Feedback

[HTMLHugo]

Hi i dont want feedback i want to discuss feedback

I am currently trading on Amazon and EBay also my website

so far i have 67 really good feedbacks on my Ebay (ive sold a lot more but people cant be bothered)

Amazon i have 13 feedback (13 good 2 whingers) again ive sold lot of products but nobody leaves feedback.

Yesterday i got an email off a customer complaining as he hadnt received his item after 3 weeks. (1st email i had received off him) threatening to leave bad feedback etc. I do understand his point but he didnt let me know or give me a chance to fix the situation.

Anyway the point is his 1 feedback could ruin the other 12 good feedbacks i've done, which because of the lack of other feedback will damage my stats.

So my questions / points for discussion are :-

Do customers REALLY look at all feedback and judge fairly?

Do Amazon customers / Ebay customers have different expectations and why?

The power of feedback can literally damage a business in its early days of trading to the point where is may aswell not bother because of one unruly customer.

Do you care about your feedback enough to treat someone unfairly so they dont leave you bad feedback (ie : sending something out twice because a customer has received the item within a few days etc)

personally i told the customer in a nice way he can do what he wants with his feedback as its his choice. I have offered the customer a replacement / refund whch is the the fair thing to do.

 

[TotalWebSolutions]

In terms of buying off eBay... I don't look at the individual comments but I do look at their feedback score before considering a purchase...

 

[paretowasright]

Hi i dont want feedback i want to discuss feedback

I am currently trading on Amazon and EBay also my website

so far i have 67 really good feedbacks on my Ebay (ive sold a lot more but people cant be bothered)

Amazon i have 13 feedback (13 good 2 whingers) again ive sold lot of products but nobody leaves feedback.

Yesterday i got an email off a customer complaining as he hadnt received his item after 3 weeks. (1st email i had received off him) threatening to leave bad feedback etc. I do understand his point but he didnt let me know or give me a chance to fix the situation.

Anyway the point is his 1 feedback could ruin the other 12 good feedbacks i've done, which because of the lack of other feedback will damage my stats.

So my questions / points for discussion are :-

Do customers REALLY look at all feedback and judge fairly?

Do Amazon customers / Ebay customers have different expectations and why?

The power of feedback can literally damage a business in its early days of trading to the point where is may aswell not bother because of one unruly customer.

Do you care about your feedback enough to treat someone unfairly so they dont leave you bad feedback (ie : sending something out twice because a customer has received the item within a few days etc)

personally i told the customer in a nice way he can do what he wants with his feedback as its his choice. I have offered the customer a replacement / refund whch is the the fair thing to do.

If you go below 90% on Amazon you lose the buy box so quite commercially damaging. It is the customers choice but in that instance I would try to turn it around as another one and you would be below 90%?. Ebay customers tend to understand the whole feedback system much better and are now penalised for consistent low scores.

 

[Deleted member 61074]

I tend to feel comforted if a seller has a couple of bad feedbacks as it proves the feedback is genuine. Everyone will get the odd order that goes pear shaped, usually it is clear from the wording of bad feedback that is being left by a complete muppet. It's a fact of life that the odd parcel gets lost.

 

[Green Jelly]

I always check the negative feedback on Amazon. Depends how many on ebay. I will usually make up my mind based on what the issues were and the response from the seller.

 

[wood1e2]

So my questions / points for discussion are :-

Do customers REALLY look at all feedback and judge fairly?

The fact that there is a feedback facility you must presume that punters do look at it.

I don't really, but I do stay away if there is no feedback.

Do Amazon customers / Ebay customers have different expectations and why?

Personally I don't think so.

The power of feedback can literally damage a business in its early days of trading to the point where is may aswell not bother because of one unruly customer.

That is an issue with online trading through these websites and possibly why it has created a certain reputation.

