As an eCommerce seller, understanding how to get product reviews on Amazon is crucial to success. Not only do reviews provide you with important feedback that can help improve your listings, they also highlight aspects of your Amazon products that may need attention. Simultaneously, Amazon product reviews are incredibly valuable to potential customers. Reviews help provide insight into the quality and value of an Amazon listing and often highlight seemingly minor details that can make or break overall satisfaction with a purchase.

Think about customer reviews like an endorsement (or lack thereof) from one friend to another. While there may be no true human interaction, good reviews have a similar level of influence and power over a sale. Positive reviews can help boost your product visibility and sales tremendously, however negative reviews can do just as much, if not more, damage. This means that it’s critical for Amazon sellers to take customer reviews seriously, and fully embrace their impact in order to succeed. Driving positive reviews from satisfied reviewers can take your business to new heights, but only if done the correct way and in accordance with all of Amazon’s product review policies.

Why Amazon Product Reviews are Important 

While Amazon product reviews may take as little as a few seconds to leave, all good Amazon sellers know that reviewers can have a long lasting effect on sales, visibility, and even the health of your listing or Seller Central account. For this reason, maintaining high quality products and stellar customer service is of the utmost importance to your success when it comes to: 

Not only do Amazon product reviews have a major impact on the purchasing decisions of millions of customers, they also have a significant impact on the health of your Amazon listing and Seller Central account. If you have too many negative product reviews you 

Increasing Your Sales 

Business Insider found that one third of shoppers won’t buy an eCommerce product without reviews, meaning that reviews are of the utmost importance to sales. Customers want some sort of assurance that they’ll be getting a quality product with their purchase, even if they can’t verify with their own eyes.

Building Trust with Customers 

Experienced Amazon Sellers know that more Amazon product reviews with a slightly lower rating can often outsell and outrank listings with significantly less reviews and a perfect score. Proven consistency among a high volume of product reviews and ratings shows customers that business is trustworthy. 

Although consumers tend to trust Amazon as a marketplace, they likely know nothing about your private label brand and rely on reviewers to provide honest advice. Without product reviews and seller feedback, potential new customers have no idea if you’re an honest seller or trying to scam them. Despite not knowing reviewers, consumers are far more likely to trust their peers than an Amazon seller that has profit to gain through promotion. 

Improve Search Rankings 

To purchase your product, customers obviously need to be able to find it first. Since an overwhelming amount of positive product reviews is indicative of a high performing product, Amazon prioritizes these listings in search rankings. By increasing the number of product reviews on your Amazon listing you’ll be able to push your product higher in the results for potential customers.

#1 Provide High-Quality Products

One of the best ways to receive more Amazon product reviews is to provide high-quality products. Customers who receive well-made items tend to be more likely to leave positive feedback, especially when the product exceeds their expectations. Creating a product that meets and exceeds customer expectations is key to receiving favorable reviews as it ensures that customers are having a positive experience with your product and store. Having an eye for detail will ensure customers have an overall pleasant experience with their purchase which can be reflected in the Amazon product review they leave behind.

By analyzing customer needs you’ll be able to create products that are valuable, fill a gap in the market, and even delight consumers. While middling or average products may not receive poor reviews, reviewers are fewer and much further between for an average quality product. Keep in mind that it takes an overwhelmingly positive or negative experience for a customer to be compelled to write a positive review on Amazon. 

Related: The Six Star Amazon Experience (From Tomer Rabinovich)

#2 Utilize Amazon’s Built-In Feedback System with the “Request a Review” Button

Encouraging customers to leave feedback on your Amazon product after they make a purchase is a great way to increase your reviews. To remind customers to leave a review after receiving their product from your Amazon listing it’s important that you utilize the “Request a Review” button in Seller Central.  

The “Request a Review” button can be found in the upper-right hand corner in Seller Central when you’re viewing a product order. Pressing the button triggers an email to the buyer, sent directly from Amazon, asking them to leave a product review and seller feedback. You can use this button anywhere from 5-30 days after the item has been delivered.

This email cannot be customized in any way, but it includes your store’s name, the product’s title, a product image, and two sets of stars to rate the Amazon product and provide seller feedback. There is also no way to track open or conversion rates of this email, because it is all directly through Amazon, and buyers cannot reply to the email for help if they face technical difficulties.

Although this method does not allow direct contact between the buyer and seller, it is a simple and functional way to request reviews. It also guarantees that you remain 100% compliant with all of Amazon’s policies regarding review and feedback solicitation. You can also determine what day and time to send the request after the item has been delivered. In general, this button is convenient and easy to use, as well as risk-free for those worried about violating Amazon’s policies.

#3 Request a Review Using Buyer-Seller Messaging

Requesting a review via Buyer-Seller Messaging is done through direct messaging on your Amazon Seller account. If you choose to use this channel, be aware that it is your responsibility to write a message that complies with all of Amazon’s Communication Guidelines and if you fail to do so you risk facing restrictions to your Buyer-Seller messaging. You also face the risk of sending multiple or duplicate emails by mistake, and possibly annoying your buyer and losing a potential reviewer.

However, Buyer-Seller Messaging requests are highly customizable and can include your seller logo and other important branding aspects. It can also be written in a more personal style that allows your customers to connect with the brand more easily. Buyer-Seller Messaging requests are especially useful for products that require product instructions or other content to complete the order. On the off chance something was to go wrong with your product or feedback requests, customers can reach out to you directly for customer support through this channel.

