The Amazon Strategist Show

Amazon’s Review Rules Keep Changing… Here’s How to Win

• The Amazon Strategist Show • Season 3 • Episode 85

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Amazon sellers, are your reviews at risk? With Amazon’s ever-evolving policies, what worked yesterday might get you flagged today. In this episode, John Cavendish sits down with Greg Reynolds, CEO of ZonSupport, to break down the latest in Amazon review management, customer service strategies, and how to future-proof your business.


💡 Key Takeaways:

✔ Negative reviews don’t have to tank your business—here’s how to handle them effectively.

✔ The right customer service strategy = more sales. Don’t let bad support cost you revenue.

✔ Diversify or die! Relying only on Amazon is a risky game—Greg shares why.

✔ Product inserts: smart or risky? The do’s and don’ts of using them for customer engagement.

✔ AI in customer service? Yes, it can help—but only if used the right way.

✔ Amazon’s policies are always changing. Stay compliant and ahead of the competition.


Don’t let negative reviews and policy shifts control your success. Learn how to protect your brand, engage customers the right way, and win in today’s Amazon marketplace!

Get $100 off first invoice - https://www.zonsupport.com/candy

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Connect with Greg and ZonSupport

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zonsupport

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zonsupportofficial

LinkedIn: https://hk.linkedin.com/company/zonsupport


Connect with John Cavendish
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jgcuk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejohncavendish
LinkedIn: https://hk.linkedin.com/in/thejohncavendish

Know More About Seller Candy
Website: https://www.sellercandy.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/SellerCandyPro
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sellercandyamz
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sellercandy/
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Speaker 1:

What is your most debatable or controversial opinion related to the Amazon or e-commerce industry?

Speaker 2:

Get off the Amazon platform. No, no, you must, you must go, you know, onto another platform. You need to have a bob each way and it's no good just ignoring it. And I know it's difficult. Well, it's not.

Speaker 2:

You just go and you open up a Shopify site and it's next to nothing and and you know you just you play a new devil we've had clients who played in devil and who are really quite good at social media, and I had some surprising success hello, I'm your host, John Cavend, and welcome to season three of the Amazon Strategy Show.

Speaker 1:

The show is all strategy, with no hacks, no silver bullets and no magic pills Just real, practical strategies for growing your Amazon business. Today, I'm joined by none other than Greg Reynolds, my friend Greg. Greg started selling online in a side hustle in 2014, so over a decade ago now, even though for me 2014 still seems very recent and initially outsourced his operations, Facing issues with an offshore customer service team that result in negative reviews. He bought operations back in-house in 2015. He now manages a substantial US-based team serving multiple platforms like Amazon, Walmart, Shopify and emphasizing his ethos of locals help locals.

Speaker 2:

So, Greg, welcome to the show. Thanks, John. Good to see you again.

Speaker 1:

How are you Great? Thanks, yes, if anyone listening, greg was actually in where I live at Christmas time, so we spent Christmas together. Yeah, great to see you at Christmas. It was a good day, thank you and so much food, yeah, so really Zon Support. Can you give us an overview of Zon Support and what you do in the marketplace?

Speaker 2:

Look, I'll just tell you our secret sauce straight up, mate. It's locals dealing with locals. All my team are Americanos. I'm obviously the exception there, born in New Zealand but left there many years ago. I still go back every year if I can, but I, based in Asia these days, spent a lot of time in the US and and everywhere else. So so really, what I, what we found from our, our venture into selling products in 14-15 is you know, I've got a lot of respect for all the people in Asia, pakistan, you know, wherever they are, who are real Amazon experts and they are. But when it comes to dealing with customers, our secret sauce is if you're an Americano talking to an Americano, you read in between the lines, you kind of understand what's going on, you know when to push back, you can see the city and state where people are if you look at their order. So you know if there's just been a big wind gone through Florida. So you just get a conversation going and and so that's really eight years is a bit scary, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

time passes really, really quickly and, yeah, it's always strange, looking back on it, how quickly time has gone by. So how have you seen it change over the last eight years of business, from what you used to receive when you started this business to what you can get on a regular basis now?

Speaker 2:

well, I hope we're not recording this, are we, john? In 2014, we started getting low star reviews. We just bought more reviews, push them down, but at the end of the day we got we got so many and there was clearly something wrong. Um, and then you know, later on, after we exited selling products, amazon changed the rules anyway. So have I seen a lot of change over the years? Yes, I have. Um, is it for the better or for the worse? It depends on which side you sit right yeah, oh, completely.

