Feedback manipulation at Amazon.com
I just received an interesting e-mail from my friend Christine, who's a home-schooling mother and a frequent buyer on Amazon Marketplace.Last month Christine placed a Marketplace order that was never filled by the seller, with no explanation. Christine left negative feedback, and now the seller is offering to send a "free" book -- but only if Christine removes the negative feedback.
Is this unethical? It surely seems that way to Christine. Here's a snippet from her e-mail, and you can get the full rundown here on her blog, The Thinking Mother:
I feel that this seller's practices should be against the rules, if they are not already. I feel that trust is important, and that this seller is in the wrong. I would love to know that ethical Amazon Marketplace sellers do not endorse this practice.
I think this case points out two important things:
1. Once you get below 95 percent feedback, it *can be* a warning sign. I am sure there are many reputable sellers who have feedback below that -- especially if you have employees helping to run your business whose livelihood isn't directly dependent on buyer feedback.
However, most online sellers with high ethics will attempt to fix every problem, no matter who's at fault -- it's just the way they operate. And so when you start getting below 95 percent, I think you could also have a situation where there's a percentage of buyers who didn't complain when they got the shaft -- either because they can't be bothered, or they forgot about the order. Who knows, they might even be embarrassed at having been "ripped off," lots of people who get swindled never report it to the police, they're ashamed. OK, maybe I'm over-dramatizing. The point is, the actual level of service provided by sellers with suspect feedback could be worse than it appears.
2. I know that Amazon will suspend or close a seller account if they suspect "feedback manipulation." And I'll explain just how I know this: Every time I get a negative feedback, I'll offer the customer a carrot to delete their negative feedback. To give a typical case, sometimes I'll get a negative feedback like "1/5 - Slow! Book took four weeks to arrive!"
My usual response to the customer will be, "I'll refund your shipping fee of $3.49 if you'll delete the negative feedback." If it was a really cheap book sometimes I'll offer to refund in full. And of course I'll point out that I shipped promptly, it was the Postal Service that was slow. For really clueless customers, sometimes I'll explain a bit more, gently telling them their negative rating is actually defeating the whole purpose of feedback, which is to warn buyers of slipshod sellers, not those who bend over backwards making things right.
Anyway, I've done this probably 200 times since Amazon began allowing customers to remove negative feedback a couple of years ago. One time, however, a customer complained to Amazon about my doing this (talk about hard to deal with!) and I received an e-mail from Amazon, warning me about "feedback manipulation." Apparently some of the folks at Amazon believe that any time you offer a special deal in exchange for feedback deletion, it's "feedback manipulation" -- something you tend to hear more about in regards to eBay, not Amazon.
Maybe "feedback manipulation" came up because of what my customer said to Amazon, which I didn't see. The case I'm thinking of also involved an A to Z claim (the anonymous kind), so maybe that's why it got more scrutiny.
In the case Christine brings up, however, I must agree it's a shady practice. It's bribery because the seller is trying to cover up something. So participating in the cover up would be a definite disservice to the Marketplace, and work against the purpose of feedback. What's your take?
posted by Steve Weber at 10/12/2006
12 Comments:
Just read your recent post about Feedback Manipulation. Interestingly, this was a major topic of discussion at our most recent, bi-annual meeting of textbook store owners.
Several stores had been “kicked off” Amazon because their seller ratings had dropped into the 80’s due, in part, to buyers filing “unreasonable” negative ratings (blaming the store for the Post Office’s errors for example.) Honestly, there were other reasons, too. None of the stores that had been kicked off had a full time person responsible for Amazon sales which I think is a big mistake.
For many of us, me included, Amazon sales are too big for us to risk getting “kicked off” so we discussed this at length. Some ideas we batted around ...
To prevent getting kicked off, call Amazon Customer Service when and if a buyer files an unreasonable bad report such as complaining about slow delivery when we shipped it via USPS the day we received the order. Another example, we refund a customer if they decide to drop the class for which they bought the textbook. Technically, we don’t have to refund them in that case but, to service the customer we do. Unfortunately, this negatively affects our Returns Rating with Amazon. Catch 22. We wondered what advice the Amazon Customer Service rep would offer in this situation.
