17.11.22

Amazon Support Tips

Written by Matthew Ferguson | Read Time: 4 mins

Agency Advice

As you may have read, we’ve had complaints about Amazon Support lately. Who hasn't when working in an Amazon account…

We likely will keep posting our thoughts and questions. We would love you to share yours with us for possible new posts.

See past and supporting posts in this series:

However, it's important to be constructive. As much as we may all wish to share in the misery with our different stories, what can we do to meaningfully push for change and get more positives from Amazon Support?

Below, we try to offer our broad-stroke thoughts.

Repeat, repeat, repeat… repeat.

The first piece of basic advice we can offer? Don’t give up.

It may feel like you are on an endless merry-go-round of replying to the same questions and never getting a clear response. It may feel like your life is wasting away as you retype, re-edit and re-’submit’ replies. It may feel like someone is playing a prank on you.

Do not give up - be persistent and fight at times against the judgement of your sanity. Eventually, most of the time, usually, you get through to someone who, maybe, possibly, can help. God does not hate you.

Breath in, breath out

After the 3rd or 4th reply of nonsensical responses, you might be slowly losing your ability to see straight.

Unfortunately, however, Amazon support does not work in the way most do - there is no case ‘owner’ at Amazon. They all enter a queue, and you find yourself constantly explaining the same topic to an faceless parade of different support agents, each on the clock to ‘resolve’ your case as quickly as they can.

This can leave some of us a little hot-headed. People who value efficiency and their time, and just basic common sense and competence, might struggle to survive the slog. The author has this problem. We have plenty of time for mistakes and uncertainty. Just not blatant incompetence, especially when its displayed at an institutional level.

Even with a legitimate emotional response brewing in your fingers, avoid typing angry replies. The moment you do, even when justified, you will only set your timeline back further.

So grit your teeth, re-read your response, edit out emotion, and try to appear calm. Amazon support has certainly increased my gym attendance.

Some tips on support cases

Be clear.

Make each sentence to the point. When considering using a comma, consider a full-stop instead. Avoid unnecessary words. The people reading are often not native speakers to the language you are typing in.

Try to repeat aspects of your last message in follow ups.

Where appropriate, remind the new support agent of the case history and encourage them to re-read it for detail. Copy and paste the main bits to your new reply because most won’t re-read past the initial first message.

Be factual.

Use dates and times. Use specific examples; orders, ASIN’s, reports, etc. Add supporting files, screen shots, reports and more. Clearly name the files, and clearly reference the file by name in the case.

Be clinical to the issue.

Don’t waste time with “this is urgent, it's hurting my sales” or “each minute the listing is inactive is a risk to my company” or “Amazon is losing money with this mistake”. This stuff won’t help. It may even exacerbate it.

Beware: Bots are lurking.

It's not unheard of to write “this is hurting my sales” and get an automated reply saying “we understand you are having trouble accessing the sales screen”. Make it simple for the machine, no matter if that's scripted code or a human trying to scan the email and copy+paste a generic reply back.

Clarity is key.

The more you help them clearly understand, the better chance you create of them getting it resolved quickly. Yours and supports’ goals are aligned - you both want the case closed quickly. The difference is you need the right information. They just need to flip the case back to you for a ‘response’.

Do not open new cases for suspensions.

It’s tempting in many situations to try to start again in the hope it will move faster. It won’t. Amazon Support will add new people to the case anyways, so opening a new case in the hope someone more capable will get it is a risky game that resets the clock more often than helps you skip ahead.

Do, perhaps, open new cases for complex issues…

Confusing as it may sound considering the point above this, some issues are tricky to understand for level one support and we very often we see the wrong information provided as a response. They love their wild-goose chases. If you feel the response simply cannot be true, open a new case and see if you get a better reply.

Pick up the phone for Catalogue (listing) topics.

Not all issues can be fixed on calls, but many can with a support agent. With luck, you will reach someone a tad senior who has access to editing tools. Level two Brand support is not reachable by phone for more ingrained issues, however by first calling and letting level one try, you at times bypass the standard replies. Not always, but it's always about hedging your bets with Amazon Support.

Help? Contact Us

If you are struggling, email us your issue (enquiries@richinsight.co.uk) and the case back-and-forth history. We are very familiar with some types of issues and the tricky nature of getting them clearly outlined so they can be resolved. We may be able to give you help with a simple emailed reply.

We encourage you to share any stories you have. We’ll publish them, with your permission and vetting! Please share these tips and stories. We do feel strongly Amazon must improve this area and nothing is heard better than a large single voice demanding so.

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