Sellers frequently complain about the quality of customer service on most online marketplaces. This week, Amazon invited sellers to rate support staff after each email interaction, even before their cases have been resolved, stating it was making the change based on suggestions it received from sellers.
Amazon explained that sellers can rate their satisfaction with the support received and provide details in sellers’ own words. “Your feedback will help us improve support resources such as training, communication, and features,” it explained.
One seller feared that while it might make them feel better to vent, when support staff see they have rated them incompetent, “I can know that my case will find a black hole to disappear into.”
Another seller wrote:
“Our suggestions were to hold inept support employees accountable and to get rid of bad policies. Sellers conclude (based on the same issues reoccurring thousands of times over) that Amazon does not properly train its employees and they do not hold them accountable. If we saw tangible evidence of our cases being handled correctly and quickly the first time we would all assume that there was accountability and the “reviews” we do on the support employees actually mattered.”
Another comment left by a seller said it was often the employer to blame for poor service, “not the hapless employee making $1/hr with no training or incentives, working in their second language.”
To give feedback under the new practice, sellers can click the survey link in support emails. See the full announcement on Amazon Seller Central.