Speaker 1:

And then has the the number of the sort of messages that get through the system. Have they changed as well? Because I remember before you could pretty much contact the seller for anything. These days, amazon tries to automate quite a lot of these loops don't they?

Speaker 2:

oh, they do, and the one thing listeners have got to be so aware of is just be careful of the words you use, because there's bots who are running the rule over everything you write. So if you write the word review, if you write the word change I mean we've got a whole lot of words that we don't use in the business, that are used in everyday life conversations everywhere else, but it's a little bit silly to do it on Amazon, because I almost think sometimes Amazon's just sitting there poised, waiting for a fight because they're their customers. So, yeah, we've seen a lot of change. The templates that Amazon put out, for example, that avoid you actually speaking to customers, are a little bit challenging. But then, if you're a little bit smart about it like when you're responding to your low star reviews, you know, through brand registry, you can click and send a silly Amazon template which doesn't say a lot.

Speaker 2:

You know, and most people, I think, are aware of this. You just go into your sent messages in your sent messages as Amazon's template and so the the communication channels open. So you just jump in right behind that template that went out and said the seller can't say this. The seller shouldn't ask you to do this, the sellers kind of sorry, or whatever it is. You just jump in straight behind that and shoot from the heart you know, say, look, I'm really sorry about this or that or the other, or say something. What we find is very few people will reply to that template. But if they see a message comes in, you know obviously paraphrases exactly what their problem problem is. Um then, um then you get. You get some communication going.

Speaker 1:

That's what it's about, right yeah, makes a lot of sense. So you're saying the best way to contact them is, if they're a brand owner, through the brand analytics dashboard, through the bit where, if they leave a negative review, you can kind of see the yeah, and you have to.

Speaker 2:

But for heaven's sake, john, I say to people if they're, if they're diyers, um, don't, don't send the template out. And then think, oh my gosh, what am I going to say? Okay, you know, you, you, when you hit the template, amazon's template and send it out, you want to be right in behind that within one or two minutes.

Speaker 2:

So, work out what you're going to say, and sometimes reviews are really bad and really accurate. So sometimes we just don't respond to those reviews because they're like fair call. You know, there's not a lot you can say, I don't know, so it's a judgment. And so every day, you know our team are making like these micro judgments should I do this, should I do that? I'd better leave it. Whatever way around it is, if that makes sense and that. And that's why I say you know, when, uh, when it's a local, they're kind of just, they have more of a feel, if that makes sense yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1:

Um, so do you, when you work with people, do you partner like people that suit that brand, or do you find that anyone is a good, is a good fit? So you know, would you put partner a stay-at-home mom with a mother care brand and like a crossfit guy with a fitness brand, or does it not really matter?

Speaker 2:

No, it doesn't really matter, and most of our team are ladies because I find they have kind of more empathy and read a little bit more intuitive sometimes. Yes, we try to. When we're doing the supplements, we've got a team of team members who are really pretty good in that area. You know we've got some fitness people on board and everything else, but you know really the deep dive we do now and with AI being such a help in terms of grabbing so much information. You know the niceties are nice, but you know don't get me wrong we're not waxing lyrical and having big chats with people. We're trying in one or two sentences to get a connection going and then we're focused on resolving the problem. So we have little box in the background that'll put up to our team a whole raft of information for them to choose from, rather than having to scroll through information to try and find something that's relevant sort of thing dealing with support issues, cases, flat files, suspensions or even account suspensions then Seller Candy is there for you.

Speaker 1:

We take the pain away so you never need to talk to Seller Support again. If that sounds interesting, head to sellercandycom to check us out and book a call with our team today. That's it from us. Now back to the episode. Yeah, that makes sense. So is it mostly incoming messages or mostly negative reviews that you have to deal with these days?

Speaker 2:

it, it's probably. It's probably, it's a, it's half half. And in the negative reviews is also obviously the, the negative seller feedback, um, and, as you know, you can go in and you can respond to that, uh, negative seller feedback. You can look up the orders and again, you know a lot of people I know you know who are watching or listening to this know about responding to seller feedback. You can look up the orders and again, you know a lot of people I know you know who are watching or listening to this know about responding to seller feedback.

