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E-Commerce Customer Service Holiday Season Survival Guide; 7 Tips for Customer Success in Q4

SellerSmile-Holiday Survival Guide ebook Cover

© 2021 SellerSmile

Link to download the eBook version.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • Introduction
  • Holiday Tip #1 – Expect to Be Busy, Busy, Busy
  • Holiday Tip #2 – Prepare for More Traffic, Everywhere
  • Holiday Tip #3 – Allow Extended Returns
  • Holiday Tip #4 – Plan for Shipping Issues
  • Holiday Tip #5 – Offer Gift Wrapping & Messaging
  • Holiday Tip #6 – Expect More Product Reviews and Feedback
  • Holiday Tip #7 – Prepare for Replacements
  • Bonus tip! – Watch your advertising
  • Conclusion
  • More Resources
  • Connect with us

Introduction

As an e-commerce customer service team since 2017, we have firsthand experience with how the holiday shopping season can impact online stores and their customer service teams. 

Though this season happens each year from November through early January, it often feels like an unexpected whirlwind of craziness, similar to the movie Christmas with The Kranks! Perhaps even more so for online retailers and their support teams, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

This is why we’ve written this E-Commerce Customer Service Holiday Season Survival Guide. It’s basically a listicle of the seven most impactful holiday season tips we’d recommend for ecommerce customer service teams. 

Each tip includes three sections to give it some background: 

  1. What happens (your store may be subject to this seasonal pattern)
  1. Why it’s stressful (we’ll outline the pain it causes and who is suffering)
  1. How to survive (strategies on how to adjust to make this Q4 the least stressful and most successful yet!)

Holiday Tip #1 – Expect to Be Busy, Busy, Busy

What happens:

Even without the added pressures of being in e-commerce, the holiday season in the US is the busiest time of year. From November through January there is so much more to do and see. 

We’ve counted at least nine important dates and holidays in the US that impact life and business:

  1. Veteran’s Day (Each year on November 11th)
  2. Thanksgiving (The fourth Thursday of November)
  3. Black Friday (The Friday following Thanksgiving Day)
  4. Cyber Monday (The Monday following Thanksgiving Day)
  5. Hanukkah (Begins at the 25th day of Kislev and concludes on the 2nd or 3rd day of Tevet)
  6. Christmas Eve (Each year on December 24th)
  7. Christmas Day (Each year on December 25th)
  8. New Year’s Eve (Each year on December 31st)
  9. New Year’s Day (Each year on January 1st)

Besides these major dates, you’re likely to attend more parties, go on more shopping trips, do more planning for school breaks, travel, leisure, experience more weather-related delays, and of course, more family time!

Not to mention more days off due to illness for you and your team, the holiday shopping season coincides with cold & flu season in the US.

Why it’s stressful:

Despite all of the cheer, your customer service must continue seven days a week, 365 days a year! The Amazon Marketplace holds sellers to the 24 hour SLA (Service Level Agreement) over all holidays.

When all of the fun and festivities are happening is exactly when your attention is required on your online store the most.

Shoppers tend to feel more stress and increased urgency due to holiday shopping and the typical gift-buying procrastination. This causes them to be, frankly, more rude than normal. 

We can’t always set expectations, but we can determine how we reply. The brands we represent deserve our best. 

All of this activity is stressful. It’s hard on your customer service team, especially if they have to work longer hours to manage the caseload. Reward them in a way they’ll appreciate. 

How to survive: 

Use email templates to keep response times low

Managing your own customer service? You may not have templates already written and saved, as you’re likely the subject matter expert on your product line and everything is in your head. You already know how to reply without referencing documents every time. 

Even if you’re not planning on delegating your customer service, starting an email with the appropriate template or combination of templates is the best way to go. Templates permit for fast, comprehensive, replies with fewer errors compared to writing each reply from scratch. 