Do you care about your feedback enough to treat someone unfairly so they dont leave you bad feedback (ie : sending something out twice because a customer has received the item within a few days etc)

Because it is there you should care.

personally i told the customer in a nice way he can do what he wants with his feedback as its his choice. I have offered the customer a replacement / refund whch is the the fair thing to do.

That is your choice as it is his for leaving bad feedback. As with real shops I would say the customer is always right. So you satisfy the complaint, within reason.

Then the customer can complain but he will also say that you solved the issue immediatly and without fuss.

That to me would say a lot about a business.

 

[kulture]

On amazon, only about 20-25% of orders get feedback. Invariably any order which had a problem will get feedback. So you need to work very hard and put the customer first so that you have at least 99% of happy customers.

Some customers know this and try and abuse the system. Until you have a reasonable amount of positive feedback as buffer you are open to this kind of blackmail.

ALWAYS respond politely to any poor feedback. Put your side and apologise. Let other potential customers see that you read the feedback AND try and fix problems.

I have found that after a particularly poor feedback from a muppet subsequent customers tend to go out of their way to counter it by saying especially nice things.

 

[Setfire]

Treat all customer problems as a way to make your business shine.

In my experience, you will get more positive feedback from customers who had a problem, which was resolved to their satisfaction than a customer where everything went right first time. I guess it is a more memorable experience for them.

Personally, I always look at the first page of feedback. I have spotted cases where businesses have huge feedback lists, but service has recently gone downhill. I don't have a problem with seeing negative feedback - you can never please some people.

I also agree with the comment that you respond to every negative - this shows people you are actually reading the comments and care about them.

 

[akirk]

Yesterday i got an email off a customer complaining as he hadnt received his item after 3 weeks. (1st email i had received off him) threatening to leave bad feedback etc. I do understand his point but he didnt let me know or give me a chance to fix the situation.

The power of feedback can literally damage a business in its early days of trading to the point where is may aswell not bother because of one unruly customer.

No

it would not be the power of feedback damaging the business, but the lack of customer service I would say that a customer not receiving an item after 3 weeks who leaves bad feedback is merely giving an accurate review to warn others

it is your choice not to have dispatched the item in that 3 week period

you say he didn't let you know - do you not keep an eye on what you are sending out - with only a small handful of sales it is not as though one item in 10,000 has slipped through the net. It is not his job to let you know - he has paid you and it is now your job to send the item.

if you wat to build good customer service you have to give a good customer experience - if the feedback is that important to you - refund the money and let him keep the item - he is not the one who has made the mistake...

ultimately good customer service takes work - but leads to good reputations.

Alasdair

 

[MagnifyB]

No

it would not be the power of feedback damaging the business, but the lack of customer service I would say that a customer not receiving an item after 3 weeks who leaves bad feedback is merely giving an accurate review to warn others

it is your choice not to have dispatched the item in that 3 week period

you say he didn't let you know - do you not keep an eye on what you are sending out - with only a small handful of sales it is not as though one item in 10,000 has slipped through the net. It is not his job to let you know - he has paid you and it is now your job to send the item.

if you wat to build good customer service you have to give a good customer experience - if the feedback is that important to you - refund the money and let him keep the item - he is not the one who has made the mistake...

ultimately good customer service takes work - but leads to good reputations.

Alasdair

I totally agree with the above. The level of service you offer will affect how much feedback you get and what that feedback is.

As a consumer the feedback score of a merchant on Amazon and eBay is very important to me

 

[HTMLHugo]

I think your misreading tbh.

I dispatched the item, and he received an email through amazon to say the item has been dispatched.

Are you saying you chase a customer after sending an item to make sure he has received it?

I'd like to know how I didn't provide good customer service really considering once aware of the situation i sent him a new item out using next day delivery.

if your doing something else please let me know then can then use this information to improve.

