How to draft a Plan of Action (POA)
If your Amazon seller account is suspended, you will have to develop a Plan of Action (POA) to get reinstated. A plan of action is a document that outlines what the issue or violation is, how you are going to remedy it, and how you will prevent problems like this from arising in the future.
Your POA (Plan of Action) is going to help identify to Amazon that you understand and intend to respect the Amazon terms of services and policies as an Amazon Seller. You must be able to identify the issues that caused your account suspension and what steps you will take to prevent these issues from happening again on the Amazon platform.
It’s especially important to keep your shipping orders organized as well as respond to customer service inquiries and responses, we want to always ensure that your account is an A+ standard by Amazon.
It can take 48 hours for Amazon to respond to your Plan of Action and sometimes weeks, it depends on the severity of your Amazon Account. Your Plan of Action will determine if your account will be reinstated, once sent to the Jeff Bezos escalation team, they will then determine if your account will be unsuspended.
Sometimes you might have to write multiple plans of actions before Amazon makes a decision to reactivate your account, there could be a possibility that you might not be able to appeal your account after a certain amount of plan of actions. Try to hire someone who knows what they are doing when writing appeal letters to Amazon.
A Plan of Action consists of three sections:
1) Root Cause: This is the problem that Amazon wants you to address. It can be due to customer complaints or, in more advanced cases, intellectual property complaints. They really want you to follow through and find the issue at hand; take ownership, and elaborate on the issue. This is all in line with Amazon’s philosophy of the 14 Leadership Principles. Do a Deep Dive to find the root cause; a self-analysis so to speak. Look at your account and do a self-analysis, of how you run your business. Identify the cause of the issue, but never admit to doing anything wrong; always stay positive.
2) Immediate Remedy: This directly addresses the concerns or issues outlined in the root cause. What did you do immediately after finding out about the problem to make the customer happier? Amazon is all about the consumer, even if they are scamming the seller. You want to show Amazon, not just tell them, that you have taken measures to fix the problem: removed the issue from inventory, and refund the customer. This is necessary to maintain your account health and get your account back.
3) Systematic Changes to your Business to Prevent Future Issues: Outline what changes you are going to make to prevent future complaints. Make changes to your business: If you have a quality control issue, hire another employee; learn how to write better listings, provide better photographs, etc. This is where you design how you are going to be a better seller on Amazon.
You can’t use forms for this; you need to write a Plan of Action specifically designed for your business. The people reviewing your Plan of Action need to feel comfortable reinstating your account or listing by knowing that you are making changes to your business that will result in fewer or ZERO complaints from other Amazon sellers who purchase your products.
If you have questions about how to draft a Plan of Action, call us today for a FREE consultation at 1-877-9-SELLER or email us at [email protected]