This is something that all online booksellers must deal
with, and unfortunately, most negative feedback that you get will be based
on the performance of the Post Office rather than you as a bookseller.
Customers do not seem to be able to distinguish between the postmark date
and the date they receive their book, so they punish you for how long it
might take the Post Office to deliver.
If I look through my feedback, or the feedback of other sellers with very
good ratings, I see that a majority of customers leave positive feedback
with a reference to how quickly their book arrived rather than their
satisfaction with the book itself. I guess in this respect I am being
graded well as a result of when the Post Office delivers on time.
Despite being rated based on Post Office delivery performance, the Post
Office really does a great job and offers the most cost effective delivery
means for most booksellers - provided you package your books to minimize
"lost in the mail" books. On the occasion that the Post Office delivers a
book late, loses a book, or even delivers the book on time and the
customer thinks it should have come quicker, your customer's inclination
is to leave you negative feedback.
When you open your online seller account and find that a customer has left
negative feedback because their book took a couple days too long to
arrive, I know the temptation is to send the customer an email explaining
what an idiot he/she is, but this is probably not the best way to get them
to reconsider or remove their negative feedback.
A couple weeks ago, I logged into my account and found a customer had left
negative feedback for me. I didn't keep the exact statement, but it was
something like:
"Don't do business with this seller, they live in the same town as me,
I paid for priority mailing, and the book took three weeks to arrive."
I was really annoyed when I looked up the transaction. The feedback was
left on a Tuesday morning, the customer had placed their order on the
previous Thursday evening, and I shipped the book within the guidelines on
Saturday morning. Only Friday and Monday had gone by with respect to
business days, and the customer was whining. There were some other things
this customer claimed that were not only wrong, they were malicious. He
did not live in the same town as me, he lived on an island 30 miles away.
He did pay for Priority Mail, but provided an invalid address. I tried
to contact the buyer, but he did not respond to my email. I spent quite a
bit of time trying to locate him online and to find a valid street, but
there was no such street on Bainbridge Island. I even spent time at the
Post Office with one of the clerks trying to find the address, but was
forced with sending the book via Media Mail and hoped that the Bainbridge
Island PO would know where the street was for delivery.
In retrospect, I probably should have cancelled the order and taken my
chances with the customer and negative feedback, but after spending so
much time trying to help this obviously delusional customer, I was really
angry when I saw the negative feedback. I wanted to tell him what a jerk
he was, but I opted to try a more diplomatic approach and explain the
effort I made to get his book to him. Within a day he removed the
negative feedback. Several days went by and then the book came back with
a PO stamp that said "No such street." The same day the customer filed an
A-Z refund claim. I refunded the book price, but denied a refund of the
postage because I didn't feel it was my fault he didn't know where he
lived. Had the customer not previously left and removed his feedback, I
probably would have refunded his entire purchase plus postage rather than
risk negative feedback, but I knew this particular buyer could not leave
feedback again.
It doesn't matter how well you conduct your online bookselling business,
there is going to come a time when you have to deal with negative
feedback. Unfortunately, the online marketplaces are not at all helpful
to the online bookseller when it comes to malicious, obnoxious, or
outright stupid customers, they will not assist you with the removal of
negative feedback, it will be up to you. That is why I provided the
customer request for negative feedback removal letter in my book for you
to tailor for your own use. Knock on wood, I still have a 100% feedback
rating, and I hope the tips in my book help you maintain one as well.