If you’re planning on upsourcing your customer service, we invite you to schedule a call with us. We’re always happy to chat with you about your customer service needs and we can advise on the best solutions for you.

 you are Well-organized templates allow you to share the workload and scale.

Look through your most recent customer interactions and take note of any recurring inquiries. Craft the best possible templates for these repeating scenarios and save them in a text document like a Word or Google Doc. 

Short, descriptive titles for your email templates will allow you to sort and search your growing collection with ease. 

The SOP, one document to rule them all

We find that a doc of templates is complemented by a second, SOP doc. The SOP doc instructs your team how to use, or when to apply the templates you’ve written. It may give clues how to do this, and when to do that. Make it SEO friendly so it stays organized and navigable. 

Make your documents comprehensive enough to be useful, but you don’t have to cover all possible scenarios. If 80-90% of customer situations can be found in your documents, then we know we have met the mark. 

Double check your customer-facing templates and site copy for tone, style, and grammar. Being clear up front saves time explaining the same thing in an email. Free tools such as Grammarly, Hemingway and QuillBot make this process easier.

As an extra bonus for the holiday season, we recommend creating a section in your template doc with holiday-specific blurbs and phrases. Where appropriate, add cheerful and brand-relevant messaging such as “Happy holidays!” or “Merry Christmas!” along with your sign off. 

More gifts

More buyers are purchasing gifts for others. This may warrant the use of even more straightforward and helpful messaging on your site and detail pages. 

Craft templates related to the changes in Amazon’s holiday return policy with helpful dates for your customer’s reference. 

We have some starter templates you can use to start your library here. 

NOTE:  Even though templates save time, we advise customizing each message in some way, including  the customer’s unique reason for contacting you.

Route all customer communications to one place

One of the easiest ways to streamline responding to your customers is to route all interactions into one destination. This is especially helpful if you receive inquiries from more than one source, like multiple Amazon marketplaces (Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, etc.), Shopify/website contact forms, or other online channels (eBay, Walmart, etc).

We prefer and recommend Help Scout to manage all of our clients’ customer communications.

We’ve previously provided steps for how to forward all of your buyer messages to one inbox.  You can read more about those recommendations here.

If you choose not to funnel your customer messages into one application, you must go to each platform in order to reply to all of your messages for that day. With this workflow, it’s difficult to know which messages are the oldest, requiring your earliest attention.

Outsource and delegate

An online seller’s most valuable asset is time. Time can never be recovered and you must dedicate your precious time to higher-value/ higher-urgency tasks over others. Before things get too busy, consider options for sharing your lower-value/ lower-urgency tasks. 

Some questions to consider:
  • Is there a single point of failure on your team? Will things keep running if you’re busy with holiday activities or if you become ill?
  • Where are you currently a bottleneck in your business?
  • Where are the repetitive tasks that can be outlined and shared with others?
  • What is the true amount of time these tasks take you?
  • What are you willing to pay for these tasks to be taken off of your plate?
  • Which projects are falling behind and demand even more of your focus?

Whether this means hiring an employee, a freelancer, a friend, a family member, or partnering with an agency like SellerSmile, pondering these questions may help determine the best solution for your store’s needs.

“The 4-Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss explains this concept using the D.E.A.L. acronym:

Adding people or partners to your store is one of the most direct paths to liberation since it allows you to eliminate/automate through the help of others who are already experts in the task. Your next task should be to focus on those higher-value/ higher-urgency tasks like managing advertising, inventory, or product development.

  • Define: Define your goal/lifestyle in a quantitative way
  • Eliminate: Eliminate the things that are not required
  • Automate: Automate repetitive tasks. Remove the trivial and leave the critical few
  • Liberation: Be free

Protect your time

During the holiday season it’s even more important to protect your time and avoid distractions. This means saying “No” more often. 

Saying “Yes” feels good at the moment but it can become a trap. You may find yourself suddenly overcommitted and drowning in unfinished work. 

Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, uses the helpful rule of “Hell yeah” or “No”. If you’re not sure if you should do something, if it isn’t a “Hell yeah!”, then say, “No, thank you”, instead.

For other great reads about this idea, we recommend the article 7 No-Nonsense Pieces of Startup Advice I Wish I Got When I Started by Alex Turnbull of GrooveHQ and  The Art Of Saying NO by Damon Zahariades.

Holiday Tip #2 – Prepare for More Traffic, Everywhere

What happens:

An increase in shoppers are coming to your online store. Many merchants, especially those offering giftable items, see a significant increase in sales that may spike before certain holidays.

Greater traffic and sales typically result in more customer interactions coming from all touch points, including:

  • Amazon
  • Your website
    • Customer emails: FAQ, order updates, etc.
    • Contact forms
    • Replies to order event notifications
    • Product reviews
    • Live chats
    • Phone calls
    • SMS text messages
    • Return request authorizations 
  • Social Media
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter

Due to major supply chain issues persisting into Q4 2021, shipments everywhere will experience greater delays and issues. As such, holiday shoppers will bring a greater amount of inquiries about shipping times, return policies, missing packages, gifts, giftcards, and gift receipts. 

This all means more eyes on your product listings and customer-facing copy, listings, FAQs, return policy, automated emails, email templates etc.

Why it’s stressful:

More emails

A greater number of customer contacts means more time spent on customer service activities. 

With an uptick in communications, a case backlog can occur, which may lead to negative reviews, claims, poor customer experiences, and even more email than you can already handle.

More shoppers

If all of your store’s copy isn’t dialed in, you’ll be spending a lot of extra time answering the same simple questions over and over again. 

Copy that is outdated and confusing will produce questions and frustration. 

Copy that is updated and optimized will produce satisfaction and trust.

How to survive:

Improve the buying experience for holiday shoppers who may already be under pressure purchasing last minute gifts by making your messaging clear, accurate, and comprehensive.

Review your product detail pages

Consider revisiting each SKU with fresh eyes. 

Some questions to ask:
  • Does my detail page state everything included? Do my product images include other items that are sold separately?
  • Are the “benefits” of my product included on the detail page?
  • Does my product packaging copy match what’s on my listing?  Are there any discrepancies between in the description, bullets, features, dimensions, technical specifications, etc.?
  • Does my listing clearly explain all available sizes? Would my listing be improved with a sizing chart that could be used as a product image? Does your item tend to run larger/smaller than normal? 
  • Are there specific or new aspects of your product that buyers should know? 
  • Is there a material different vs. similar products? 
  • Have my products been updated recently and are those updates in the listing content?
  • Which common questions can be added to my product description or FAQ?

Product listings are usually the first point of contact shoppers have with your online store. Consider common inquiries and pain points that you can help answer proactively.  

Including as much helpful information as possible will help your buyers make the right decision while they’re on the detail page, reducing unnecessary browsing, cancellations, returns, and stress.

Ensuring all sources and channels have consistent, updated customer-facing information will reduce confusion and enhance trust in your store.

Review your outbound messaging

If you use a follow-up email system like Feedback Genius, ask yourself:

  • Am I sharing my contact details? Do customers know how to get in touch with me?
  • Do I offer a warranty? If so, does my messaging include necessary details about it?
  • Are there common product questions I receive that could be addressed proactively?
  • Are there setup instructions I can include? (Send them as PDF ebook).
  • Is my messaging compliant with Amazon’s Guidelines or normal email marketing etiquette? (Here’s a great resource from the Seller Labs team about Amazon-compliant messaging).

Test your shopping experience

If you created your own listings, you may have missed the opportunity to address common pitfalls buyers encounter when purchasing from you. It’s easy to gloss over since you’re used to looking at your listings and you already know everything important about them.

Inviting someone outside of your business to provide feedback can help you regain an outsider’s perspective.

Consider applying “The Mom Test” in your store. In the author’s words, “This book is going to show you how customer conversations go wrong, and how you can do better.”