Speaker 2:

But don't appeal your seller feedback on Amazon until you've reached out to the client, the customer, sorry, to try and get a bit of engagement going and solve their problem, because Amazon then lets the customer know that they remove this out of feedback and then you know your customer is going to work it out and say, oh, so I put it in the wrong place, did I?

Speaker 2:

Well, here, here's a, here's a low star review for you. You know, suck that one up. So, and and and again, you know so many people are just trying to get shut of their customers so they can get on with the rest part of their business. But customer service is actually there to support your existing sales so you can go chase new ones. So if you're hived it off to somebody else in your team who's pretty good with customers or they can just look after all that stuff and all that team member wants to do is get rid of all that stuff so they can focus on what they're paid for and typically what they're being measured on, you're not going to serve your existing sale and so in a way, I say to some sellers you deserve to be losing your sales because you're actually not even trying to acknowledge or resolve something. If you know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And then are people still requesting reviews and I remember back in the day when we were selling it used to be you could send them three emails, then you could send them one email, then you can use the request to review button. Like what are people? What's the best practice now for after a sale, for trying to get?

Speaker 2:

reviews. Oh look, you know Amazon changed this so many times and we pivoted and changed with it. Of course, now you know our view is you only send the approved Amazon template, and so you get a subscription by one of the many software programmers that there is, and they are linked into Amazon and so they'll send Amazon's automatically worded template. And we find that, you know, over time we found that to be much better. You can only request a review once, so if you're using the automated template, then you can't go out manually, and if you're going out manually, then obviously you're not going to automate it.

Speaker 2:

But this is where people go so wrong, because if you're doing it manually, you start writing stuff in there that is just not going to work. Okay, you're just trying to maneuver. And for heaven's sake, you know Amazon customers, you know, aren't stupid. They know about reviews and, frankly, they're sick of being asked about reviews. You know they're sick of all the sad sex stories. And you know, please, and you know I'm a mom and pop business with 12 kids you know in life.

Speaker 2:

You know, we were doing that back in 14, 15. Okay, so you know, these days, just use the Amazon template, automated through a software provider, and then you just can't go wrong, because all you're going to do is, if you try to push a boundary, amazon will swap you like a fly and then you suspend it. And so then what have you achieved? Absolutely nothing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Okay. Have you achieved Absolutely nothing? Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. I know you also have some opinions on getting low-star reviews removed, like what's been your experience and your kind of process on that.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know Amazon do have a very distinct process. Okay, you can go through. So, number one, we've touched on it you can reach out to the customer to try and get a communication going and just understand you're there to resolve the problem, make a replacement when it's on the tail of anything a low star review or anything. But you then can't ask them to update their review, update their wording. We don't use the word update either's another you know four letter word, although it's four um. So basically, what you need to understand is if you've got the lowest hour review, do you try to engage with the customer? And then amazon have a whole list of of areas you can appeal if the review is not about the product, so if it's about the delivery and those sort of things.

Speaker 2:

So we follow that process. You know, when we go through the process and sometimes you know we're fortunate and Amazon remove the reviews, and other times they don't they won't respond to you. All they do is acknowledge that you've appealed the review, but you know they won't have any conversation with you about it. But again, if I go back to talking about when you do those follow-up emails to the Amazon template, when you've got the low-star review. You would be surprised at the number of people who come back and then engage with you and then they they say they say in the listing and I cringe okay. So look, thanks very much and I'll go and update my review and I'm like okay they said it we didn't say it.

Speaker 2:

And then? And then what do we say you know? We go back and say you know, you know. Thanks for your reply, really pleased that we can help you. Remember, we're always here if we can help you.

Speaker 1:

We never go back and say oh, yeah, thanks and give you add this wording in or do anything like that yeah, if you could add these keywords, that would be awesome exactly so it's.

Speaker 2:

It's a bit around the houses and that that's why I love shopify and that's why I keep, you know, telling all of my clients for heaven's sake, I know Amazon's easy, but just get some traction going and do something to get yourself another channel, seriously another channel, because there we have real conversation with people, we shoot from the hip, we say exactly what it is, you resolve problems, you sort things out. I've got a client with a medical device at the moment and somebody. They buy it and they use it and they find it doesn't work and other people do. Other people swear by it, people say it doesn't and they leave a low star, a one star review, saying it didn't work.

Speaker 1:

This is a device that helps people when they're on the end of their life they know they've got something that is going to be terminal okay if it doesn't work, because otherwise, if it didn't work, yeah, you would have negative reviews, because if it doesn't work, you'd have no positive reviews.

