Have you ever gotten some Amazon customer complaints from buyers who claim that your products are inauthentic or didn’t follow the Amazon condition guidelines for safety? By now, you’d probably be racking your brains trying to think of a way to defend yourself.

While you may be tempted to sugarcoat the truth about your product, that will just get you in trouble with Amazon. Your customers will apply to Amazon specialists saying that you weren’t helpful, you’re trying to scam customers, and so on. If you do happen to have some sort of product complaint or negative review, you do have to be on the defensive because Amazon is going to scrutinize you. However, you have to do it the right way. We will be teaching you how to do that.

What Amazon does with a customer’s complaint

Before anything else, we have to understand how the system works. Being a consumer-centric platform, Amazon always tries its best to ensure that all of the customers are happy with their purchases. That said, they’d like to make sure that there aren’t any fake or low-quality products that are being sold by any seller. In any case, Amazon does provide an email address for Amazon complaints. With that, customers have the option to either place a review on the product post or directly send an email to the Amazon complaints email address.

The only problem with the authenticity algorithm of Amazon is that they don’t really take into consideration the pattern of the sellers that sell fake objects or unsafe products. Therefore, even if the seller has absolutely no record or history of selling fake or bad products, they would still get hit if ever there are negative reviews or sent complaints to Amazon that would have keywords such as fake or unsafe.

Now, when you do get hit, you won’t really receive the specific details on the complaint because Amazon doesn’t want to divulge any information about their buyers to the sellers. Of course, that makes it really hard for the sellers to fix any product complaints. It’s really because Amazon’s algorithm makes use of bots that would just take into consideration the keywords and situations.

With a hit from the Amazon bot, sellers who are targeted will then receive some kind of message or warning from Amazon. Now, do take note that these messages may not make much sense to sellers because they may come in random (the platform is following some kind of algorithm anyway). But in any case, it is the seller’s job to respond to it and try to rectify the situation so that their accounts won’t get shut down and get banned from selling on Amazon anymore.

Why exactly do they do that anyway? Read on to find out:

Why Amazon doesn’t help sellers with customers’ complaints

Let’s use an analogy to understand how Amazon handles the situation. Have you ever fought with your girlfriend before and she tells you, “You know what you did! Go think about it and apologize.”

In your mind, you don’t know what you did. All you were told was that you knew what you did and you had to find out for yourself to go through with the investigation. What Amazon would do is send a warning message of what product violated the Amazon seller condition guidelines, and it’s your job to find out why. All you know is that your customers used keywords such as fake or inauthentic.

So why does Amazon do this anyway?

Well, the most logical explanation would be speed and practicality. With the high volume of investigations that Amazon experiences daily, it’s no surprise that they would want to find an easy way to go about so that they don’t need to spend too much time on one investigation alone.

Honestly, it’d definitely be much easier to just target all of the possible fake product sellers than to go through them one by one. According to the stats provided by Amazon, the investigators have to deal with up to 15 investigations every hour. With that, we can infer that the investigations are rushing the process by giving the generic customer support spiels that are found in the warning label messages.

That said, if you have a friend who’s a seller, and he received the same warning message that you did, don’t be surprised because it’s most likely a system-generated message made by the investigators to rush their investigations.

Also, did you know that the investigators are being given incentives based on how many investigations they process? Therefore, if they would send that generic spiel to possible violators, they’re technically completing these complaints Amazon sellers shoot at them. The worst part is that if you don’t address these complaints, then the system might just shut off your account. That probably sounds a bit unfair, right? Well, if you’re going to use the Amazon system, then you have to abide by the rules regarding customer complaints Amazon.

Of course, this is a problem for the long-time sellers because sellers that have a great history and bulk sales can get their account shut down with just a few complaints. The worse part is that the account closing may not even be properly justified. In any case, it’s up to you if you still want to stay in Amazon despite knowing all these. If you do, then you have to be a bit prepared for fighting for your right to stay inside the platform.

What can sellers do to avoid the complaints?

Should you still decide to stay with the platform, the biggest question to ask yourself now would be what should be done in order to address the concerns? Well, in general, you need to make sure that you address Amazon’s warning message by giving some sort of explanation of why the customers think that the products are fake or unsafe. After that, you need to create some sort of action plan on how you will settle this with the platform and the consumers. Here are the specific steps to do that:

1

Do your homework

Obviously, you’re going to have to do your own research on where you screwed up because Amazon isn’t going to help you. Do a full review of any situation wherein a customer uses some sort of keyword that implies your products are fake, inauthentic, second hand, sold as new, or not safe. That is where you start so that you know what product line was affected.

