How to Remove a Bad Review from Amazon [Update 2023]

Regardless of how great your products or services are, it is very hard to avoid bad reviews and ratings on Amazon. Buyers normally rely on ratings and reviews, to determine the quality of your product since they don’t have an opportunity to assess them physically. Therefore, even if you have 100 good ratings and only one negative rating, that single negative rating can still affect your sales in more ways than you can imagine. If you are a seller and you are wondering how you should handle that situation, SageMailer has a solution for you.

Know Your Ultimate Goal

The first instinct of a small business owner in Amazon is to get Amazon reviews as fast and as many as possible. However, this can be a tedious and lengthy process. And though you’ll probably get many positive reviews, you may also get an equal number of negative reviews. What an Amazon seller should focus on instead are the potential customers and your current customer experience. How can you ensure that your buyers will not get any bad experiences? How do you resolve the issues addressed by your previous customers? Have you made any improvements in your customer service? Can you be sure that your customers will like your product and your service?

Remember that Amazon rarely allows business owners Amazon to remove bad reviews. There are only a few special cases where Amazon allows one to remove a review. Thus, it’s better if you avoid getting any negative feedback at all. If you’re interested to know what these special cases are, read the guide below.

How to remove a negative review on Amazon: platform’s policy

Customer reviews can be strict yet fair. On the other hand, Amazon sellers may find a couple of general reviews that are inappropriate. So how to identify such reviews and what to do with them? The Amazon review policy can give you a helping hand.

It states the following:

• The testimonial should be solely about the product itself, not about the Amazon seller (or something else)
• Amazon prohibits reviews that weigh up alternate options, prices, and goods availability
• Review content should not be harassing, libelous, inflammatory, or threatening. It shouldn’t include any hate speech or profanity.
• Content promoting nudity is restricted 
• Testimonials that provide an email address or other contact information of the person are not allowed
• Promoting other goods or including website links is restricted
• Reviews offering or requesting compensation in exchange for wiring content are subject to removal
• Testimonials from competitors or many negative reviews on Amazon written by the same client for a single item can also be removed

Negative reviews are not always bad

Usually, when a client shares a bad review on products on Amazon, sellers can spot an opportunity to make their products or the selling process better. For instance, they can improve the product listing description based on the client’s negative review. Thank your customers for the heads up!

In addition to this, another way to leverage a negative testimonial is to analyze it. For example, define the clients’ pain points and apply this info to update your listing gap or improve your products further.

When Does Amazon Remove a Negative Review

The only way you can get Amazon to remove a bad review is when it does not comply with the review guidelines. When this happens, there will be one less customer review in your profile. However, you will also lose the negative feedback that can negatively affect your online reputation.

How likely is it that Amazon will approve your review removal request? The success rate of this action is very low. You can only do this when the online reviews left by the customer is deceitful or harshly inappropriate. In other words, you can’t ask to remove Amazon’s review on a whim.

You can also do this when you think that the one who left the review is a fake reviewer. You can detect a fake review when one of the following happens:

• A dissatisfied customer has left more than one negative reviews on the same product page.
• A person from a competing company has given you a bad product review in order to lower your brand reputation.
• There’s a mention of third-party material in the review.
• There’s a mention of time-critical material in the review.
• The review left is unreasonably spiteful and not related to your product.
• The review contains tasteless and obscene content.
• E-mail addresses, phone numbers, and URLs are in the seller feedback.
• There are promotional materials in the review.

Another case that allows you to remove reviews from review sites is when you are using Amazon FBA. If the negative feedback is about the delivery of the product or the customer service, it will not directly affect you as a seller. Amazon will take full responsibility for such reviews.

How to Remove Bad Reviews from Amazon

If the customer did leave a review that is inappropriate, what do you do? First, you need to go the product detail page. There, you need to click the negative product reviews in question. Then, click “report abuse”. You need to state the reason why they should remove the Amazon review in the pop-up window that appears.

Another way to send a request to remove bad review to Amazon is by sending an e-mail to [email protected]. Just don’t forget to include the ASIN of the product in question, the date of the review, the time of the review, and the username of the reviewer. It’s best if you also send a link to the review along with the reason why you think Amazon should remove the feedback.

Avoid reporting every 1-star rating you see in your Amazon seller account. This will decrease your internal reputation, so Amazon is less likely to approve any of them. If there are a lot of negative reviews in your account, it might be a clear sign that you should improve your product and/or service.

Customer Removal or Revision of a Negative Review

Because the chances of convincing Amazon to remove negative product review from your account is low, you need to take a more proactive approach. Be proactive, it means you need to respond to Amazon reviews, provide a solution to the buyer’s problem, so you can convince them to change or remove a review. Let the aggrieved client and all future customers know that they can always reach out to you, and you are ready to offer a replacement of the faulty product. You need to emphasize that customer satisfaction is your main priority.

