Bye bye Personal Account Managers, Hello Top Customer care

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PowerSellers are receiving emails this morning informing them that they’ve lost their Personal Account Manager who have been replaced with eBay’s new “Top Customer Care line”.

To contact support in the future you’ll need to visit where you’ll be provided with a phone number and in the near future a temporary PIN number to automatically identify yourself rather than manually identifying yourself with account details.

Billed as an improvement to Personal Account Managers eBay are also offering a “real” improvement with longer support opening hours of 8am-10pm Monday – Friday and from 9am – 6pm on Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays.

The text of the email reads:

Dear Customer,
I’m pleased to inform you that we have enhanced our customer support in order to better meet our customer needs.
Effective immediately, you have access to two new services to help you with any queries you may have in the future. You can contact our Top Customer Care line with queries or questions relating to your account and our Claims Processing team for any queries on unpaid items (UPI) &/or items not received (INR).
You will find our new Top Customer Care contact number & a temporary PIN number at the following link: www.ebay.co.uk/contact . The temporary pin will enable us to automatically verify your details so that you do not have to do this manually over the phone with an agent.
To contact our Claims Processing team simply call the following number: 0800 3586551.
To further improve our service to you, we are extending our opening hours to ensure that you can avail of support when you need it. Our Top Customer Care support line is now open between 8am-10pm Monday – Friday and from 9am – 6pm on Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays.
As a result of these enhancements, I will no longer be your point of contact going forward so I would like to take this opportunity to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed working with you & wish you continued success with your business on eBay.
Kind regards,
xxxx xxxxxxxxx
eBay Customer Support

I’m struggling to see how losing an eBay contact who was familiar with my business and who I’d built a relationship with, and replacing them with a general support line is an improvement. The longer opening hours are definitely welcome though, as eBay selling is a round the clock business and we don’t all stop work at 5.30pm.

Thankfully the support line number is an 0800 dial code, so the calls will be free, but I’m seeing the same number for both my main selling accounts as well as for casual buying accounts. It will be interesting to see what the quality of support is if it’s to replace Personal Account Managers who by and large specialised in the particular categories a PowerSeller traded in.

Updated to add: We’ve had it confirmed from multiple sources that some sellers WILL be keeping their Personal Account Managers. If you’ve had the email you’re out of luck, but if you haven’t then you may be one of the lucky ones who will keep a named support contact.

12/2/10 Updated to add: We’ve heard from eBay what’s officially happening with support. There are no redundancies although some are moving to other departments, anyone leaving is doing so through their own choice. All support will still be from Ireland for the UK, with new hires and the support center will be a European Center of Excellence.

There will still be some accounts who have Personal Account Managers but many will now use Top Customer Care. Calls will still be routed according to the type of business you run, so if you sell predominantly in a particular category whoever you speak to should be familiar with that category. The bad news is that many now won’t have a named contact, the good news is that the opening hours for support are considerably extended.

55 Responses

  1. just used it
    concerning the me page glitch and a warning from ebay concerning policy compliance
    and it sounded like the phillipines
    and the girl did not have a clue

  2. Well my account manager does a fantastic job, and has helped me alot over yrs.

    I feel I am being squeezed from every angle at the moment, so I am sure others are feeling it.

  3. I just had a call from my PAM Rachel. She has been fantastic, a real rock.

    I am pretty gutted about this as she knows my business. Now I will get a different person every time 🙁

    She did confirm that the call center is Dublin based and that they will have the same powers to resolve issues.

  4. the girl I spoke with was certainly not irish and everything you expect from one of those BT/SKY/Insurance co type call centres

  5. Are they for real?

    Both the messages received and the link provided by Chris are BUYER facing. To boot there is no phone number given in the first screen that you see when clicking the link.

    Can get a phonenumber only by typing a question into the screen that is not recognised by the ’smart’ system.

    Smart my ****. Pants!!!

  6. This is a cost saving measure pure & simple.
    Has nothing to do with improved customer service for sellers at all.
    If this is a non English speaking foreign call centre it will be a complete disaster.
    Given the amount of money they make from many business sellers they could have drawn a line and then said above that a PAM is included for free and below you have to pay £x/month for that service or go call timbucktoo.
    Happy days (not).
    pip pip

  7. I was following a thread on the PS board about it but it seems to have been removed.

    BTW if you haven’t had the email, drop your PAM an email, it may set your mind at rest.

  8. I’ve lost my account manager yet a friend of mine who is a seller has not lost his. Aparently there is a limited number of accounts that still have account managers.

    How the hell can this be fair?

  9. I have a feeling that its powersellers from platinum and above that are keeping there ACC Manager. I am only going by myself who is at gold level and my friend who is a platinum seller. Anyone else with evidence to confirm this?

  10. We have never had a PAM, to be honest I don’t really see the point in having one, my cat probably knows more about ebay than most of these PAM people

    hmmm do they dance per chance??

  11. So what is the criteria for receiving “Top Customer Care”?

    Would be nice if eBay routed calls to category specific support staff.

    Not sure why eBay don’t bother giving notice (not that it really matters)?

    PS we are still going to receive our “personalised seller report” though 😆

  12. ebay were giving PAM’s to every tom dick and harry powerseller before, thus they (PAM’s) were overburdened and could not provide an adequate service to each of their customers. It sometimes use to take us ages to get through to ours via phone, and replying to emails was the same. I hope they can provide a better service now.

    It looks like they finally took notice and have limited who gets a PAM according to their Powerseller level. For us sellers who have retained our PAM’s it’s a good thing!

  13. “It looks like they finally took notice and have limited who gets a PAM according to their Powerseller level” – This has always been the case they have just changed the level.

    Despite what some pinks may say I would imagine that “power seller” will soon be a thing of the past. It’s already gone as far as buyers are concerned.

    Being a power seller never really meant anything and now it means even less (if that is possible).

  14. We kept ours – we are a platiumn power seller.

    I do agree with some of this as bronze/silver power sellers dont need a/c mngrs as to get bronze you only have to sell a few items a month, hardly a pro seller.

    But gold and above shud have an a/c mangr to help them with devloping there ebay store

  15. @ Terry

    Bronze/silver ps have not had a/c managers in the recent past.

    Bronze/silver ps are nonetheless entitled to expect an efficient and effective means of communication with eBay. Some silver ps will be paying several £000’s in fees each year.

    Agents who can cut/paste emails and respond only via prepared FAQ’s are no use at all.

    I have been talking to an Irish agent this week who understood my issue and promised an answer.

    As long as I get that answer, that is all I need.

  16. It must be me then
    because apart from just recently from the very good Dublin Guys,
    trying to get any sense out of ebay was near impossible

  17. I do belive bronce and silver powerseller need support but not a/c mngr – a call centre with support staff is fine for those sellers who do sell upto 50 items a day.

    the bigger sellers need an a/c mngr

  18. We are a big seller and we lost our acc manager. Multiple PS accounts, Platinum and below…

    …Thanks eBay 😯

  19. @ 27

    GMV?

    Luckily we are getting to keep our account manager! Its the second i have had in 5years of ebay and i think its a great service. However i have noticed that they are seriously busy this past year and it has been hard to reach them on calls and a couple of days to respond to emails.

    When talking to them on friday he wouldn’t reveal the criteria for having and not having a PAM as it was confidential but i suspect that it may be based on volume of sales?

  20. Well, one of our accounts does around 170K a year, with the others bringing in around an extra 50K or so…

    We are just about to launch another 2 id’s which should add around another 100K to our turnover, do they review the requirements for an acc manager (new system), anyone know?

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