A competitor with a devious streak could easily knock us off Amazon by buying a few books from us and filing bad feedback. It might cost them $100 - $200 and it could really, really hurt us. Even worse, it could easily be done anonymously and we’d have no way of knowing.
Finally, to manage a seller’s positive rating, a “bad” seller could reverse this by buying from themselves (anonymously of course) and giving themselves good ratings.
At any rate in the vain of "Managing What You Measure," we’ve instituted a slight change to our managers’ daily reports. Now, each day the manager reports the store’s Positive, Neutral and Negative Amazon Feedback. I look at it every morning and so will the manager.
Personally, I think hairs are being split here. A rose by by any other name...and manipulation is manipulation. We've been selling on Amazon for three years and run pretty consistently at 98% positive. You can please some of the people all of the time...(I promise that will be the last cliche in this post!)...but there is always going to be some who are impossible to please. Thankfully, these tend to be in the minority in our experience. When we do get that odd negative feedback, we just let it go. People know things get lost in the mail, the mail service is unreliable for delivery times, and so on, so comments of this nature seem to have no effect on sales. In a perfect world, we'd all have 100% feedback, but that's an unrealistic expectation. In fact, I would be suspicious of a seller with much experience that has 100% positive feedback because I know stuff happens and no one is perfect.
We also sell used textbooks and college kids are a NIGHTMARE to deal with. We used to allow returns on textbooks when we first got started in the business but discontinued this when it got out-of-hand. It's bad enough they can't take the time to fill in their address properly and we end up paying to ship a book three times (first time, return with charges, second time to corrected address), and worse that their idea of being proactive is ordering the book a week after they find out they need it; let alone letting them canel on a whim because they found a cheap used copy posted on a bulletin board or dropped the class or "ordered the wrong book". Now we just tell them used textbooks are non-returnable and we haven't had any problems with this. I think they expect it because it is the industry norm. Even the college bookstore won't accept returns on used textbooks. Why should we be any different when we have to pay for shipping?
I'm sorry, call it what you want but a bribe is a bribe. The "free book" might be admired by some as a genuine attempt at "customer service" but to me it's a bribe and therefore unethical. Notice how it takes for the customer to leave negative feedback before the seller responds with this "generous" offer? It never occurred to them to be this generous and benevolent BEFORE the negative was left? It's the same situation on eBay.
I've been selling on Amazon for approximately 10 months. I am also a Powerseller on ebay with items other than books. I've noticed that the buyers leave silly, emotional feedback based on delivery service, which cannot be controlled by the seller.
Amazon employees aren't necessarily the brightest, lightest in the room, but complaining that the stresses put on leaving feedback should be two-fold. Not only should sellers be concerned about their reputation, but the buyers should as well of being difficult, providing vendictive information to get refunds, etc.
They can't be blocked, but are allowed to continually purchase from you do what they need and send it back, leave a negative feedback, and get a refund.
By chance, do you know if Amazon is working on something like that or is this like anything else with Amazon - lost in a pool of wonderful ideas. Also, have you heard of Darple.com - it's a new site that is a competitor to Ebay, but can also rival Amazon.
If Amazon introduced the remove feedback option, then why is it unethical if a hapless seller punished by unreasonable feedback takes action to have it removed? It is okay for us to put up with about 2% of totally unrelated feedback ("I never give more than 2 stars on my first purchase" This is a QUOTE!), but it is not okay for us to try to negotiate to have it removed?! Sounds like a classic case of Amazon corporate logic.
By the way, this seller told me that he reported me to Amazon for harassment, when I gently tried to explain to him what harm his action is doing to my business.
I completely disagree with the point that having 98% is virtually the same as having 100% feedback, because it is understood that there's always 2% of rotten apples in there. That might be clear to us sellers, but that's NOT AT ALL how buyers think, especially not the inexperienced type. They think 100% means 100% and 98% is simply not quite as good. Even I myself prefer the highest rating possible when making a purchase, because I know the buyer will do ANYTHING to keep the feedback up. In case there's trouble with my order, that sounds a lot better to me than "just letting the 2% of bad feedback slip by". I have had more than 1 buyer tell me that they only buy from 100% sellers. I've told them that these are unrealistic expectations, but they insist.
