Hot off the presses:
https: //sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHWVlQVDdCNlJZNlVHVDJS
I’ve yet to see this Satisfaction Survey roll out for any of our Buyer Accounts, but Amazon says that it began 041726.
As always, it should be a 2 way street.
Let me provide a satisfaction review of the buyer.
If I messed up and have to fix something, the guy has the right to complain (preferably with manners, but whatever) 5 stars for telling me that I made a mistake. He paid, is his right to get what he ordered.
If the guy is “Murky Fishing” (miss him too), let me point it out quickly. 1/5 because 0 is not an option. Buyer gets too many 0s, either the most unlucky buyer who always get shorted by sellers or, more likely, a pita who shouldn’t be here.
Wrong priorities. If the buyer generates profits in the form of fees, commissions, clicks, what have you, then they are valued customers, regardless of any illicit shenanigans. The second their presence starts costing Amazon more money than they generate, they become a liability and they are gone, until they make a new account.
Customer behavior toward sellers is not a relevant data point.
It is my understanding that this buyer survey is presented ONLY to dissatisfied buyers. There must have been a problem for the survey to exist.
Am I wrong in this?
We are in an age where data/information is power
I agree with many of the things you said, but I don’t agree with it not being a relevant data point.
Same thing that at the end of the day Amazon does benefit from removing the worst of the worst buyers. More important to decapitate mediocre sellers than bad buyers, but the terrible ones, not even Amazon wants them.
Those are expensive chargebacks, AZ claims, needless interactions that cost energy, one bad buyer can frustrate many good sellers, etc. I’m not saying that buyers and sellers are measured on the same scale. Just saying that when information is the most important asset, why not collect it for free and from an almost infinote number of sources
Excuse me … the total number of surveys includes those that have a rating of 3. They should provide the dissatisfaction rate as #(1+2) / by TOTAL# and satisfaction rate as #(4+5) / by TOTAL#. We should be able to know both unskewed numbers to know the actual performance level.
By design, lower volume sellers will be on the short end of the stick again.
I had a buyer message me about an FBA delivery INR, my only option for that is to direct them to contact Amazon, which I did. She marked the “Did this solve your problem?” question No. Yet another flawed system.
Amazon could do much for customer satisfaction with clear channels for resolution when there is a problem, and easy to find message interface with notification of messages.
My food is not returnable, if there’s a problem with an FBA order and the buyer clicks on problem with order, they are met with a dead end notice that food can’t be returned.
They can get a refund if they figure out how to call Amazon. I usually find out when bad feedback is left.
A very intelligent wise Marine, once asked me this question after I complained about a negative customer feedback at the bar years ago.
“Do you respect this person for leaving this incorrect review? If not, why do you care about the opinion of someone you don’t respect?”
So far in over a decade, we have had about 3 valid negative feedback’s that were our fault or within our ability to control, so we don’t GAF about customer feedback.
After all, remember, they are not our customers.
We always check for feedback before helping customers with their problems.
If they leave negative feedback before communicating, they have already played their hand so we will keep their money, unless it was actually our fault.
Yes, it seems so.
So a Buyer would “open a case” based on dissatisfaction with a 3P FBM (lol “self-ship”) order. And those Buyers–you know, the ones who are already dissatisfied and/or scamming–will rate whether they feel satisfied by the Seller’s response to their issue or concern or made-up story. 