Once you have already determined which products are possibly under attack, you now have to find out why the customers think that your products are substandard. You must read the customer reviews and ask yourself if the product really is like what the customer states it is.

If you need extra details or feedback from your customers, you may even directly contact the customer to know more. You may even try to explain to the customer and see if you can resolve things. If you do that, then you can have a stronger case for Amazon.

2

Create your action plan

After doing all of your homework and research, you must now create your action plan. Start your action plan with a detailed explanation as to why the problem happened in the first place. List down all of the causes that you were able to find out during your homework and research. After identifying all of the causes, then you must create proactive solutions to address all of the aforementioned causes.

Doing so will show Amazon that you are serious in wanting to please all the customers on the platform. If the action plan is good, then Amazon will let go of the case. Of course, you must also make sure that you resolve the problem with the buyer. If ever the buyer wants a refund, then you may give it. In order to appease the buyer, you may also give a replacement. Everything has to be done to please the customer.

Now, you may be asking what if the customer is trying to rip you off. Let’s say the customer used the product first and then said it was inauthentic so he or she can get another new product for free when, in fact, there was nothing wrong with the product in the first place?

Well, these buyers will be dealt with in another way. Amazon has a way of checking for buyers that try to rip off sellers through another algorithm. On your end, you just have to trust the system. Just do what you have to do to please the customer. If the buyer is in the wrong, he or she will be dealt with accordingly.

3

Backtrack your inventory

If you have resolved the issue with your first Amazon complaint, it’s not over yet. You have to make sure that you go through your inventory to prevent something like that from happening in the future. What you have to do is backtrack and check to see if any products violated any of the guidelines. If you think that some products could possibly harmful depending on how it is used, then you might need to place some safety warnings on products that you deem may be unsafe.

These can be for hardware products or electric products. It’s somewhat like a disclaimer telling the customers that it could be unsafe if they don’t follow the manual. That way, you have already warned the client in the event that something has happened to them.

4

Check your suppliers

One of the conditions for products is to make sure that your suppliers are authorized to provide products to you by the official brand. If you can, make sure that you get products directly from the brand itself. In any case, this will be one of the ways to show Amazon that your products are totally authentic.

One of the best ways to ensure that the suppliers are authorized by the brand is to check the website. You may also call up the brand office itself to find out if the supplier you’re getting the products from is authorized. With that, you can actually use that in your case if ever Amazon does send you some kind of warning message.

5

Have all your invoices ready

Another way to ensure that your products are authentic is to have all of the invoices for the products you have bought. This can be traced all the way back to the original manufacturer and back to the brand. This will show Amazon that the products are authorized and provided by the brand. This would further show that the products you’re selling are genuine.

6

Have a bin check

This is a technique that you can use if your items are FBA. You can also ask to have a bin check to see which items are authentic and valid in the eyes of Amazon. Let’s just say that a few items didn’t pass the bin check. You can request for removal of such products so that you won’t get hit by Amazon.

Now, these are techniques used in order to both remedy and prevent further complaints about Amazon products from your store. As mentioned above, you will be under the mercy of Amazon, which means that you have to do everything in your power to make sure that there are no issues between you and the platform. If you can do that, then you will still be able to continue selling on the platform.

Of course, there will be times when there are picky customers who just don’t like your product. You can’t exactly do anything about the claims they make, but you can prove to Amazon that you didn’t violate any of the conditions set by the management. If you can prove to Amazon that they are just being picky, they will eventually just dismiss the case. In any case, you would really have to follow the steps provided above to keep your account active.

Conclusion

Even if you think that it’s unfair for buyers to be able to just send a message to the Amazon Customer service complaints email and get you in trouble, that’s Amazon for you. Amazon is basically a website that really focuses on keeping the buyers happy, that’s why they go to all lengths in order to make sure that the buyers have an avenue to express themselves.

Of course, volume sellers might have a hard time with this kind of setup since it puts them in jeopardy of their account being closed without much justification, especially if the buyer is just really picky.

However, you do have the choice to still continue being with Amazon or not. If you find that the rules are way too unfair, you can always choose another platform to sell your items on. On the other hand, if you really love Amazon for all the benefits it provides, then you better make yourself ready and armed with all the necessary knowledge needed in order to address all possible areas that could get you kicked out or suspended.