Have you ever found a service so good—streaming service, meal kit service, or even software for your Amazon business—that you've kept it for a decade? Most services (Netflix and Spotify excluded) haven't even been around that long, much less good enough to stick with.
But one mature, successful Amazon agency has found an Amazon reputation management tool to match their own success. When Gabe Ray, Chief Revenue Officer, sat down with eComEngine's partnerships manager Kristin Hutcherson for a chat, Evolved Commerce had been using FeedbackFive by eComEngine for roughly nine years, and counting.
One of the services they provided from the early days was increasing product reviews and seller feedback as a key component of increasing sales. "Getting customer feedback was really helpful. ... It helped us to gain some momentum within the algorithm for ranking products," said Gabe. "And so we used to manually send out requests to customers to provide feedback. And we realized really quickly that that would not scale for our business."
As Evolved Commerce added more clients, the issue of scaling this service only increased. Automation was the obvious answer. Initially, they considered creating their own internal automation system.
But then they realized, "You know what, there are resources out there like eComEngine and FeedbackFive that are going to allow us to do this a lot more efficiently and effectively," said Gabe. "So that's what kind of pushed us toward finding an outside source."
Why FeedbackFive? Gabe says they did a Google search, looked at forums, and learned what tools other sellers were using. By this time--around 2014--FeedbackFive, the original Amazon reputation management tool launched in 2009, was already well-established in the industry.
This tool stood out to the growing agency for several reasons. First, the interface was agency-friendly. "It was the easiest for us to add multiple clients and have one central interface or dashboard where we could toggle between all those different clients. ... Account managers who had maybe 10 clients they were managing could easily jump in and make updates and check in on all 10 in a matter of 20 or 30 minutes," said Gabe.
Second, the pricing was efficient and affordable. "It gave us the ability to send out the amount of emails that we needed, without necessarily needing to pay extra to upgrade." (Today, FeedbackFive has even better purpose-built agency packages that don't charge extra for each client added to the account.)
Third, FeedbackFive provided pre-built templates that were compliant with Amazon's policies and ready to send as-is, but also allowed for customization. "Everything was already built in. It was somewhat of a plug-and-play," said Gabe.
FeedbackFive gives Evolved Commerce the flexibility to customize the pre-built messages and make them perfect for their clients, and those client's buyers. They add logos for each brand and leverage SKU-specific messages. "We were able to create some pretty unique, customizable content really fast," said Gabe.
By now, Evolved Commerce has a system for maximizing reviews when they set up a new client in FeedbackFive, starting with the basic template and then making tweaks for the first three to four weeks.
Usually by the end of that first month, we're seeing a pretty significant increase."
According to Gabe, they see better results with their customized messages than with Amazon's generic template: "We can customize it to be on brand, to fit exactly what the customer purchased, ask very specific questions, even provide additional information and content that gets a much higher response rate," said Gabe.
"And it tends to get a more positive response because the customer can see that we as the brand or the seller are actually engaged with them."
The Evolved Commerce team has tried sophisticated timing strategies as well as custom content, to align with promotional events like Prime Day. Flexible campaign rules allow them to send messages on specific days and even at specific times.
Plus, FeedbackFive provides analytics to show response rates. "We can kind of dial things in so that we know we're setting it at the optimal time to get the best results and get the most feedback possible."
In addition, email alerts make sure the team knows whether their messages are successful and whether the reviews coming in are positive or negative. "Anytime we launch a new product, we're always checking. The goal is to get those first 10 to 15 reviews as fast as possible. ... We have special alerts set on most of those to make sure we're getting reviews quickly," said Gabe.
The reporting available from FeedbackFive doesn't stop with Evolved Commerce. They share it with their clients, too, which both highlights their success and gives them insight into what they can improve about their products or listings.
"They love to see what kind of customer reviews they're getting, and even the feedback they're getting on themselves as the seller. It provides them with a lot of insight into consumer behavior and allows them to adjust their messaging or product packaging, whatever needs to be done to better reach out to the customer and apply to what the customer needs are," said Gabe.
Overall, Gabe says, FeedbackFive has been a "huge help" since Evolved Commerce first signed up in 2014. "Being able to get consistent feedback, having consistent reviews ... helps to build up the account and gives us more credibility within Amazon's algorithm, which leads to higher ranking, which leads to higher revenues. And so it's been a huge help at accelerating growth for our clients and then maintaining good credibility with the consumer," said Gabe.
You can learn more about Evolved Commerce's services for Amazon sellers by scheduling a call here.
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