AMAZON ACCOUNT PERFORMANCE. How to take care of your account's health and what to do if it gets sick?

In the age of the coronavirus, the topic of health is literally everywhere and is being debated in every aspect. We hope you are healthy and staying at home. Regarding health and Amazon, we decided to write a bit about how to maintain good Amazon account health and what to do when issues arise with the health of your Amazon account.

It is no secret that one of the biggest reasons for Amazon's success has been its unmatched customer service quality compared to other platforms. Amazon places great emphasis on maintaining consumer trust and ensuring positive consumer experiences in every aspect of its operations. One of the factors that help maintain the best possible Amazon customer experience is requiring external sellers to adhere to appropriate sales standards. Below, we outline the requirements you need to meet to avoid having your selling privileges suspended.

ACCOUNT HEALTH - Amazon Account Health
This is a set of factors used by Amazon to evaluate overall sales performance and customer service. It consists of three key elements:

• Order Defect Rate (ODR): <1%

• Order Cancellation Rate: <2.5%

• Late Shipment Rate: <4%

ORDER DEFECT RATE (ODR)
The Order Defect Rate (ODR) is a key measure of your ability to provide good customer service. It includes all orders in the last 60 days and is a combination of three different metrics:

• Negative Feedback Rate - comments and ratings

• A to Z Guarantee Claims

• Chargeback Claims

These three factors are collectively considered when determining your account's ODR level. Amazon takes all defective orders into account and then divides them by the total number of orders during that period. So if one A-to-Z Guarantee claim was ruled against you and customers left two negative feedbacks with a total of 100 orders placed during that period, your ODR would be 3%. According to Amazon's policy, sellers must maintain an ODR below 1%. If the ODR exceeds 1%, it will result in account deactivation. However, this does not happen automatically. If you are just starting to sell on Amazon and the number of your orders over the past 60 days was 50, and there is one negative experience raising your ODR to 2%, you are likely to receive just a warning. However, if the rate remains above 1% for an extended period or jumps to this level on an account that already has thousands of orders and has been selling for years, restrictions on selling or account suspension are practically certain.

NEGATIVE FEEDBACK RATE
Negative feedback is typically left by customers who did not receive exactly what they wanted - a shipping error, the product arrived damaged, etc. Another common reason is delivery delays or unsatisfactory contact with the seller. If you get negative feedback from a customer, you can take two steps to have it removed. If the feedback left by the customer is unjustified and the order was shipped according to the applicable standards, you can request Amazon to remove it. Another solution is to contact the customer to resolve the situation, offer a discount, a discount on future orders, or just apologize, hoping they will remove such a comment.

A TO Z GUARANTEE CLAIM - A-Z GUARANTEE
A to Z Guarantee protects customers when: they did not receive a package by the maximum expected delivery time, they received a different product than expected, or the product arrived damaged. According to Amazon's rules, in such a situation, the customer should first contact you to resolve the issue. If after 48 hours you have not reached an agreement with the customer or the resolution is not satisfactory to them, Amazon allows the submission of a claim. Upon acceptance of the claim, Amazon gives you 5 days to resolve the issue. During this time you must contact the buyer; if you do not, the claim will be automatically ruled in favor of the customer. In cases where you attempted to resolve the issue, the customer submitting the claim must describe their position - the reason for the claim, to which you, as the seller, must respond. Then Amazon reviews both positions and makes a decision on the matter, which may negatively impact your ODR or not.

The type of A-Z guarantee claim determination that negatively affects your ODR:

• Claims ruled in favor of the customer and the purchase cost refunded from your account to the customer. Note: in this case, the customer has the right to keep the item bought.

• Claims for which you refunded the purchase cost to the customer after opening an A-Z claim. Note: if the customer agrees to a refund in mediation between you and the buyer, ask them to close the A-Z claim first and then return the funds.

• Claims for which you or Amazon cancelled the order.

  The following types of claims do not impact ODR:

• Claims granted in favor of the customer, but paid by Amazon.

• Claims denied by Amazon.

• Claims retracted by the customer.

  When an A-Z guarantee claim appears on your account, you should always try to resolve the dispute with the customer as quickly as possible. If you were unable to do so, remember that your response to the claim to Amazon should not be emotional; try to answer briefly and accurately.

CHARGEBACK CLAIMS
Chargeback requests are similar to A-to-Z guarantee claims, except the credit card issuer reviews the claim and makes the decision, not Amazon. A chargeback means that the buyer confirms the purchase but informs the credit card issuer that they encountered an issue, such as:

• The buyer claims they did not receive the item.

• The buyer returned the product but did not receive a refund.

• Unauthorized use of the credit card.

  To prevent chargeback claims, follow these guidelines:

• When shipping a product, always use the customer's address provided in the Amazon system. The seller is responsible for any disputes reported related to orders shipped to a different shipping address.

• When shipping products, always add the tracking number received from the carrier to the system.