It can be helpful to get a friend or family member to buy something from you and interview them about their experience. 

Ask them to review similar competitor listings before purchasing from you. After their purchase, send them a follow-up survey. We use a free tool such as Google forms.

After their purchase, ask them to respond to your questions without referring back to the listing, based on memory. 

Your survey might include open-ended questions, like:

  • What stood out to you when completing your purchase?
  • Was there anything that was confusing or you weren’t sure of?
  • Did you have any concerns when considering your purchase?
  • Was there anything that other listings explained better?
  • Do you know everything that is included with your purchase?

With most transactions, buyers will quickly skim through price, product reviews and other information before making their purchase. The person you survey will most likely not remember many things about your product or the purchase itself. 

Take special note of key details they may have missed or things that especially stood out to them. This will help you determine what buyers may encounter during the regular buying experience. 

Use feedback, from anyone, to help prioritize projects on your store’s roadmap.

Holiday Tip #3 – Allow Extended Returns

What happens:

Amazon sets the current online shopping tone and so we generally recommend mirroring their policies where possible.

Amazon’s Holiday Return policy:  “For the 2021 holiday season, most of the items purchased between October 1 and December 31 can be returned until January 31, 2022.” Source. This is an extension over Amazon’s previous holiday return periods, which used to span only into November.

This return policy includes orders that are shipped by you (seller-fulfilled) and orders that are shipped by Amazon (FBA).

Why it’s stressful:

Many shoppers will be buying gifts and many gifts won’t quite “hit the mark.” This can create an influx of returns and customer service messages pertaining to returns: “How do I return this?”, “Why do I have to pay for return shipping?”, or “Please arrange the courier to pick up my return.” 

Even in the smoothest return process, your customers will experience some hassle completing a return, especially if it is for an item they were excited about.

How to survive:

Since Amazon offers buyers an extended holiday return policy we recommend you do the same on all of your sales channels.

Create holiday extended return policy templates

One easy way to save time on returns is to create return-related email templates to use for scenarios where buyers will need to send their purchase back. 

For reference, you can view an Amazon article, About Our Returns Policies.

Your return messaging should be comprised of at least two new message templates:

Template #1 – Return approved:
  • Include instructions on how to complete a return. Make sure instructions are catered to the order’s fulfillment type.  You’ll need different instructions for orders fulfilled by Amazon or seller-fulfilled orders. If you use both fulfillment types, this may require separate templates for each scenario.
  • Note the marketplace from which the buyer purchased and include the appropriate return information and links
  • Include relevant deadlines for when the buyer should make their return by (E.g. January 31st of the following year) 
  • If the buyer’s order was a gift, you might include pertinent information about your gift policies. See Amazon’s instructions for returning gifts
  • Use helpful and apologetic language to show buyers you sincerely want to make it right
Template #2 – Return denied:
  • To be used for buyers who request a return outside of the return policy
  • Include the reason why their order cannot be returned (e.g. “your order is now outside of our store’s return window…) and reference specific return window dates
  • If there are any alternate solutions for the buyer, include them with your response
  • You may offer a partial refund, a replacement and/or a discount on a future purchase
  • When considering a more generous policy, allowing buyers to return past the holiday returns deadline, consider what those limitations are and explain that in your reply. (e.g. “We normally cannot accept returns after the return window has closed but we’d be happy to offer you ___”)

The exact messaging you’ll need will vary depending on your store’s policies and the options you can offer your customers. More on that below.

Consider alternatives to returns

Not only can returns be a hassle for your buyers, they can also negatively impact your Amazon seller metrics.

With this in mind, it’s important to consider alternate options to returns. 

Some questions to ask:
  • Do my policies allow multiple solutions? Maybe even to prevent returns?
  • Can I offer buyers returnless refunds? Perhaps a subset of my products (e.g. $25 and below) could qualify for returnless refunds? 
  • Could this policy be applied to orders fulfilled by Amazon, seller-fulfilled orders, website orders, or all?