Speaker 2:

Though yeah, so it helps extend and it eases symptoms and just helps people. I can't say anything more than that. Um, and so basically, these people will have it for a week and drop a pearler of a low star review and you know, you know they haven't used it properly, they haven't even tried. You know you, just you know this. So we, we reach out to them to try and get a bit of an engagement going, say, look first off, there's absolutely no problem. If you really want us to refund you, we'll refund you in full. We're not forcing you to keep the product.

Speaker 2:

But please we're on a mission in life and this is what we're trying to do. You know, have you know? Why don't you try again and go through these processes and go through these steps? And then what happens is people do and they come back and they say, oh, oh, okay, look, yeah, thanks, I'm on track. But man, the low standard review is still sitting there and that just nothing but annoys me, right, and I can't go. You know we can't go back to that customer and say, okay, so now you've found it's working, you've left the low star review. Anybody else who's reading about this will think, okay, I'm not going to buy this device. That might help me because I've read all these low star reviews. You know, I don't know. Did?

Speaker 1:

I answer your question. No, you did. Thank you all. Now we're going to move and change tacks and move on to the controversial take section of the podcast. So what is your most debatable or controversial opinion related to the Amazon or e-commerce industry?

Speaker 2:

Get off the Amazon platform. No, no, you must, you must go go, you know, onto another platform. You need to have a bob each way. Um, and it's no good just ignoring it, and I know it's difficult. Well, it's not.

Speaker 2:

You just go and you open up a shopify site and it's next to nothing, um, and, and you know, you just you play and you dabble we've had clients who've played and dabbled and who are really quite good at social media and had some surprising success, because all the stats people talk about Amazon own 50% of traffic, 60% of traffic I don't know what it is, but they don't own 100% of traffic and there are a lot of people who won't have a bar of Amazon and will actively try and buy somewhere else. So you know, you're not serving yourself, in my view, if you just ignore the elephant in the room, and that is that you need. You know another, uh, if you're serious about the business and back in the day, uh, you know, the so-called experts would say oh no, aggregators are only going to be interested in the business if it's only on amazon and and all this absolute utter complete nonsense, because any aggregators that we spoke with uh, because we still do work for some aggregators, those who survived, um yeah why have they?

Speaker 2:

survived because zon support was in there looking after their customers. I don't know self-promotion um and, and even the aggregators themselves, it's just nonsense you know, if, if you're on another platform where we don't like it we're not gonna.

Speaker 2:

We're not gonna follow through with it. If you're on there and started, then and we don't like it, we're not gonna. We're not gonna follow through with it. If you're on there and started, then and we don't like it, we'll change it. You know they're not buying. You know your your platform with the buying your product yeah, and I agree with that, so, okay, cool.

Speaker 1:

So if anyone wants to learn more or get any more resources, do you have any resources that people can download?

Speaker 2:

learn anything that you can share the easiest thing for people to do is to come through a link that we've provided so we know where you've come from, and then we'll have a conversation and if we can help, we do.

Speaker 2:

If people become a client, they do, and if they don't, they don't. We're quite neutral on that. If they use the link zonsupportcom forward slash candy, that means we know that they've come through you, so they get $100 off their installation fee for starters, with thanks to John and the team, and also what we do there is we send back our take on the best product insert you should use as of right now. Don't get me started to talk about product inserts, but you should follow that link just to get our take on product inserts. Because, my goodness me, we deal with a lot of clients, you know, from small, medium and, and you know, one's publicly listed very large, uh, you know, and so we manage our own customers, uh, and we also provide outsource services, consulting services, to larger businesses with in-house teams. So we really know on Amazon, so we really know kind of our way around it, and product insert is a great thing to get right.

Speaker 1:

Love it so cool. Yeah, thanks, thanks, greg. So yeah, head to zonsupportcom forward, slash candy. Check that out and get your free product insert. Was it suggestion design?

Speaker 2:

We call it a product insert guide.

Speaker 1:

Guide.

Speaker 2:

And then on the back of that we'll then have further conversations. If you want to sort of thing, yeah, love it Cool thanks, greg.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for being here. Thanks for sharing. I think it's super valuable, and everyone wants to know how to get more out of their Amazon business, and this is something they can do without doing anything. They just change a little bit in the way they respond. I mean, this is the one of the easiest ways to get more results. So thanks for being here and thanks to everyone who's listening. Do reach out to greg and see you all next week.

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John Cavendish

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