Amazon sellers are buzzing about a new metric called Customer Experience (CX) found in a dashboard called “Voice of the Customer.” It’s an interesting label, as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is reportedly so customer-focused that he leaves an empty chair at some meetings to represent the customer, “the most important person in the room.”
But will the new metric get sellers to be as obsessed with customer satisfaction as Bezos is? Or will sellers see it as an indication that Amazon doesn’t always recognize sellers are customers too who need to be protected by “bad” buyers?
The Voice of the Customer dashboard displays the Customer Experience Health of a seller’s offers and customer comments that are meant to help sellers identify product and listing issues so they can take action to resolve problems.
The NCX rate (negative customer experience) is the number of orders for which the customer reported a product or listing issue divided by total orders.
“Amazon listens to customer feedback across returns, refunds, customer service contacts, and product reviews,” the company explains. It also notes that negative customer experiences stemming from delivery problems do not affect sellers’ CX metrics.
A seller’s CX Health is determined by comparing their offer’s negative customer experience (NCX) rate with those of similar offers. “CX Health is a metric that helps you understand how each of your offers is performing relative to similar offers, based on recent orders and customer feedback.”
The principle behind the new metrics: If you identify problems, you can take action to fix them. Some sellers believe the metric is designed to help sellers identify poor products rather than help Amazon identify poorly-performing sellers.
Amazon says CX Health and NCX rates don’t result in any account-level action. But sellers have grown wary of new metrics since online marketplaces often introduce them as informational only, and then subsequently make them count against a seller’s standings.
Be sure to visit the AuctionBytes Blog to learn about other changes Amazon is making to seller metrics.
And what does this metric measure? The number of returns an item gets!
In other words, it’s the SELLER’S FAULT if buyers return things!!
How does this help us? We sell brand new name brand goods.
Most of the products that we sell are worn. Sizing and comfort are going to be an issue, this will lead to more than average returns. We can’t modify the listings (they’re not ours, they were created by the manufacturer), we can’t change buyer behavior. The sites make it easier and easier to return items – they practically encourage it. Yet they now give red flags for items when customers do return them.
Nuts