 

[gemd89]

I do read feedback, i really wanted an item on ebay the other day but after 17 bad feedbacks of not recieveing item, item damaged etc i didnt bother. I also dont like selling to people with less than 10 stars, i have found problems with them collecting stuff and taking forever. I now have 83 stars on my ebay and i dont sell on amazon

Gemma

 

[SEO Lady]

If I was on Mastermind I would choose eBay to be my specialist subject, I worked 2 years self employed with over 14,000 global transactions, and took negative feedback to be just more than damaging to my reputation - I was really hurt personally! Most of the time I could get the remark reversed as usually the buyer had not bothered to contact me to resolve an issue.

Thesedays I oversee a Powerseller account with a weekly 5 figure revenue, and as a business this cripples the seller account, buyers hold neg feedback as a threat, take delight in leaving neg even after partial (and even full) refunds - 99% of the time it is our courier company at fault which is out of our hands and VERY frustrating. The courier is the only one in the UK which offers the service our customers insist upon, so they have the monopoly on this.

I get customers enjoying crowing about leaving negative feedback as a threat when things don't go exactly to plan, and this really hacks me off (and it's not even my company - I am an employee!)

As a company seller account, discounts are applied to each banding of power seller status for listing costs, with the 5 stars and the negative feedback comments, this can cost the company 4 figs in lost discount.

Makes my blood boil - to all potential buyers, please please contact the seller in advance of leaving neg feedback, I am betting over 90% of people would bend over backwards to give you the service you derserve.

 

[paretowasright]

If I was on Mastermind I would choose eBay to be my specialist subject, I worked 2 years self employed with over 14,000 global transactions, and took negative feedback to be just more than damaging to my reputation - I was really hurt personally! Most of the time I could get the remark reversed as usually the buyer had not bothered to contact me to resolve an issue.

Thesedays I oversee a Powerseller account with a weekly 5 figure revenue, and as a business this cripples the seller account, buyers hold neg feedback as a threat, take delight in leaving neg even after partial (and even full) refunds - 99% of the time it is our courier company at fault which is out of our hands and VERY frustrating. The courier is the only one in the UK which offers the service our customers insist upon, so they have the monopoly on this.

I get customers enjoying crowing about leaving negative feedback as a threat when things don't go exactly to plan, and this really hacks me off (and it's not even my company - I am an employee!)

As a company seller account, discounts are applied to each banding of power seller status for listing costs, with the 5 stars and the negative feedback comments, this can cost the company 4 figs in lost discount.

Makes my blood boil - to all potential buyers, please please contact the seller in advance of leaving neg feedback, I am betting over 90% of people would bend over backwards to give you the service you derserve.

Nina.....some of that buyer behavoir you experience could be verging on feedback extortion and from this month e-bay are starting to penalise sellers who leave multiple low marks in the 4 categories so hope that helps you a little bit?
The biggest problem I have experienced is the supposed 'lost parcel' brigade but the e-bay/royal mail investigation team have actually been very helpful. In the USA UPS actually go to peoples homes and interview them which seems to stop that practice!

 

[akirk]

I think your misreading tbh.

I dispatched the item, and he received an email through amazon to say the item has been dispatched.

Are you saying you chase a customer after sending an item to make sure he has received it?

I'd like to know how I didn't provide good customer service really considering once aware of the situation i sent him a new item out using next day delivery.

if your doing something else please let me know then can then use this information to improve.

Ahh - slightly clears that up - your original post doesn't state that you had actually sent it initially... it implied that he was chasing after three weeks for you to deliver...

regards

Alasdair

 

[silvermusic]

As a company seller account, discounts are applied to each banding of power seller status for listing costs, with the 5 stars and the negative feedback comments, this can cost the company 4 figs in lost discount.

Just to correct you slightly, and I know I being fussy, discounts are only on the Final Value Fees, nothing else.

I'm not saying you are, but one that that does amaze me is those sellers relying on discounts which can dissapear at the drop of a hat. Even worse are those whose level of profitability or even being in profit at all depends on it. There's probably a good few of those running dangerously close to the wire given the daft pricing some of them do. I've always taken any discount as a bonus, my margins are worked out without relying on any discount.