Our newest hire Melissa reacting to plans of action for Amazon Sellers:
As a new hire with Rosenbaum, Famularo & Segall PC, the law firm behind AmazonSellersLawyer.com, I have been researching the wonderful ways this firm supports Amazon sellers. My name is Melissa, and I am a journalist for the company, who will be sharing news, updates, and the incredible work this firm is doing.
I began my role here looking at the foundations for how this business evolved. If your Amazon account is suspended, reaching out to Amazon can probably feel like trying to speak or get feedback from a giant wall with no hope for reasoning with a real person, about your real issues in a timely manner.
As a seller, that must be quite frustrating. Amazon.com is a great platform and tool to reach billions of people with incredible products. It’s the go-to business for sellers of all walks of life, enabling people to be self-starters, independent operators and to see their entrepreneurial dreams come true.
However, given the sheer size of the company, the tolerance for any and all issues that can happen with day to day operations of a business is extremely limited, and can easily become the reason for account suspension.
That’s where we come in. We are here to provide the knowledge, expertise, and human connection when faced with a stressful situation like having your account suspended, and not knowing how to proceed. What a seller in this situation needs is a Plan of Action!
What’s a Plan of Action? It’s an original document that serves to persuade Amazon to reinstate your suspended account.
Reacting to plans of action – Here’s some guidelines I’ve learned for best practices in creating your own:
It should be originally written, not a form letter you might find online that you simply insert your details into. The latter is too impersonal, and the team member who will review this Plan of Action at Amazon will likely know all of the forms that exist out there and might assume you are rushing through this situation.
Divide it into three sections.
The first section should address the root cause of the issue. It’s especially important to write the root cause while sharing a positive action you will take to resolve it, like using better packaging, or maintaining a better tracking system, for example. This makes sense as a way to build trust instead of claiming the issue was no fault of your own, which would likely just rub the Amazon reviewer the wrong way.
Complaining about being wrongfully suspended will not get any traction, even though the situation may be quite frustrating.
Explain the immediate steps you took to make the customer happy. I learned through one of CJ’s videos, that giving a refund is the quickest way to resolve an immediate issue with a customer. Address whatever actions were taken right away to help the situation.
Describe the systemic changes being made. These are the long term changes you will make to your business so that Amazon will feel confident that their consumers will not have the same problems in the future.
That’s really it as far as the bare bones of a Plan of Action! I was surprised at how simple yet effective a document like this must be. The concepts are similar to writing any kind of persuasive document. It is unfortunate that some cases are unfair, yet we must address Amazon as though they were in the right.
However, no matter what the discrepancy, it always pays off to communicate gracefully. These simple steps for a complicated situation will help get your business back up and running.