While customers may want to return your product now, how you handle their issue could determine whether or not they consider coming back to shop from you again in the future. Word of mouth is huge.

If you decide to offer alternative solutions to returns, update your return templates and all website copy accordingly.

Match return policies for all orders

If you sell through multiple channels, like a website, consider matching Amazon’s holiday return policies for your website orders.

Customers may already expect you to offer the same return policy. We regularly interact with buyers who use a website contact form to seek help on their Amazon order and vice-versa. The shopper perception may already be skewed and from their point of view, it may not make a difference for them that they purchased through Amazon or through your website.

While selling on your own website may have different costs and policies than your Amazon storefront, even a temporary update to your website order policies for the holidays can go a long way.  

In lieu of a temporary website update, consider honoring special discounts on the other shopping platforms for customers who reference those discounts.

Considering your various return policies together and ahead of time will allow you to arrange solutions that will help reduce customer effort, confusion and frustration.

Take special note of extended returns with your business reports

If you run analyses or build reports for your stores sales and profit, make sure to adjust for the extended return window, which could impact on your return rates and profit margin.

Holiday Tip #4 – Plan for Shipping Issues

What happens:

Due to major supply chain issues persisting from 2020 into Q4 2021, many international shipments will experience greater delays. If inventory is stuck or just slowed down, your store is more likely to run out of stock this Q4.

Likewise, domestic shipments will experience more delays and issues, which will directly impact the customer experience.  See USPS Service alerts for details.

Your holiday shoppers will bring a greater amount of inquiries about expected shipping times, upgrading to premium shipping, your return policy, missing packages, gifts, giftcards, and gift receipts.

Why it’s stressful:

A greater number of customer contacts about inventory and shipping issues means more time spent on customer service activities. 

With this uptick in communications, a case backlog can occur, and some customers could wait months for a full resolution. 

Outside of your customer service, going out of stock can result in significant financial losses for your business. Out of stock SKUs cost a business money. Not only will you lose out on sales, but you can lose page rank on marketplaces and search engines alike.

You might receive customer inquiries about expected restock dates, backorders, and requests to remind them when it’s back in stock. If a customer takes the time to reach out to you about items that are out of stock, it’s safe to assume it matters to them and they feel disappointed. 

How to survive:

Order more inventory yesterday!

Due to the unique nature of the global supply chain disruption in 2020-2021 due to COVID and other factors, many merchants will find it impossible to stay in stock, no matter how prepared they were.

Regardless, and above everything else, try your best to stay in stock. If we haven’t said it enough, staying in stock is absolutely crucial. Your physical products business depends on its inventory. 

Learn from the past

If you have a previous holiday season under your belt, review trends from last year. 

Some questions to ask: 

  • Which items increased in popularity? 
  • Which items went out of stock or came close? Any new products that may see a similar trend? 
  • Do I need to contact my supplier now?

If it’s your first holiday season, learn from other sellers in order to estimate the impact to your inventory and how to prepare. 

Amazon Seller Central seller forums or sites like Reddit and Facebook with communities for Amazon sellers will be a good resource too.

! FBA sellers: make sure that your inventory arrives at Amazon US fulfillment centers by these dates:

  • Black Friday and Cyber Monday: November 15
  • Christmas: December 2

“Date recommendations are based on estimates and are subject to change.” Read more on key FBA inventory dates here. 

Have a backup plan

Think about possible solutions now. Your backup strategy will depend on your store’s unique setup.

If you have inventory at your disposal, put it in position to be accessed quickly. Some sellers will keep extra inventory at their homes or in local storage or emergency access. 

You might keep seller-fulfilled listings as a backup to your Fulfilled by Amazon listings. 

Consider training your team in how to fulfill different types of orders. This will ensure you can act fast should your sales spike.

