Customer reviews are the social proof your Amazon store needs to be successful. They’re the ultimate form of marketing for your products, and you can bet that every potential customer is going to head to your review section before committing to a purchase.
So, what do you do when you can’t see such a pivotal part of your business? Let’s dive into that and get to a few fixes.
Why Is Amazon Not Showing Customer Reviews On Your Products?
Your product’s reviews may not be showing up for one of several reasons. In more extreme cases, Amazon might delete or block customers’ input due to a TOS breach. The Amazon TOS changes for sellers, but this can happen because you pay for fake reviews, spam reviews, or personal connections with the reviewer.
Other reasons Amazon might hide your brand’s reviews from store visitors are a little more straightforward. A reviewer may have laced their review with colorful uses of profanity or said things that aren’t allowed on the platform.
However, the most likely reason is that the reviews in question are simply processing. There’s not much you can do about that, and we’ll talk about it in detail later.
How Do I See Customer Reviews On Amazon?
Checking your customer reviews is a relatively simple process. Rather than searching Amazon for your product and trying to see what customers see, sellers can see everything immediately within their Seller Central.
To use the tool, go to sellercentral.amazon.com and sign in with your Amazon credentials. On the main page, you’ll see the Brand Health option that provides you with all the data you need to analyze your brand’s growth, and on the bottom, you’ll find the Brand Dashboard.
Once you navigate to the Brand Dashboard, look to the left of the screen, and click “Customer Reviews.” The customer review section will show you all your product’s reviews in one organized place.
How Long Does It Take For Amazon Reviews To Show Up?
Most of the time, your reviews aren’t visible because they’re processed. The processing time before reviews appear is just part of using the platform, and it’s nothing that should worry over. However, it can be frustrating, and it can take a while.
Sometimes, reviews from your brand’s customers take a few hours to publish. However, the average processing time takes between 1 and 3 days to complete, and you won’t see the reviews until they’re published. In more extreme cases, it can take up to two weeks for this process to complete.
If this is the issue, and it usually is, all you can do is remain patient. In most cases, the reviews will appear within the two-week deadline. If it goes beyond that, you have a different problem.
Why Did My Reviews Disappear From Amazon?
When you wait for reviews to come in from known sources, the delay is usually due to processing. What happens when reviews suddenly disappear, though? Well, that’s a different situation.
3 Top Reasons Reviews Disappear from the Amazon Review Removal Policy
One day they’re here, and the next day they’re not. Amazon seems to constantly update its review removal policy to protect consumers from reviews that break terms of service. Here are three top reasons reviews disappear and five possible solutions.
Reason #1: Purchased Reviews
Amazon’s review policy doesn’t allow sellers to pay for reviews. You’ll find tons of online “services” offering to leave glowing reviews for a reasonable price. Your business should avoid these review services.
Why is that, you ask? Consumers are incredibly savvy and can often spot paid reviews immediately. There are even computer programs that determine how many studies on a product page are likely fake. Amazon will remove any possibly purchased reviews to ensure that customers can trust the review section before making a product purchase.
Reason #2: Seller Connections
Seller connections are primarily relevant to authors in the Kindle program and smaller sellers who haven’t built up a large enough customer base to generate organic reviews. Naturally, you want to ask all your friends and family members to leave reviews if you’re starting. Unfortunately, asking for reviews from those in your immediate network often backfires.
Amazon does check social media connections. In some cases, they’ll remove reviews if the reviewer has a connection to you via social media. Removing reviews from brand employees and their family & friends prevents biased reviews from manipulating customer opinions.
Reason #3: Unacceptable Language & Inappropriate Behavior
Amazon is a public platform with millions of daily users. Naturally, they want the platform to be safe and accessible for everyone. So, the platform will delete reviews that include profanity, threats, or any other form of inappropriate behavior.
Likewise, reviews should not include off-site links to the same products, as this is a way to take traffic from Amazon sellers.
Five Fixes When Amazon’s Not Showing Customer Reviews
If you’ve made a couple of mistakes or Amazon’s just being picky about your brand’s product reviews, your business has several options.
Here are five solutions that can help ensure your reviews show up in the future.
Solution #1: Stop Asking For Reviews From Friends & Family
It’s tempting to ask for early product reviews from people you know. After all, you’re supposed to be able to turn to them for support. However, Amazon believes that reviews from those in a seller’s household, their family, and friends to be fraudulent.
Do not ask your friends and family to review. Suppose Amazon can find a connection via publicly accessible social media pages, or you share a last name. In that case, Amazon will pick up on the relationship very quickly, and their review will likely be deleted and flagged as a manipulation attempt.
Solution #2: Don’t Pay For Reviews Ever!
If you take thirty seconds for a little Google search, you’ll find tons of online services offering a certain number of reviews if you pay them what seems to be a very fair fee. If you’re smart, you won’t bother with any of them.
These services provide fake reviews for a fee. Still, the reviews will get deleted, and you’ll be out whatever you invested in the service.
