Smiling Through Amazon Suspensions - Lesley Hensell - Amazon Legends - Episode # 136

Today’s guest has walked many miles in the shoes of Amazon Sellers and has helped many others sellers along the way. Lesley Hensell has been a seller on Amazon for over a decade and is the Co-Founder of Riverbend Consulting. Lesley helps other Amazon Sellers who have been suspended get their accounts reinstated. You’ll hear how to approach writing your suspension, what Amazon is looking for in your Plan of Action, and how to escalate a problem within Amazon. 

Takeaways: 

• When your account is suspended you need to vent and blow off some steam so that your frustration does not show up in your appeal to Amazon. You need to be reasonable in your appeal if you actually want to get reinstated.
• When appealing your suspension, you need to find the root cause even if you don’t believe the customer complaint or other reason for the suspension. Finding the root cause means taking a very objective look at your business and repeatedly asking why.
• Amazon wants to see your Plan of Action (POA) in your appeal. The first step is to find the root cause and fix it. The second step is to show how you have addressed those which you have “wronged”. The third step is to show how it will never happen again.
• Amazon loves to see SMART goals, dates, and lots of details in the third step of your POA. It shows them how seriously you’re taking this process. 
• The Amazon Seller Performance investigators handle 20 cases per hour, which means they are only spending about three minutes looking at your appeal. Because of this, you need to put all of the pertinent information up top and keep it concise.
• Make sure to have someone else read your appeal to give an outside perspective and reexamine the root cause and the plan to fix it. 
• To escalate your suspension appeal, you can get it to the Executive Seller Relations team by emailing [e-mail] with the primary email for your Amazon login. Make sure the subject line is compelling and include your token number in the first paragraph. 

Quote of the Show:

• “If you get down and upset, you're not going to solve anything” - Lesley Hensell

Links:

• LinkedIn
• Riverbend Consulting website
• Riverbend Consulting Phone: [phone]
• Project Retail website

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Amazon Legends is sponsored by Argometrix, the authority on, and leading supplier of, competitive intelligence for online retail. Learn more here. 

Amazon Legends is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more here.