You might have a contingency plan to access reserve/ extra inventory to send to FBA if early holiday sales are greater than expected.

Plan for out-of-stock inquiries

When something is sold out, your customers will notice and begin to inquire about when that item or variation will be available again. Before this happens, develop messaging and a workflow for responding to these customers about it. 

Your reply should be apologetic and offer an expected restock date, if one is available. Be generous with the date, adding a buffer can set expectations that are easier to meet. 

Keep a list of customers who reach out to you. Tools like Google Sheets or Google Docs are perfect for this. Your list should include their Amazon email address and the SKU/ASIN so you can follow up with them later.

Once your items are available again, follow up with these shoppers. Even if they may have initially been disappointed or purchased an alternative already, they will appreciate that you went the extra mile in letting them know. 

Shopify features a range of apps to automatically send restock alerts to your customers, search in the Shopify App Store. 

NOTE:  We do not recommend “overselling” your inventory, due to the size of the customer service backlash it can cause. There are creative ways to change your listing when it’s sold out, but preventing new orders is an important measure to avoid a whole list of troubles. 

Holiday Tip #5 – Offer Gift Wrapping & Messaging

What happens:

Holiday shopping is synonymous with giving and receiving… “gifts!” Shoppers are looking for items to purchase for others, sometimes they’ll want to send their gift purchases directly to the gift-receiver! 

You may see inquiries about gift wrapping and/or how to purchase items as a gift. Some of these services include:

  • Gift wrap, box or bag appropriate for the item.
  • Decorative ribbon.
  • Printed card with your gift message on the top of the package.

You can read more about Amazon’s gift wrapping services on their help article here. 

An interesting pattern we’ve seen is that sometimes the gift-receiver will attempt to return the gifted item without having the order ID number or any other identifying information that would help us locate their order. 

Why it’s stressful:

GIfts are typical purchased in the context of a deadline. The gift must be in a certain location by a certain date for there to be no drama, and we totally agree with that! This means there can be an extra layer of complication and emotion surrounding gift purchases. 

Shoppers will be looking for gift wrapping options on your store and you may see more questions about how it works. 

If you don’t already know about these options offered by FBA or through your own site, you won’t have a helpful response when customers ask about it and you could lose the sale!

How to survive:

Configure FBA “Gift Options”

Fulfillment by Amazon offers gift-wrapping services for eligible items. The best part is that it’s offered at no extra cost to sellers. 

During checkout, when customers indicate that an order is a gift, the product prices will not appear on the packing slip. However, the customer can elect to include the prices should they wish. The buyer’s choices will show on the packing slip available on the “Manage Orders” page in Seller Central.

By default neither “gift messaging” nor “gift wrap” services are enabled for your Amazon listings. Below are the steps for enabling these settings within your Amazon Seller Central account.

  1. Login to your Seller Central account.
  2. From the “Settings” drop-down menu, select “Gift options.”
  3. From there you can configure your“Gift Message” and “Gift Wrap” options. 
  4. Click “Edit” next to Gift Messaging or Gift-Wrapping, then enable the service for individual order items.
  5. Click “Continue” to save the setting.
  6. From here, you will modify and upload your inventory files to enable “Gift Options.” If you upload your inventory using text files or XML, you can use the “is-gift-message-available” field, or the “is-gift-wrap-available” field, or both to control which products are eligible for these options.
Amazon FBA gift options for sellers

Note that if you select “Disable” for the settings directly from the account-wide settings, “Gift Wrap” will not be available for these products. Read more about these settings on Seller Central’s help article “Gift Options”.

These settings can also be enabled directly from your FBA listings:

  1. Login to your Seller Central account.
  2. Click on “Manage inventory.” 
  3. Select “Edit” on the listing.
  4. Enable the “Advanced” view and click on the “Offer” tab.
  5. Modify the gift settings to your preference

Lastly, you can also enable gift wrapping and messaging services for your seller-fulfilled listings, though your team id left to handle the logistics:

  1. Login to your Seller Central account.
  2. Click on “Manage inventory” 
  3. Select “Edit” on the seller-fulfilled listing
  4. Modify the gift settings to your preference:

See Amazon’s Manage Gift Options article for more details.