Also, don’t pay for reviews directly. It’s okay to offer trial products in some cases, as long as the reviewer writes a disclaimer. Still, it is never okay to provide compensation of any kind in exchange for a review. If Amazon determines that your brand pays for reviews, they will delete them, and you may face the consequences with Amazon.
Solution #3: Focus On Verified Purchase Reviews
Amazon reviews come in two flavors: verified and unverified. A verified review comes from a customer who bought the product from your store on Amazon. It’s worth a lot more than just some random person raving about your brand’s products without any proof of them purchasing something.
Not only are verified reviews more valuable to potential customers, but they’re also a lot less likely to be removed.
Because of this, sellers should place their efforts on selling their products directly from the store page and encouraging those who purchase to write a review. Some sellers include a thank you letter with their products before shipping to remind customers to review their purchase. Still, there are plenty of ways you can do this through your different marketing tunnels.
Solution #4: Get New Reviews With The Amazon Vine Program
Amazon rolled out its Vine program not too long ago, and it’s an excellent way for sellers to get high-quality reviews from proven reviewers.
The program is invite-only for reviewers and sellers. So, make sure to check out the Contact Us page and submit a request to join. Once you’re accepted, it’s an invaluable tool for generating new, high-quality, trustworthy reviews.
Solution #5: Ask Buyers To Keep Reviews Profanity-Free
Some folks like to curse a lot, especially when they’re unhappy with a purchase. However, reviews should be kept primarily professional, and you must encourage your buyers to leave appropriate reviews.
Reviews that include inappropriate content will likely get deleted. So, kindly leave a little message on your store’s page reminding potential reviewers of that fact. And if you use off-site marketing tunnels to earn reviews, remind those audiences, too.
Other Common Problems With Customer Reviews
There are other types of issues you may experience with your customer reviews. Maybe there’s a technical glitch hiding your brand’s reviews, or perhaps you want to get rid of a few unsavory reviews.
We’re going to go over issues like that in this section.
What Should Sellers Do When Amazon Reviews Not Showing?
The approach that your company takes to solve the issue depends on the circumstances. First, if it hasn’t been two weeks since a customer placed a review, you need to wait. It’s likely still in processing.
However, suppose you’re having trouble with reviews disappearing. In that case, you need to contact Amazon’s support team and investigate the exact reason for each review’s removal. With a bit of correspondence and a little luck, they may choose to republish reviews that Amazon unjustly removed.
However, having Amazon reverse its decision on a review is unlikely in most cases. The best way to prevent review removal is to ensure you’re following all of Amazon’s rules moving forward while encouraging customers to do the same.
How Do I Remove A Negative Review On Amazon?
We know what it’s like to receive negative reviews. It can hit your ego hard, and it can affect your sales in the future. Naturally, you want to get rid of them right away.
Unfortunately, that’s not possible all the time. In general, you can’t ask Amazon to delete legitimate reviews just because they don’t praise your products. That doesn’t mean you can never get rid of negative thoughts, though.
Suppose negative reviews contain a lot of profanity, inappropriate remarks, traffic-stealing links to another site, or other things that go against Amazon’s TOS. In that case, you can report them to Amazon’s support team and request their removal.
There’s a caveat to this, though. First, you can’t use this method for legitimate reviews. That’s essentially wasting Amazon’s time, and it’s trying to manipulate your review section and silence unhappy customers.
Also, you only have 90 days to utilize this method. After a product review displays for 90 days, it is there to stay with very few exceptions.
Finally, there’s a whole sub-industry devoted to aiding review management. Such services can help you manage your reviews to create an optimal sales environment. We’re experts in review management, and we’ll dive into the details shortly.
Did Amazon Remove Review Comments?
We were stunned to realize that Amazon quietly removed a crucial part of the review feature. As of December 2020, sellers can no longer comment on customer reviews. Review comments were a vital tool for sellers to address customer complaints, save face with other customers, or dispute illegitimate studies directly.
Fortunately, there are still ways to regain unsatisfied customers despite Amazon removing review comments. A good review management service can help offset the effects of negative reviews without the feature.
Possible Solutions: Should Your Business Use An Amazon Review Removal Service?
Review removal services and other review management services exist to help sellers optimize the selling power of their review sections. Before you hire our review management service, it’s essential to determine if it’s right for you.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Are the reviews legitimate customer opinions?
- Could any aspects of the reviews go against Amazon’s TOS?
- Are there ways your company can improve your marketing and product to bring in positive reviews?
- If negative reviews are legitimate complaints, even a review removal service will have trouble deleting reviews. However, our service can help you bypass dealing with Amazon directly and removing eligible reviews.
Even if negative reviews aren’t eligible for ethical removal, it’s still possible to get a lot of value from a review management service. Review management services like ours at Sunken Stone can help brands receive their first positive reviews. Additionally, we have techniques for pushing negative reviews off the first page. We also turn your product’s review section into a sales powerhouse.
How Can An Amazon Review Management Service Benefit My Business?
An Amazon review management service can help your business in several ways. While we can’t speak for every service out there, at Sunken Stone, we can help remove negative reviews that damage your brand. Additionally, we assist sellers with developing business practices that generate positive reviews and use proven techniques to optimize their listings to sell more.