If you do choose to take the Buyer-Seller messaging route to request a review, consider the following tips: 

• Make sure your product review request is well timed. This means waiting till a couple days after customers have received the product so that they can truly test it. However, make sure you don’t wait too long or else you risk them forgetting about it. 
• Consider the customer’s experience. Have they submitted a negative inquiry or requested customer service in some way? Make sure that you have thoroughly responded and accommodated any requests or inquiries they’ve made before asking for a review. 
• Provide additional information in your message if possible. If you can send your customers supplemental materials about their Amazon product, whether it’s how to care for their purchase or special instructions to get the most functionality, you’ll be providing additional value to them. This type of above and beyond customer service goes a long way in forming relationships and loyalty with your customers– often resulting in positive seller feedback and product reviews. 

If you’ve already established a strong brand identity that connects with customers or sell products that could benefit from a little assistance, Buyer-Seller Messaging requests opens up a channel for the necessary conversations while still bringing in the feedback you want.

#4 Reach Out to Influencers

One of the best ways to get Amazon seller reviews is to reach out to influencers. Influencers have a large following who trust their opinion and recommendations on products they use or test. When looking for influencers, finding ones that match your product category and target audience is important.

This way, their followers can identify with the product and be interested in learning more about it. You should also ensure they have a good reputation and track record when working with brands like yours before reaching out to them.

#5 Provide Excellent Customer Service 

While you should always strive to provide excellent customer service in order to develop a trustworthy and positive reputation, solid customer service can be extremely beneficial when you’re seeking more Amazon product reviews. By offering excellent customer service upfront, you’ll not only leave customers with a satisfied and delighted feeling that may compel them become reviewers that leave praise, you can also preemptively negative reviews. 

Instead of retroactively dealing with negative feedback, excellent customer service helps ensure that your Amazon reviews stay persistently optimistic and positive. It also helps create repeating, loyal customers who understand the value and quality of your services. 

Maintaining Compliance with Amazon Review Guidelines

While the thought of taking matters into your own hands and requesting product reviews for your Amazon listings as you see fit, this can be incredibly damaging to the health of your Seller Central account in the long run. In order to maintain a healthy seller account and keep all your listings posted without issue, it’s important that you ensure compliance with all of Amazon’s review guidelines. 

This means that you can only request reviews through your Amazon seller account, not through third-party contacts, such as email or social media. It also means that you must stay within the allotted review request window to do so, cannot request exclusively positive reviews or influence the reviewer in any way, and cannot offer compensation of any kind for reviews. For a complete overview of Amazon’s guidelines for requesting product reviews check Amazon’s policies. 

Fake Reviews

Unfortunately, building up a healthy repertoire of positive reviews can take an extended period of time. To speed up the process it might be tempting to pay for fake Amazon reviews that can boost your rankings. 

However, this is not a wise choice and should be seriously discouraged. Amazon does not tolerate fraudulent reviews and if you’re caught paying for product reviews on new listings it could put your entire Amazon seller account in jeopardy. 

On top of that, fake reviews often don’t actually achieve their intended results. Customers are suspicious of products that have too many perfect reviews, even the best products tend to exist within the 4-5 star range when given honest reviews, not at a perfect 5.0. Fake reviews also are normally easy to spot as they’re often written in robotic language, poor English, and vague terms. And, if potential customers spot fake reviews on your products they’ll lose trust in your brand as a whole, diverting the sales that you were hoping for. 

Navigating Negative Customer Reviews 

Although no one wants to deal with the consequences of a negative review, the occasional low product rating isn’t a death sentence for your Amazon product or your business. Remember also that most products on Amazon don’t have perfect 5-star reviews, but instead have a healthy mix of majority positive, average, and the rare negative review. As long as you remain an overall reliable and trustworthy seller on the marketplace, customer reviews will remain generally positive. 

For the rare negative review make sure to follow this checklist to alleviate any anxiety that you might have: 

Monitor Your Products 

Amazon doesn’t send notifications for ratings of any sort, including negative ratings. It’s up to you to be on top of your customer reviews to ensure that they represent your product listings and business in a positive and accurate manner. 

Perform an Amazon Review Analysis 

Although you can’t ask a customer to change or remove bad customer reviews, you can contact Amazon about having bad product reviews taken down if they violate their policies. Amazon has stated historically that in product reviews comments about the following are not allowed: 

• Seller, order, or shipping feedback 
• Pricing 
• Content in unsupported languages 
• Private information, including email addresses or order numbers
• Profanity, harassment, or hate speech
• External links to other sites

If any of these things are included it might be worth contacting Amazon to take down the review, hopefully resolving your concern. 

Resolve the Issue

Oftentimes a negative review is the result of something that has gone wrong with an order, not a reflection of the Amazon product itself. If a customer writes a poor review due to something that’s within your capabilities to resolve or improve, it’s wise to take that seriously. 

Sometimes this can be as simple as updating a listing with better, more accurate information to ensure that no other customers face this problem in the future. In other situations you may be able to resolve this by providing a new item, offering a refund, or clarifying information about the product. 

Use the “Contact Buyer” feature to get more information about the situation and remedy things, but ensure that you still continue to follow all of Amazon’s policies about speaking with customers. This is a great moment to demonstrate excellent customer service, show empathy and understanding as it can improve your relationship with the customer significantly. 

Conclusion 

Amazon product reviews are one of the key metrics for success on the marketplace, and driving healthy, positive reviews is critical. While this may seem difficult at first, as long as you maintain high quality products, good customer service, and integrity in your business over time these reviews will begin to grow organically. Additionally, engaging with customers to encourage reviews and resolve issues can be useful but make sure that you’re staying compliant with all of Amazon’s policies. 

Positive Amazon product reviews can drive new sales and growth to your business, but to truly get the most from customer reviews it’s important that you see the value in all aspects to take your business to new heights.