I felt so sorry for the guy. As I read a thread in a private Facebook group my heart ached for one seller.
He begged,”HELP! I was notified by Amazon that my account was suspended due to product review manipulation. The suspension was out of the blue. I am not doing any giveaways. I do send follow-up emails asking for a product review if they liked the item or to contact me if there are any issues and I will resolve it…..could this follow-up email or the wording be what Amazon has suspended my account for? This was completely out of the blue and help would be greatly appreciated!”
The condolences and well wishes went on for a while. Then one savvy personspoke up toexplain to the panicked seller that yes, it is against Amazon’s FBA terms of service to try to sway a customer’s decision about what type of review to leave. Amazon states:
As I continued to read the entries in the thread, I found several other Amazon FBA sellers claiming they had been suspended for review manipulation, too. They began to share accounts what had happenedand questions about whether their follow-up email copy met Amazon’s terms of service (TOS).
One person shared what Seller Central expects people to provide in order to have their accounts cleared of Amazon review manipulation suspension.
Craziness! Most people wouldn’t have any idea about the information Seller Central is requesting.
As sellers discussed their emails, it turns out that most of them were using something like this:
Look familiar? It should. This is extremely typical. Why? It’s easy. The problems are:
- It’s horribly overused. Customers who are Amazon regulars have seen variations of this email hundreds of times over the years. They all get deleted without a second thought… even though I understand how important reviews are to sellers.
- Completely seller-focused. It’s all about the seller. “Amazon asks that you rate my service.” Not true. They don’t. “Critical to our success.””Leave a review.” Yep, he says he’ll do whatever it takes to make the issue right, and that’s good, but the rest is totally focused on the seller.
- It tries to sway the shopper.“If everything looks fine…” There is a contingency to the review request. Only if everything is OK with the order, then please leave a review. You can’t say that or anything similar to it. Amazon wants customers to feel free to leave a positive, neutral, or negative review… whatever fits their experience with your product. Trying to guide them with language such as this could possibly get your account suspended:
—–>Happy with your product? Please leave a review. Have issues? Email us first and we’ll take care of it.
—–>Leave a review and tell us why you love your new {WIDGET} so much!
—–>If you have any issues, please contact us before you leave a product review.
—–>If our product has met or exceeded your expectations, please leave a review. If you would give less than 4 stars, please contact us and give us an opportunity to make the problem right.
In addition, these actions are also against Amazon’s email TOS:
Many sellers throw their hands up in frustration and swear they just won’t ask for reviews anymore at all. That’s overcompensating and unnecessary. What can you say in your follow-up emails?
- You can provide helpful information that customers value.
- You can offer to help the customer without making that offer a contingency for leaving a review.
It all boils down to providing customer service. If your Amazon review request email is all about you and what you want/need, it isn’t providing any service to your customer.
However, there is a simple way to adjust the focus of your messages to offer information your customers will appreciate.
I’ve verified with Amazon (again just recently) that the techniques we use at Marketing Words when writing review request emails for our clients are still approved and legal. The idea is to offer something that is worth the customer’s time to read.
Let’s say you sell a coffee grinder. That’s one of the specialty appliances that (seemingly) only has one purpose. But what if you show your customers several other ways to use the coffee grinder? In a follow-up email, your copy could say something like:
Thanks for buying the Handy-Dandy Coffee Grinder from Best Brand! Your mornings are about to get better with an aromatic, freshly ground brew to start your day. But did you know it can also
Make Oat Flour — Oats are a fabulous source of fiber that maintains healthy cholesterol. Grind oatmeal into powder and add to your favorite pancake mix, soups (as a thickener), cookie recipes and more!
Grind Herbs & Spices —Vanilla beans, red pepper flakes, whole nutmeg… Whirl them around in your new grinder for just a few seconds to release their full flavor.
Create Almond Flour — Have you bought almond flour? Yikes! Rather expensive. You can now buy almonds in bulk and make your own for much less.
You can probably think of lots of other uses, too.
Have 3 minutes? We’d love to hear about your experience with your new coffee grinder. Please leave a product review when you have time.
Have an issue or question? Just reply to this email and we’ll get right on it!
Enjoy!
Best Brand People
There you go! Useful, helpful, interesting information your customer will thank you for and a review request that does not lead or try to sway the buyer in any way.
Most people are not big on leaving reviews. Even those who see the value in it, and who love to read other people’s reviews, are busy, and just don’t make time. However, if you give customers something worth reading, they are more likely to reciprocate by leaving you a good review.
Want even more ideas for creating custom Amazon after-purchase emails that are appreciated and effective? Pick up your copy of my “Review Advantage: Email Strategies for Getting More Amazon Reviews (Legally!)” today! Use coupon review10 (lowercase, no spaces) to save $10 now.
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Have questions about Amazon review manipulation Talk to me below.
Thank you for the interesting article. But how would you legally collect customer emails in the first place?
Hi Vince! Glad you found the article informative.
Amazon collects the email addresses of the customers you have sold to. You can then use a service like Feedback Genius from Seller Labs to send messages (schedule them for sending later, format them, etc.). You can send these directly through Amazon’s messaging system, but you get much less flexibility and features. Feedback Genius and other similar software is legal to use. Seller Labs gave Marketing Words a coupon code for me to share with out followers. If you use the coupon wordsfbg you will get 20% off your first 6 months.
Is it pretty easy to get these emails from Amazon, Karon?
Well, you’re not getting emails from Amazon. Sellers are sending emails to customers who bought the products that they sell on Amazon. They want the customer to respond by leaving a review of the product they purchased from the seller.
Sorry, I meant the email addresses. You said, “Amazon collects the email addresses of the customers you have sold to.”
Before reading this, I had no idea that it was possible to get email addresses of buyers from Amazon, so that’s the part that I was curious about.
Oh, I see. Amazon doesn’t give you the email addresses. You either go through Amazon’s in-house messaging system (that anonymously inserts the email addys) or you use third-party software that links to the Amazon account.
Ah ok. Thanks for clarifying, Karon!