Using the Feedback Manager

Maintaining a high feedback rating is an important factor in becoming a successful seller on Amazon. Customers often review feedback ratings when determining whether to make a purchase from a seller. If you receive negative feedback, it is important to quickly determine the cause of the problem and to work toward resolving it.

See "The Importance of Feedback" below for details about how we calculate your feedback ratings. Also see Improving Your Feedback Rating to identify common causes of negative feedback.

Overview

Feedback Manager consists of two tables:

• Feedback Rating: Shows your feedback rating for the past 12 months and your percentages and corresponding actual feedback counts for 30, 90, and 365 days, and lifetime.
• View Current Feedback: Displays actual feedback and additional ratings from a buyer.

View Current Feedback includes the buyer's responses to three questions about the service you provided for their order: Arrived on Time, Item as Described, and Customer Service.

"Yes" responses in these columns indicate the buyer was satisfied with these aspects of your performance.

"No" responses indicate the buyer was not satisfied. (These questions are optional to the buyer, so answers may not be available for every order.)

You can use this information to identify trends in your performance. These columns are visible only to you in your selling account.

In View Current Feedback, you can take the following actions:

• View the related order for each feedback rating.
• Resolve incorrect or unfavorable feedback with a buyer.
• Respond to buyer feedback posted on Amazon.com.

Buyers have 90 days to leave feedback and 60 days to remove it. Amazon will remove feedback only when it meets the criteria specified in our policy.

Learn more about Seller Performance Measurement and how to submit Appeals for Suspended or Blocked Accounts.

Feedback Reports

You can download a report for all neutral (3 stars) and negative (1 and 2 stars) feedback you have received from buyers within a selected period of up to one year. This report is in tab-delimited text-file format (.txt) and contains all the data you see in the View Current Feedback table in Feedback Manager.

To generate a feedback report, follow these steps:

• Go to the Performance section of your seller account, and select Feedback.
• On the Feedback Manager page, click the Download feedback reports button.
  You will be taken to the Download Feedback Reports page.
• On the reports page, select a report from Select Report Type.
• Select the time span for the report from Select Days.
• Click Request Report to generate a report.
  A status box confirms your request.
• In the Download column, you can view the report status and availability. Click Refresh to update the status.
  When your report is ready, the status will change from "Not Ready" to a download button.
• Click Download to download your report.

A dialog box will ask you to open or save the file. We recommend that you save the file and open it in a database or spreadsheet program.

Resolving Feedback

When a buyer posts negative feedback in Customer Reviews, we encourage you to contact the buyer individually to resolve the problem. After resolving the buyer's concerns, you can ask him or her to remove the feedback from the website. However, please remember that pressuring a buyer to remove negative feedback is a violation of our policies.

To contact a buyer about negative feedback, follow these steps:

1. In Feedback Manager, scroll down to View Current Feedback.
2. Find the comment you want to resolve and click the Resolve button.
   You will be taken to the Resolving Negative Feedback page.
3. Click the yellow Contact Customer button.
4. From the drop-down menu, select a subject.
5. In the Message area, type your message.
6. Use the Add Attachment button for receipts, supporting documents, etc.
7. Click Send e-mail to send your message to the buyer.

Incorrect Feedback

Sometimes buyers make mistakes when leaving feedback. If you believe a buyer has left negative feedback in error, use this page to contact the buyer and offer to resolve any problems with the order. If the buyer is happy with the order and the negative feedback was left by mistake, you can ask the buyer to remove the feedback. For more information, see What can I do about incorrect negative feedback?

Responding to Feedback

If you work with a buyer to resolve a situation, but the buyer decides not to remove negative feedback, you may choose to post a response on the website. You can use the Respond button to post a response to buyer feedback. This response displays on the Amazon.com website. It is not a way to communicate with the buyer.

In your posting, you can explain how you worked to correct the problems. Your response won't change your feedback rating, but other customers will be able to read your explanation when they see the buyer's feedback.

When replying to negative feedback, keep your comments brief and professional. Even if the buyer comment is not courteous, replying in a similar manner can backfire and reflect badly on you.

1. In Feedback Manager, scroll down to View Current Feedback.
2. Find the comment you want to respond to and click Respond.
3. Enter your response.
4. Click Submit.

Once you submit your response, you can delete it, but you cannot edit it. Also, if a buyer removes the feedback, your response will be removed too.

To remove your response, follow these steps:

1. In Feedback Manager, scroll down to View Current Feedback.
2. Find the comment you want to remove and click Remove Response.
   A message will display: "You are only removing your response, the buyer's feedback will remain. You will not be able to leave another response on this feedback."
3. Click Remove Response again to confirm or Cancel to cancel your request.

Removing Buyer Feedback

If a buyer agrees to remove the feedback, you can provide them with these step-by-step instructions:

1. Go to Amazon.com and click Your Account in the upper right hand corner.
2. Click Your Orders.
3. On the right, select a date range from the Date drop-down box. Click Go.
   A list of orders appears.
4. Locate your order and click View Order Details in the left-hand column, under the Order Placed date.
5. Scroll down to Your Seller Feedback and click Remove.
   The Remove Feedback page appears.
6. Select a reason for removing the feedback, and then click Remove Feedback.

The Importance of Feedback

Buyers can submit only one feedback comment per order. The link to leave feedback is online, on the order details page in the Your Account area and is available 3 days after the order has been confirmed. We also send a feedback reminder within 2 days of the maximum estimated delivery date of the order or within 22 days of the order being placed (whichever comes first) if a buyer hasnt already left feedback.

We encourage you to resolve any situations by researching the root cause behind each negative rating, addressing the buyer's concerns, and making improvements to your processes and policies. For tips on soliciting and managing feedback, see Improving Your Feedback Rating.

What ratings mean

To leave feedback, a buyer must rate you using a 5-star system:

• Positive feedback: 5 or 4 stars
• Neutral feedback: 3 stars
• Negative feedback: 2 or 1 stars

Feedback percentages are rounded off to the nearest whole number and therefore your totals may at times add up to 99% rather than 100%. For example, if a seller has 1001 positive, 15 neutral, and 4 negative ratings, for a total of 1020 ratings, the percentages will show as 98% (rounded off from .981), 1% (rounded off from .014), and 0% (rounded off from .003), for a total of 99%.

We calculate your feedback score using the following methodology:

SUM (positive feedback) / SUM (all feedback) for feedback left in the last 30, 90, 365 days, and lifetime

For example, suppose you have the following feedback scores:

• Total of all positive feedback = 90
• Total of all feedback (1 thru 5) = 100
• Divide positive feedback by all feedback
• Feedback score = 90.0%