Additionally, thank the customer(s) for when they leave feedback by leaving a review response. When you respond to reviews, make sure that you point out you are part of the team or customer care support of the Amazon seller and not an Amazon staff. Leaving comments on reviews will not decrease the number of your reviews nor will it negatively affect your rating. Thus, it’s a better reputation management strategy.

According to Amazon’s Guidelines for posting comments on reviews, you should always be informative, specific, and respectful.

How to Respond to a Negative Review

You can respond to negative Amazon product reviews in two different ways. First, you can directly email the customer. You should only use this method if the information to be passed on is sensitive and can’t be discussed publicly. The second and the easiest method to use is to comment on the review itself on Amazon.

Sending an E-mail

Let’s start with sending an e-mail. This may be a challenge as you need to know the contact detail of the reviewer. However, since the reviewers use pseudonyms, you might find it very difficult to get their name much less their e-mail address, social media account, or telephone number.

If you are determined, you can try to identify the reviewer by comparing the date and time of the review with the received orders recorded in your product page. If it’s a verified purchase, you can easily identify and track the Amazon customer.

Once you’ve identified the reviewer, you can contact them and try to solve the problem. If you’ve resolved the issue, you can get the customer to edit or delete the comment they’ve left on your account. Just make sure that you don’t offer any forms of payment or incentive when you are resolving the problem. This is a violation of the guidelines of Amazon.

When communicating with your customers, remember the following:

• Do not pay the customer to have the review removed.
• Use a friendly and personal tone.
• Emphasize the importance of the reviews left by the customers as a seller and how much damage a negative review can cause.
• Avoid engaging in a heated discussion.
• If you are using a third-party seller like Amazon FBA is selling or delivering the product, you can tell the customers about it.

Responding to Amazon Reviews

If you are not successful with the previous method, you can use the comment feature and respond to the Amazon reviews directly.

Commenting has several advantages over the email method. First, once you comment on the review, the customer will immediately get a notification. Secondly, it shows other customers who might be interested in your products that you genuinely care about customer experience as well as the product.

You should create your response in a way that will minimize damage to both current and future customers. It should empathize with the wronged customer. When you take this approach, potential buyers will see that you take a genuine interest in their feedback. This is not an opportunity to bash the buyer or participate in a heated discussion. No future customer would want to buy from you if you don’t respect customers.

Assess whether the customer has the right to leave a negative review. Customers can leave negative comments due to various reasons. It can be that there was misinformation on the listing. The product might have broken or failed to work. The negative Amazon review can also be unwarranted in a situation where the customer failed to read the product details or listings carefully. In such a situation, point it out directly. You don’t want to chest-thump and scare away future clients.

When leaving a comment, remember the following points:

• When the bad review is about the product description, i.e. color, material, size, etc., you need to politely ask the customer to remove it as these details are on the product page, and they should have read about them before they’ve made their purchase.
• Once the negative feedback is justifiable, you can apologize for the inconvenience you’ve given the customer and explain how you have solved the problem, so you can avoid it in the future.

Dealing with Negative Feedback

So, you‘ve notified Amazon and contacted the customer but the negative feedback remains in your product profile. After a specific time period, it will be impossible to edit or remove the review. However, this does not mean that you have to live with a low Amazon seller reputation.

The only way you can improve your star rating is by increasing the number of positive reviews. Of course, this will take time. You make redefine your goals, improve your products and services, and address any issues experienced by the customers, so you will not be setting yourself up for failure again. Once you’ve done this, you can start again by soliciting as much positive feedback as you can.

Don’t forget that one negative review from an ordinary buyer will be unnoticed among dozens of positive testimonials by trusted users. The Amazon Vine program helps merchants to generate comprehensive feedback from reviewers for free. Learn how to join Vine Program at Amazon and make your seller’s ranking soar.

Bottom Line

Having a negative review on your products on Amazon can be a huge setback for your business and can hinder the growth of your brand. You should always remember that once a negative comment has been posted, you have two choices: you can undergo the lengthy Amazon removal process or you can get the customer to remove it. If you choose the first option, you need to be sure that the review left is against the guidelines of Amazon. Never overdo it as you might end up decreasing your internal reputation. If you choose the latter, you need control your response properly. You can easily turn around a negative review into something positive, which will endear your future customers.

However, before you can do any of the two, you need to notice that you’ve received a negative feedback first. If you don’t, you can’t create a solution right away. If keeping track of all your feedback and removing the negative ones sound like too much work, just let SageMailer do the process for you. You only need to subscribe for the free 30-day trial, and you can start right away.