Offer gift options on your website

For your Shopify store, browse apps that enable gift options or other holiday bonuses for your customers, Best Gifts apps for 2021 on Shopify App Store.

Help buyers return a gift

You might receive inquiries about how to return an item that was purchased from your store and gifted to them. 

The Amazon Returns Center permits gift recipients to return items marked as a gift at the time of purchase. 

To better understand these policies, and to compose instructions for your own store, we recommend referencing Amazon’s help article on returning gifts.

It’s important to note that when a gift is being returned, the resolution offered (refund, replacement, or credit), will depend on how the gift was originally purchased and how it is returned. 

Holiday Tip #6 – Expect More Product Reviews and Feedback

What happens:

With an increase in sales comes an increase of product reviews and seller feedback. Unfortunately, this wave of customer feedback may include greater rates of negative or critical feedback as a result of the widespread shipping delays during the fourth quarter, 2021.

Why it’s stressful:

Negative product reviews and critical seller feedback can have a deleterious impact on sales.

Amazon and other marketplaces use customer experience metrics to track the  performance of their sellers and they are ready to take a range of actions against those selling accounts that appear to be performing poorly.

Further, unchecked negative public feedback about your products and brand can hurt your public reputation, for a long time. Customers remember if they were treated poorly and sometimes a really bad experience is the motivation they need to share their grievance in a public forum. 

How to survive: 

Update your reputation management strategy

In anticipation of an influx of product reviews and seller feedback, it’s important to have a plan to make the best of these opportunities. 

At minimum, we recommend replying as the seller/brand in all public comments. This creates a sense of engagement and trust that there are “real people” behind your company’s online presence.

Reputation management for e-commerce businesses is comprised of:

  • Amazon
  • Website
    • Being responsive in live chat
    • Responding in a direct message or publicly to all product reviews. See Yotpo Product Reviews & Photos.
    • Responding in a public comment thread on your website’s posts or pages
    • Following up with all shoppers and customers to offer a resolution
  • Social media
    • Facebook –  direct messages, posts, and comments
    • Instagram –  direct messages, posts, and comments
    • Twitter –  direct messages, posts, and comments
  • Other
    • Google reviews
    • Trustpilot reviews

Reputation management on Amazon

Although Amazon does not permit sellers to ask buyers to update their product reviews, providing an excellent experience by doing your best to resolve issues fast can surprise buyers into a rating update and/or a repeat purchase.

When responding publicly to an Amazon customer’s product review or seller feedback, we recommend keeping it general, and inviting them to continue the communication in a private email conversation. This keeps the customer’s personal information safe and allows you to work through resolutions privately.

We point buyers to a seller’s Amazon “Contact” link, automatically routing to your Buyer-Seller messages. Find your unique contact link by going to your Amazon storefront and copying the link from the “Ask a question” button. 

You can also find this button from the “See how your feedback displays to buyers on Amazon” link on Feedback Manager.


Copy and share the “Ask a question” button link to direct Amazon buyers to contact you by direct message.

When responding to buyers who left a negative review or feedback, be cautious of using language that could be misconstrued as combative, dismissive, aggressive, or insensitive. 

It’s important to avoid salesy/ marketing language. Your buyer will be more concerned with a personalized apology and resolution, not your brand’s reputation.

