How to Read and Moderate Your Own Amazon Product Reviews

As an Amazon seller, product reviews are incredibly valuable for gaining insights into your customers’ experiences and identifying areas for improvement. However, with so many reviews coming in, it can be difficult to keep up. This article will provide tips on how to effectively read and moderate your own Amazon reviews.

Why Reviews Matter

Product reviews serve several important purposes:

  • They build social proof and credibility for your product, increasing conversion rates
  • They provide qualitative feedback from real customers to help improve your products
  • The quantity and quality of reviews factors into search rankings and visibility on Amazon

In short, good reviews equal more sales. That’s why proactively managing your reviews is a must.

How to View Your Reviews

Amazon makes it simple to access all your product reviews in Seller Central:

  1. Go to the Brands menu
  2. Click Customer Reviews
  3. Select the ASIN to view reviews for that product

You can filter reviews by star rating, keywords, date range and more to analyze positive and negative feedback.

Tip: Install the Amazon Seller Chrome extension to see reviews directly on the product detail page.

Best Practices for Reading Reviews

With an effective process, you can turn customer feedback into product improvements:

1. Set aside regular review reading time

Don’t let your reviews pile up unread. Set a reminder to check reviews at least weekly.

2. Sort by low reviews first

Pay extra attention to 1-3 star negative reviews to identify priority areas for improvement.

3. Look for trends and common themes

If multiple customers report the same problem, it’s likely a widespread issue.

4. Compile feedback into a spreadsheet

Organize issues into categories like quality, shipping, etc. to quantify which are most prevalent.

5. Involve other teams

Share review insights across departments like R&D and operations to address problems.

Responding to Reviews

Replying to customer reviews boosts your seller rating and shows customers you value their feedback.

Reply promptly

Respond within 12-24 hours whenever possible. This improves the customer’s perception of your brand.

Thank the customer

Open by thanking them for taking the time to leave feedback, both negative and positive.

Apologize for problems

If they reported an issue, apologize and take ownership regardless of where fault lies.

Offer solutions

Provide next steps, whether that’s a replacement order, refund, or addressing their problem.

Follow up

Circle back in a few days to ensure their issue was fully resolved to their satisfaction.

Using Reviews to Improve Products

The most important thing is turning review insights into action.

Identify common pain points

Customers will surface flaws and weaknesses in your products. Pay attention to repeated complaints.

Brainstorm solutions

Get innovative on how you can eliminate issues identified through reviews.

Prioritize improvements

Decide which problems to tackle first based on prevalence, feasibility and impact.

Test changes

Rapidly iterate to confirm that your solution effectively addresses the root cause.

Monitor updated reviews

Check if customers specifically mention that the issue is now resolved in newer reviews.

Moderating Reviews

While most reviews will be authentic, you may occasionally need to moderate:

Spot suspicious reviews

Look for patterns like multiple 5-stars on the same day that praise aspects unrelated to product function.

Check reviewer histories

Click on the username to see if they seem like a genuine customer or have reviewed competitors.

Report policy violations

If a review violates Amazon’s guidelines, use the report function for Amazon to investigate.

Never pay for reviews

Purchasing reviews or participating in review exchanges will get you suspended. Don’t risk it.

Tools to Manage Reviews

Manually monitoring reviews across all your ASINs is unrealistic. Leverage tools like FeedbackWhiz to automate analysis and responses at scale. The software can identify critical reviews, reveal customer sentiment trends, suggest replies, and more to drive product development and customer satisfaction.

Key Takeaways

Getting serious about proactively managing your Amazon reviews will pay dividends through increased sales, higher search visibility, and reduced returns. Just be sure your processes comply with Amazon’s review policies. With an organized system to collect feedback and continuously improve based on reviews, you can turn customers into collaborators.