Sellers are aware of the difficulties of getting feedback and reviews. Especially since last fall, when Amazon banned incentivized reviews.
Recently, Amazon made yet another change. Buyers can now opt out of seller feedback.
This could affect sellers looking to generate reviews by sending out messages to buyers after they purchase.
More and more sellers have been receiving emails like this from Amazon. See below:
“Dear Seller,
We were unable to deliver the message you sent for order [002-xxxxxxx-1234567] because the buyer has chosen to opt out of receiving unsolicited messages from sellers.
However, even if a buyer has opted out of unsolicited messages, if you need to send them a message critical to completing his or her order, you can do it using Buyer-Seller Messaging:
- Go to Manage Orders.
- Click the buyer’s name in the list, which will take you to Buyer-Seller Messaging.
- Select “Additional Information Required” as your subject, write your message, and click Send
If you tried to respond to a buyer and received a message that the buyer has opted out of unsolicited seller messages, please respond to the buyer on the original message thread (instead of starting a new thread) and make sure that his or her original message is included in your reply.
For your reference, the following messages are considered “critical” to complete the order:
- Product customization questions
- Delivery scheduling
- Issues with a shipping address
The following messages are “not critical” to complete the order:
- Requests for seller feedback or customer reviews
- Order, shipment, or delivery confirmations
- Proactive customer service (for example: product manuals, tips for using the product, FAQs, suggestions if something goes wrong)
- Out-of-stock or delay notifications and offers of alternate products (please cancel the order instead)
Please don’t send messages to opted-out buyers for correspondence that isn’t critical to completing the order. Repeated violations of this policy may result in enforcement actions or loss of selling privileges.
Learn more about Buyer-Seller Messaging and what messages are considered critical to completing orders.
Sincerely,
Amazon Seller Support”
What You Need to Know About the Change
Amazon has given customers to option to opt out of messages from all sellers. If a buyer has opted out, you can no longer be contact buyers for things that aren’t critical to the order.
Based on the recent flood of emails warning sellers, we believe shoppers who previously opted out are now automatically unsubscribed from all Seller Feedback emails.
However, you can still message customers if the message is deemed critical inside Seller Central. You do this by going through Manual Orders, clicking on the buyer’s name, which will take your through to buyer-seller messaging, and then click on “Additional Information Required” as the subject line.
Now you just need to write your email and click send. But sending messages considered not critical may land you in trouble with repeated violations. So proceed with caution.
How Can Customers Opt Out of Receiving Messages?
Buyers can opt out, or unsubscribe, from all Seller Feedback in a couple different ways:
- By adjusting their Notification Settings in the “The Communication Preferences Center” or
- By unsubscribing from emails sent from the Amazon Marketplace: marketplace-messages@amazon.com
The good news for sellers is that customers aren’t very aware of how to opt out of receiving messages.
Here’s the Communication Preferences Center:
A seller is able to out of few categories or they can choose to untick “Seller Communications” and “Seller Feedback” in their Amazon account settings.
They also have the option to not receive any marketing emails at all.
What Happens When Buyers Opt of Emails From 3rd Party Services?
When a customer unsubscribes from emails from either the Communications Preference Center or the Amazon Marketplace, they won’t receive marketing emails from any seller.
In accordance with the SPAM CAN Act of 2003, every single email must have some form of an opt out. Amazon and any 3rd party Amazon email marketing service needs to include an unsubscribe option in the footer of each email.
Most email autoresponder tools send out emails using addresses like xxxxxxxxxxxxxx@marketplace.amazon.com. Here, the email isn’t coming directly from marketplace-messages@amazon.com.
So in order for them to unsubscribe the 3rd party autoresponder emails, they need to unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe button at the bottom of that email.
The customer’s email will be blacklisted from emails sent from that particular seller.
For example:
“Your have a customer that unsubscribes from your email that you send to them using a 3rd party email service. You will not be able to send them future emails using that same service, however other sellers with that same buyers information will be able to send them emails through other 3rd party email providers. (The exception is if the buyers has opted out all marketing communications using the two methods mentioned above.) You’ll get a message from Amazon that the buyer has opted out.“
Currently there is no way for 3rd party providers to know if the buyer has unsubscribed through the Communication Preferences Center of the Marketplace.
Will My Account Be Suspended?
The answer is no. Jason from Amazon’s MWS team posted this in the Amazon forums here.
What Can I Do About?
Review your current feedback messaging.
- We recommend following up with customers a maximum of 2 times. The first email should be providing value to help improve the customer experience with your product. For example, if you’re selling a silicone spatula, give the buyers a guide on baking tips and recipes. Then follow up and request feedback from the buyer to ensure they were satisfied with your product.
- Do not explicitly ask for a 5 star review. Nor should you offer any sort of incentive, like a longer guarantee or discount on another product. This will get your account in trouble.
- Ask yourself “Am I providing a good customer experience in my emails. Will my customers get good value out of this?” If I got this email, would I find it annoying?
- Keep a list of buyers from whom you receive these communications so you can add them to your blacklist. This is to ensure that you don’t email a buyer who has opted out again. Buyers who have opted out of your emails are less responsive and are unlikely to leave you a review.
Conclusion
The purpose of the change is to improve the customer experience on Amazon. Since the TOS change, sellers have had trouble generating reviews. Therefore, many have resorted to more frequent and aggressive messages to buyers, encouraging them to leave reviews.
This has resulted in the number of complaints from customers. Particularly with messages like “Give us a five star review, Give me a review” etc.
At the end of the day, Amazon is trying to protect its customers. It’s all about the customer experience. Think about it from a customer perspective. You don’t like it when you are flooded with feedback requests from any product or service that you recently purchased.
With more and more sellers relying on messaging buyers for reviews, this has gotten out of hand in Amazon’s eyes.
Is this the end of messaging buyers for feedback? No.
Only a small percentage of buyers are opting out of receiving messages. It’s important that you make sure your feedback values are straightforward and engage with your customers.
Let us know if you have any comments or questions in the comments section below.
I suspect the two methods of opting out of which you speak are not the only ones. We are getting about 50% of customers opted out. I have been talking to one and he is unaware of any opt-out, so I suspect Amazon are resetting a proportion of customers’ accounts to “opted-out”.