SellerSmile’s strategy for responding publicly to product reviews and seller feedback:

  • Respond to all reviews and feedback with a unique strategy and goal for each star rating. 
  • For 1-3 star star ratings:
    • Offer a public apology for the specific issue they experienced. Include any insight you may have into what may have occurred. 
    • Encourage customers to contact you directly through your contact link to reach a satisfactory resolution.
    • Compose email replies for most common reasons buyers leave a negative rating. 
    • We don’t recommend offering a resolution publicly. Have a resolution ready for each scenario when buyers reach out to you in a private message. 
    • Your resolution could include a free replacement, a refund, a promo code, or a gift card for a future purchase. 
    • Hopefully, your resolution will encourage the reviewer to update their rating to reflect their new experience. 
  • For 4-5 star ratings:
    1. Show buyers immense gratitude for taking the time to leave you a review!
    2. Make a specific mention of something positive they listed in their review. (I.e., if it was a positive review for a gift they purchased for someone, include the following: “We’re glad to hear your gift was a success!”).

We suggest composing various starting templates for each star rating, then editing each before posting in order to avoid sounding repetitive.   

You can find general templates we’ve composed for these scenarios here. Remember: these templates are only meant as a starter and your replies should always be customized.

While you may see some reviewers convert their negative ratings, this approach is primarily intended for future buyers who will see your customer service as being consistently responsive when customers have trouble. 

Holiday Tip #7 – Prepare for Replacements

What happens:

Depending on your customer service strategy, during the holidays you may find yourself creating more replacement orders.

Here are some of the most common reasons we send order replacements during Q4:

  • The order is lost or never shipped
  • The order is late or sent to the wrong address
  • The wrong item was sent
  • The order arrived damaged or defective
  • The order was stolen or went missing after delivery
  • The order became defective after normal use
  • The customer returned their order and requested a replacement

Why it’s stressful: 

No matter why you’re creating replacement orders, they can easily become a source of frustration. 

The uptick in holiday-related activity  will make it increasingly difficult to know how many replacements you’ve issued, where they all are, and how much they’ve affected your bottom line.

How to survive:

Completing and tracking replacement orders the right way can bring a sense of Zen to your operations. 

The tracking aspect can be especially important when trying to determine defect rates, when negotiating with your supplier, or when planning the next goal for future production runs.

Track replacement orders using a simple naming convention

Amazon’s Multi-channel Fulfillment (MCF) order process gives sellers the ability to specify the order-ID for each replacement. 

The interface will create its own order-ID by default, but you can use this field to enter your own. For example, if you are creating an MCF order for order #112-1234567-6122345, your replacement order ID to enter in the order-ID field could be “R112-1234567-6122345” or “Replacement-112-1234567-6122345”.

You could also further segment these by creating a nomenclature based on the category of the issue, such as “Defect-112-1234567-6122345” or “Warranty-112-1234567-6122345”.  

Pair either of these strategies with a Google sheet to store images of the customer issues along with the order ID and other relevant information.

Using a similar method for replacement orders will allow you to come back and run a report on your orders, easily distinguishing how many replacement orders you issued, which orders these were for, and why they were issued.  

Bonus tip! – Watch your advertising

With more shoppers on all platforms, it’s common for sellers to see their advertising spend increase several times more than normal. 

If mismanaged, it can eat up all of your holiday season profits. 

Our best recommendation when it comes to upcourcing your AMZ advertising is Amazon Management Services by Seller Labs. Let them know SellerSmile sent you!

Conclusion

Running an online store can add so much extra weight to the most stressful time of year. Don’t forget that all of your hard work is for an important reason. We hope this guide will lead to some immediate and durable improvements in your customer service during these holidays.

Consider these holiday season tips early. Discuss them with your entire team so you can plan accordingly and enjoy this holiday season with a bit more relaxation and an even better customer service strategy.

If you need any help, or would like to learn more about how SellerSmile can take on your customer service this holiday season, we invite you to schedule a call with us. We’re always happy to chat with you about your customer service.

Happy holidays to you and yours, from the SellerSmile team!

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Tygh Walters

Co-Founder and CEO of SellerSmile | I'm into Bluegrass music, waterfall hikes, and the Green Bay Packers. INTP-A: The Logician - Innovative inventor with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
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