I don't think giving a free book is unethical. The customer has a free choice: Remove the feedback or not. If you don't like this deal for yourself, leave the buyer with his negative feedback. It is your choice. But another buyer might be happy to have the problem resolved that way and will chose to receive a free book.
I just came up against a 98% buyer, who will not budge, although the book is damaged. As things stand, I am stuck with a useless book, and he's comfortably filed my negative feedback into his 2% drawer.
I'd be happy if he'd be the "manipulative kind" who offered me a free book to make up for my loss. I very much prefer that to the ineffictiveness of leaving bad feedback. I'd be happy to remove it in this case. Again, this is my free choice. Please leave us our choices, I think it is unethical to restrict the free spirit of - yes, the ugly word: capitalism.
I had a buyer once threatten me to buy 10 penny books off me in order to be able to destroy my feedback and drive me off Amazon, and that it would be "worth every penny spent".
Is there actually anything one could do against that? I wish there was a way we could block buyers from ever buying anything from us again. I have several candidates in mind....
Interesting thought also that you could do the same thing yourself, i.e. buy your own books to boost your own feedback in case you are threattened with expulsion from Amazon...
I am glad I don't have to result to this and that this one buyer was such a nut, that I don't think his threat was real.
I really feel like it depends on a few things. If the seller wasn't made aware that his/her book didn't arrive until the feedback was recieved, offering the trade seems OK to me. If the seller ignored correspondence about the problem until negative feedback was recieved, then it seems dishonest.
I go above an beyond most sellers--I order alot of books off of Amazon and other sites, and maybe 1% of these sellers dothe things I do to provide excellent service.
I have never been able to acheive 100% in one 365 time span, because I get some of the dumbest neutral feedback, and the occasional negative for slow delivery, the last time the buyer ordered standard, and the book go to him in 5 days, and still gave me a negative for slow delivery.
A woman gave me the wrong address, not once, but twice, and I still gave her a full refund, and she dinged me.
However, I don't sweat it about feedback as much as others, because mixed in with the crazy neutrals and undeserved negatives, are some really awesome comments.
AND, I know that most customers probably do not pay attention to it, if they did, then all these companies with 89% feedback, couldn't possibly get as many sales as they do.
Also, I just dropped from 99% to 98%, and it hasn't affected my sales at all.
Someone mentioned that someone could falsely pad their account with positive feedback, which is trued, but it takes alot of positives to make up for even one neutral.
Also forgot to add, I think that the remove feedback option was also offered because so many people seem to leave negative/neutral feedbacks on the wrong orders--too bad half of these have spam filters that just eat up anything from Amazon and us 3rd party sellers.
I think it would be helpful if Amazon provided a way to see all the feedback comments that a buyer (or seller)has posted for others. eBay has this function, and it helps to spotlight the chronic complainers and would-be extortionists.
If this feature is available on Amazon, I haven't found it!
dd
All depends. Did Christine ever bring this to the seller's attention before leaving feedback?
(Most sellers want to please their customers, but no seller is perfect.)
If negative feedback was the seller's very first notice of a problem, then I think the seller is doing the right thing by trying to make amends and clear his/her record.
If the seller was contacted once or twice before feedback was left--if that seller showed no interest in a *known* problem--then that's a different story.
MHO
a “bad” seller could reverse this by buying from themselves (anonymously of course) and giving themselves good ratings.
This is the only activitiy that qualifies as "feedback manipulation". Its why multiple accounts are generally not allowed. Has Amazon defined precisely what feedback manipulation is? It would be news to me. What is not surprising is even Amazon employees are confused about it. Indicates there is no company internal reference either.
Ever heard of sellers mentioning feedback in their packing slips or shipping notices? Fairly common, right? I used to. I had only 2 complaints about it but the real deterent was I saw no benefit. One customer claimed this was feedback manipulation. That claim won't hold water for a number of excellent reasons.
Feedback manipulation is where you or a shill, post feedback to your own account. That's it. Period.
Feedback always has and always will be used as a threat, a bargining chip and a reward. That is as intended. Negotiations that involve feedback are NOT manipulation by any stretch.
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