In this week’s podcast episode we’re in cleanup mode as we talk about how to get negative customer feedback removed on Amazon!

Customer feedback is the feedback that Amazon customers leave you about your performance as a seller (not to be confused with product reviews).

Negative feedback is any score of 3 or less.

Work with Customers to Resolve Problems

This is the first and most important step. Take care of customers. The goal is to give the customer a good experience, not to get them to remove the negative feedback they left.

But if you take care of customers well, you can often persuade them to remove negative feedback.

• Contact customers promptly after receiving negative feedback
• Be generous with returns and refunds
• Go above and beyond in solving problems
• Don’t accuse the customer of doing something wrong or being dishonest, even if you think they are
• After the problem has been resolved to the customer’s satisfaction, ask if they would be willing to remove the negative feedback they left (provide them the link with instructions)

Here is the link to provide customers when you ask them to remove negative feedback:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201125570

Have Amazon Remove Feedback that Violates Their Guidelines

Amazon will remove customer feedback that violates their feedback guidelines. Amazon states that they will remove feedback in the following cases:

• The feedback includes profanity.
• The feedback includes personally-identifiable information
• The entire feedback is a product review
• The entire feedback is about fulfillment or customer service on an order fulfilled by Amazon

To request that Amazon remove feedback that violates their guidelines, open a case with Seller Support and provide the order number of the feedback in question.

Great tip for persuading customers to remove their negative feedback:

We learned this one by experience. You’ll have a harder time getting customers to remove feedback if you immediately solve the customer’s problem (issue a refund, process an exchange, etc.) without hearing from the customer first.

Instead, immediately write the customer who left the negative feedback, and tell them your proposed solution.

Follow this with, “Does that sound like an acceptable solution to you? If so, reply and let us know, and we’ll get it taken care of right away.”

Something about asking the customer to respond and engage with you makes it far more likely they’ll stay engaged and then eventually remove the feedback when you ask them politely (after you’ve taken care of their problem).

More Feedback Removal Tips

• Never mention removing feedback to customers until you’ve taken care of them and solved their problem
• It never hurts to ask Amazon to remove feedback – you might be surprised at what they’ll remove (or what their automated system will flag)
• Don’t give up if you have feedback you’re convinced violates Amazon’s guidelines, but Amazon denies you. Sometimes you have to try a few times before you find someone who understands and will remove it.
• The type of “personally identifiable information” for which Amazon will remove feedback is fairly broad. We’ve seen them remove it for things like a customer providing their order number.
• We’ve seen Amazon remove feedback that mentions another store or business, like Walmart.
• We’ve seen Amazon remove feedback that complains about the price a customer paid.
• We’ve seen Amazon remove all sorts of feedback for orders that they fulfilled.