It’s time to say it: Amazon customer service needs serious improvement.
As both a buyer and seller on Amazon, I've been dealing with their support nearly every day lately, and it’s been a nightmare.
As a seller, I reached out with a simple question about my account—just trying to understand what they needed from me. I ended up talking to 30 representatives, and guess what? Only three of them could even answer part of my question. I felt like I was being passed around without anyone actually wanting to help.
Then, as a buyer, I noticed some random charges on my account and tried to get an explanation. I went through four reps, and it was a comedy of errors: one kept transferring me to others, one told me to call a different number, and another had a “system problem” and asked me to hang up because she couldn’t search anything on her computer!
Amazon, with your resources and size, I expect so much better than this runaround. We’re talking about basic service here, not rocket science. I know I’m not the only one who’s frustrated—this is something Amazon needs to fix, fast.
It’s time to say it: Amazon customer service needs serious improvement.
As both a buyer and seller on Amazon, I've been dealing with their support nearly every day lately, and it’s been a nightmare.
As a seller, I reached out with a simple question about my account—just trying to understand what they needed from me. I ended up talking to 30 representatives, and guess what? Only three of them could even answer part of my question. I felt like I was being passed around without anyone actually wanting to help.
Then, as a buyer, I noticed some random charges on my account and tried to get an explanation. I went through four reps, and it was a comedy of errors: one kept transferring me to others, one told me to call a different number, and another had a “system problem” and asked me to hang up because she couldn’t search anything on her computer!
Amazon, with your resources and size, I expect so much better than this runaround. We’re talking about basic service here, not rocket science. I know I’m not the only one who’s frustrated—this is something Amazon needs to fix, fast.
36 replies
Seller_qTJiCxRI8PpIZ
I've had issues as a seller and as a buyer as well. I've come to the conclusion that customer service and seller support are basically the same clueless people. It's frustrating.
Seller_7LrAV0m5llaI7
I had a seller support agent quickly copy paste a bunch of stuff that didn't apply to my case, and then disconnected the live chat on purpose because they didn't want to look into or deal with or escalate the issue yesterday.
Today, in Live chat, I had a seller support agent that said (you gotta email the case, you can't do it via live chat). But there is no option to email, it goes directly to live chat. After a bunch of arguing and requesting escalation in the chat, she did infact escalate the case to someone who understood. But earlier she said that wasn't possible, and wanted me to click "end chat" a few times so they'd get paid.
But yes, it seems like 1st tier seller support doesn't actually know anything, and they want to copy paste some BS to close it off ASAP so they get paid and they must have some sort of time limit per case for metrics.
I tried the phone me option yesterday due to Amazon saying trademark logo misuse, but the item and brand owner was the owner of the trademark logo.
The agent on the phone kept asking for an authorization letter. I said "You want them to write a letter authorizing their own company to use their own logo on their own product?" They didn't seem to get it until I explained it to them that way.
Then they finally actually looked into the issue, saw that in fact there was no infringement happening as the Brand Owner, Logo, and brand of item all matched up, and reopened the ASIN listing.
I'm not sure if Amazon is instructing their agents to just refuse any case that comes up, and to trust their AI is correct in making decisions, or if it's just incompetence in seller support agents.
I also had a case marked resolved and answered, but a blank email showed up with nothing at all today. I looked up the case number, marked as "Answered". So somebody closed off the case, without even writing a message.
Seller_aUbEyzlSSnsDJ
Customer service and seller support. No business experience and no seller experience. This is what you get for all the fees we pay.
Seller_ArJhBa0D5u08m
I can get a better answer to my questions by calling my local McDonalds about Amazon questions. LOL Seller support has been gone for many yrs. I don't even bother any more.
Seller_ENBrTBTSn3PDq
You stand a better chance of getting your question answered through this forum or over at the experts on SellersaskSellers.
I have not used Amazon Seller support in over 6 years.
The MODs are now better on this forum than they use to be so tagging one of them would be helpful to your case.
Seller_euWk0xWbAjDs7
it was time to say long ago and it was said.
In much stronger terms though.
Seller_c3PGNDzKmqZu8
Amazon doesn't seem to understand what their poor offshored customer support costs them.
Amazon delivery drivers regularly deliver packages outside of my business on a busy, downtown sidewalk well after our hours of operation. They have been stolen, although not every time. I do however complain every time because I have delivery instructions staying we're open 10AM-6PM, 7 days a week. One time when letting Amazon know about a package being left outside, they apologized and refunded me. I was like.. okay. Now, when I complain that a package is left outside, they just refund me. I do not state the package was missing - just that it needed to not be left outside. They just go into automatic refund mode. Fine by me.
As a seller, I have hundreds of skus blocked from Amazon in my data feed because of errors in Amazon's database (wrong pic, wrong description, wrong dimensions, etc.). Contacting seller support ends up being no less than 6 interactions just to get them to understand the problem. To date, (it's been years), not a single database error has ever been fixed.
It must cost Amazon almost nothing for this offshoring because that is the only thing that makes sense for them to continue to waste so much money because of the offshoring.
Seller_4HsL3GZbyDLea
Amazon seller support is beyond garbage. It is an epic dumpster fire. Another seller on the boards put it perfectly.. Amazon seller support is the most incompetent group of people ever assembled for any purpose in the history of humanity.
To say they are horrible at their jobs is to give them way too much credit.
The majority cannot understand 2nd grade English.
The majority do not care the slightest bit about doing their jobs well.
They hang up on sellers.
They BS sellers.
They forward cases to black holes.
They sometimes mock the sellers.
There is ungodly noise in the background often.
It is so hopeless. It is hopeless because Amazon thinks so little of their sellers that this is what they have decided to give us. Amazon does not want to help their sellers. Amazon clearly has a complete disregard for us sellers.
Seller_WtOwWhtSrFjva
But quality trained csr cost money. Amazon is not into helping. They are too large. They don't care. Go somewhere else is how they feel about it.