• Use delivery confirmation (signature required) for high-value items.

  All chargeback claims must be responded to within 7 calendar days of receiving the complaint, just like in the case of receiving an A-to-Z claim.

All three factors contribute to the level of the ODR metric; in addition, there are two more significant factors that also threaten to block sales if surpassed.

LATE DISPATCH RATE
Similar to the previous metrics, timely shipping is also represented as a percentage of defective orders relative to the total and must not exceed 4%. Therefore, it should be noted that all order receipts must be confirmed in the Amazon system according to the specified date.

PRE-FULFILMENT CANCELATION RATE
This is the percentage of orders cancelled by the seller before shipping confirmation. The pre-fulfilment cancellation rate should not exceed 2.5%. As such, when adding products to your Amazon listing, you need to be sure that you can fulfill their shipping. It is also worth paying attention to international shipping settings. If you want to ship your products only to Germany, for example, make sure to uncheck the option to ship to other countries in your settings.

CONSEQUENCES
Amazon's goal is to protect consumer experiences and maintain buyer trust. If the orders you fulfill do not meet the requirements, customers' experiences while shopping on Amazon will be negative and thus Amazon's reputation is at risk. To reduce the number of such situations, Amazon has implemented a series of restrictions for not adhering to the designated standards.

First, if your ODR starts to rise significantly, you will automatically lose the Buy Box for your products. Secondly, Amazon may freeze your funds in your account, preventing their withdrawal, or suspend or close your selling account.

AMAZON ACCOUNT SUSPENSION - Amazon Account Health
Amazon can block your sales in three different ways. Each of these three blocks arises from different reasons, and their consequences will vary.

SUSPENDED ACCOUNT
Suspensions occur when the order defect rate is slightly above 1% and no other negative factors exist, such as delivery delays or order cancellations before confirmation. At this point, you simply cannot sell on Amazon. After removal of selling privileges, you have 17 days to create a Plan of Action (POA). If you have a history of suspensions, getting reinstated to sell on Amazon can be difficult.

REJECTED ACCOUNT
Your account receives a rejected status when in the case of a suspension you send an unsatisfactory Plan of Action (POA), or it is another suspension of the account in the recent past. To avoid finding yourself in this situation, you should carefully and diligently prepare the first POA. In this situation, you should also not send a Plan of Action repeatedly and thoughtlessly, as this can lead to the third level, which is account suspension.

BLOCKED ACCOUNT
Amazon does not accept repeated appeals against account blocks. Your Plans of Action will no longer be read, and you will have irreversibly lost the ability to sell on Amazon. In this situation, Amazon will block your withdrawals for 90 days, after which your selling account will be closed.

PLAN OF ACTION (POA) - AMAZON REQUIREMENTS
According to Amazon guidelines, your Action Plan should consist of three parts.

ROOT CAUSES
The Action Plan should start by explaining the errors that led to customer dissatisfaction. Accept whatever happened and do not place blame on the customers.

SOLUTIONS
Describe the activities taken, new rules, and procedures you have implemented to resolve the issue. Explain in detail how the taken solutions will help your business remain compliant with Amazon's policies.

PREVENTING ACTIONS
The final step is to formulate preventive actions. This is an important part of your Action Plan; at this point, you must show what you will do in the future to prevent similar situations from occurring.

Your Action Plan should be based on facts and specifics. Focus on the events that led to the problem rather than presenting your product, business, or customer. Avoid using emotional language. Do not question Amazon's policy guidelines. Amazon must be sure that you know which actions led you to account suspension.

Provide an explanation of all the issues. Some deactivations may arise from a combination of problems (for example, a high number of defective orders may result from negative feedback and undelivered orders). You must address each defective order, providing the reasons for the occurrence of that situation.

Make sure that the Plan you present is clear and that the Seller Performance team will have no trouble reading your explanations. Remember that you are one of thousands of Amazon sellers writing to the Seller Performance department, so your Plan of Action should be brief - excessive verbosity in descriptions may lead to rejection of the plan.

The second step of the Action Plan is to solve the issues, which means that for every cause of the problem, you have a ready solution. If delayed shipments caused your scores to drop, mention the new shipping fulfillment system or a new agreement with a courier company and how that has contributed to improving the situation.

The third step is to ensure that you will prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. So for example, if your customers complained about receiving damaged products, you must ensure that new packaging standards have been implemented, and as a result, products will be delivered to customers in perfect condition.

CONCLUSION
If you are a new seller on Amazon or want to start selling, remember that maintaining your account health level will allow you to sell safely and sustainably. Understanding Amazon's policy guidelines is the surest way to succeed in international sales.

If you have any doubts or need assistance, reach out to us. Want to share your thoughts on this article? Leave a comment - perhaps this will be the answer to another seller's question. Be part of the Go2Market community.

Happy Performance Management
Go2Market Crew