submission.
Feedback removal requests must be made through the Feedback Manager. Directly contacting Amazon to have feedback removed may result in your account being deactivated.
What should I do if Amazon won’t remove negative customer feedback?
As mentioned, Amazon will only remove negative customer feedback in the situations stated above. If negative customer feedback is about the condition or authenticity of the product received or service you provided, Amazon is not going to remove it. The best action here will be to address the customer’s issue, contact them, and request feedback removal.
Some things to remember before requesting a customer to remove negative feedback
Before contacting a customer who left negative feedback, you must know the rules to follow when making such a request:
You may not offer anything (full refund, gift certificate, discounts, etc.) in exchange for the customer removing the negative feedback.
You may not pressure your customer into removing the negative comment.
Note: Violation of these policies may result in your account being deactivated and your seller privileges removed.
From the experience
The first thing we should do is immediately issue a full refund and let the customer keep the item received as a token of appreciation for their business. Please do not offer this in exchange for feedback removal. This may be a loss, but if you think about it, getting the negative feedback removed is well worth it as it keeps your feedback rating up and positions you to be more Buy Box competitive.
When contacting the customer regarding feedback removal, make sure to:
Apologize for the negative shopping experience
Explain what you have done to address the customer’s issue
Request the customer to remove or update their feedback
Provide instructions on how to do so for the convenience of the customer
We usually send our first and only follow-up after seven (7) days of sending the first email.
If the customer refuses or does not reply after the second email, we stop contacting the customer to make sure we do not violate Amazon TOS. We then post a public reply on Feedback Manager to show that we did our due diligence in reaching out to the customer and resolving their order issues. This professionalism shows potential buyers that your store is committed to excellent customer service despite any negative reviews.
