Amazon Germany & German Customer service with Nadine Eich - a podcast by Michael Veazey

Amazon Germany has different demands and customer behaviours. Today's episode equips us to manage our approach to our German customers.

What does Enida do?

Customer service in Germany and English customer service.



Keep the customers happy so you will be too.

At what stage do sellers come to you?

Some at the very beginning because they’re not doing well at it.



Others are big. They realise that if they employed a VA, that person might get sick and been on holiday.



They are there 24/7 even Xmas.



Top sellers don’t want to work on Xmas in Amazon Germany.

Numbers seasonally

Usually, they go up from Oct to Jan; Summer is usually lower.



Sellers set things up in summer for Q4.



They have a system in place so even if the seller takes a whole day off. ?The guarantee is to always cover the service.

Do you need someone who speaks the language?

Germany is a big market - Germans don’t like mistakes.



If you had a German native speaker who translates the templates,  but they have different questions than English customers!



There is a great danger of not answering the question in Amazon Germany.



This can increase the danger of negative reviews.

Negative reviews hit harder in Germany than US or UK 

Before you could send an invoice email and ask if the product turned up okay.



If the customer responded, there was a point of contact.



That has just gone - Amazon is changing the system so the customer can download the invoice directly.



That means that customer emails are even more important than they were!



For example, you sent a new product, you can follow up on the following week.



German customer service normally doesn’t do follow up.



If you make a special effort, you can steer people in the right direction.

Customer service

Write Customer Service templates (40 pages) for individual sellers



- need to understand German if you do that.



You can’t save templates at the moment!

Table of contents

You can also use Evernote - use tags



Someone in the USA sends a short email saying “did it arrive okay?”



Now in Amazon Germany, you have to get creative.



If a customer is fed up with a company and they pull it around, that makes a huge difference emotionally to the customer.

Robot chats vs. Person

The world is changing - robots probably can’t help! It’s frustrating!



Making the customer happy - this is a luxury.

How do you turn around negative customers?

“Kill them with kindness”? Turn frustration around into something they can’t possibly be mad at!



I’m very very sorry - send out a new product - maybe put a cheap product in with it to make an impression. And maybe a note.



It’s critical to move them out of frustration.

“I’m not going to leave you hanging” 

Most customer service in Germany is pretty terrible. So when consumers email, they have a poor expectation.



Email them after things are sorted - “That’s great. If you could share your experience with other customers, that would really help.”

If you’re selling a seasonal product, branch into a tiny bit of small talk.

A client sold inflatable swimming mats. Make yourself more human. 



The more human you are, the more people will like you.



You can’t do this all the time - you have to train to someone in the fine balance.

Marketplaces - all in English

USA, France, Italy, Spain, Germany UK  in English or German



They do work in English - but every week there is Quality Assurance - Nadine is involved but does not speak Italian, Spanish or French.

Further episodes of Amazing FBA Amazon and ECommerce Podcast, for Amazon Private Label Sellers, Shopify, Magento or Woocommerce business owners, and other e-commerce sellers and digital entrepreneurs.

Further podcasts by Michael Veazey

Website of Michael Veazey