FAQ: I Need an Amazon Vendor Manager to Help Me With Something — How Can I Talk to a Real Person?
It's a frustration for many vendors: you have an issue that needs the attention of an Amazon vendor manager. However, every time you make a request, you get an automated rejection, and submitting support cases just doesn't seem to do anything.
One user on the Vendor Central subreddit recently ran into this problem. Due to cost increases, they needed to update the prices on numerous products, and have already rejected 10s of thousands of dollars worth of purchase orders as a result.
"Every time I submit a cost increase it gets auto rejected. Vendor support is completely useless," the user stated. "I've read on a few forums that you basically need a vendor manager to get cost increases accepted. Problem is I don't know who that is. Our account is not quite at the $10 million a year threshold. How the hell can I talk to an actual person?"
Why Am I Not Getting the Individual Attention I Need?
The issue for many vendors is that they aren't big enough to earn individual attention from Amazon. Amazon likes to run a lean operation, and with thousands of vendors in each category, they can only afford to provide human-to-human support for their top accounts.
At the end of the day, vendor managers are incentivized to maximize sales and profits in their category, and so they will provide the most attention to vendors who can help them do that.
Short-Term Fixes
In the short term, there's not a whole lot you can do if you have already submitted a case. Your main opportunities are to improve the quality of your case submission, or to look for your vendor manager’s contact information. For example, it may help to cite specific data that justifies the change you're requesting. In the above case, that could involve providing data on raw materials pricing that would justify an increase in the price of the individual ASIN.
A way to find your vendor manager contact information is to review old Andon Cord tickets. Although Andon Cord tickets are usually managed by offshore customer service teams, a vendor manager is typically CC'ed on any aging Andon Cords in order to keep SLAs and resolution processes on track. You can often find the contact information for a higher-level Amazon employee by looking at aging Andon Cord correspondence.
Once you have the person’s contact information, send a brief email with a detailed subject line, with a link to your open case. Amazon vendor managers receive hundreds or thousands of emails per day. A detailed, specific subject line increases the odds your vendor manager will notice the email or notification. Keeping the email brief helps ensure the vendor manager reads it. Including a link to the case helps the vendor manager take immediate action.
Keep in mind that Amazon often shuffles vendor managers between product categories, and Amazon employees change roles/teams as often as every 12 months. Just because a person used to be your vendor manager doesn’t mean they are now.
Long-Term Fix: BE A GREAT PARTNER
In the long term, you need to gain Amazon's attention to get a vendor manager assigned to you, or at least set up more one-on-one meetings throughout the year. One way to do this is by improving your Amazon vendor scorecard. You'll find out what Amazon wants from you during your annual negotiations; it will typically boil down to better financial performance, sales growth, Net PPM, confirmed purchase order rates, defect rates, and so on. If you consistently score high in these areas, your scorecard improves and you have a better chance of getting more vendor manager attention.
Keep in mind that vendor managers have very heavy workloads, and thus they have to prioritize vendors. They have two main goals: boost sales within their category, and boost profitability within their category. Anything you can do to help with that will get you more attention.
When approaching a VM, consider how you frame an issue. Make it about how it's beneficial for the VM to take action versus how it affects you. For example, you might say that Amazon is losing X revenue in your category because of Y.
Don't bombard your vendor manager with requests for help, especially if it's something you might be able to do yourself. Remember you're dealing with a human being who is often overwhelmed with requests, and you want them to be in the mood to help you when you do meet with them. Also, keep your messages short and to the point so the vendor manager can quickly understand what you're asking and act.
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