So yesterday morning eBay and PayPal appear to have gone into meltdown while I was out for the day in meetings (Apologies for not blogging yesterday but by the time I got to read the deluge of emails it was all fixed). However it does tie in nicely with some information we’ve got on what’s happening with account managers and I’m sure yesterday was a day when many of you wanted to find out what was going on.
We’ve had a few people mention that they’re losing their account manager and we wanted to let you know what’s happening according to eBay.
The short answer is that there will be a new structure with three main tiers of account management plus some extra programs:
Merchant Development Account Managers
There are no set rules for which companies qualify for a Merchant Development manager, but the good news is that for those that do there will be stability as it’s a 12 month program. Account managers will be specifically tasked (and remunerated) based on their ability to help these accounts grow and you’ll only likely to be invited to participate in the program if your business has the potential for massive growth and expansion.
The criteria will be based on size, priority of vertical, opportunity and available inventory. This isn’t a program for life, it’s a strategic management program for eBay sellers who can scale very quickly. This program has grown out of the Enterprise Account Management program (eBay Outlets in the main), and it’s being significantly expanded so that it’s not longer just for the elite few.
Top Customer Care
Whilst it’s preferable to build a relationship with a named account manager, the Top Customer Care team is largely made up of the same team. The important thing is that ratios of account managers to sellers has been reduced, so this team will now have more time to dedicate to you when you call in.
This team is based in Dublin, and whilst you may not always speak to the same person everyone you do speak to will be pretty experienced. One question that has been raised is that every time you call in you have to start from scratch on the issue as the customer service agent may not know the history of the issue – eBay are looking at ways to streamline this.
Top Customer Care is for sellers doing significant business and if you’re reading from elsewhere in Europe the foreign language teams you’ll probably speak to are also based in Dublin (with the exception of Germany).
Other things happening are the Seller Protection Program where feedback is automatically removed, the algorithms are kicking up a notch and more feedback and DSRs appear to be being removed than ever before.
General Customer Support
If you’ve only just opened an eBay account or do very low level’s of business you’ll probably be speaking to General Customer Support. However there are still some more programs which you may be a part of whichever level of support is assigned to you.
Strategic Support Programs
There are more short term (and longer term) initiatives running at eBay than ever before. They include the Accelerated Growth Program, the Seller Council, Seller Success Program (targeting specific initiatives) and also many beta test programs (we’re aware of some such as Product Bundles and International Shipping, but there are probably many more that we haven’t heard of). If you’re invited to join any of these programs we’d recommend you jump at the opportunity, as it usually means you’ll get to know whichever senior eBay Business Unit Manager is running the program.
Support is changing (again!) at eBay and as always it’ll suit some sellers and not others. The big question is how does support cope when eBay and PayPal go into melt down as happened yesterday. We know that some sellers had sales paid for but not appearing in My eBay, and other sellers who had multiple payments for a single sale. Has everything been resolved with duplicate payments cancelled and missing orders restored ready for shipping? What was your account management experience like if you spoke to them yesterday (bearing in mind that the tech issues aren’t something an account manager can deal with, but clearing up the aftermath and protection from poor feedback is).
19 Responses
Thank you Chris for this VERY useful information. It sounds like a good and reasonable structure.
Really unhappy with the fiasco yesterday, I managed to refund the multiple payments to PayPal and got the goods shipped, which was a ball-ache but I did it…
Then PayPal decide to refund the money AGAIN!!!! which means goods have been sent-out unpaid and I’m having to ask my customers nicely to re-pay.
This has wasted so much time I feel like putting in a claim to PayPal for expenses.
I was lucky enough to speak to the team in Dublin the last time I rang in, long may that continue.
Regarding the strategic support programs, speaking from personal experience here, if you get offered a chance to join the accelerated growth program rather than jump at the opportunity, I’d tie a rock to your feet and jump overboard and pray you drown, it’s the biggest pile of crap I’ve ever had the misfortune to be involved in.
our recent dealings with ebay spport have been shocking!
were shocked to the core
they agreed with us,actively looked to help us, showed common sense ,and applied natural justice,
not only the Dublin guys but in the US to
though were having a great deal of frustration with ebay Germany support at the moment
Our very recent dealings eBay UK seller support have been less than satisfactory. We had a problem with a buyer that left negative feedback for us, and when we looked at his feedback he had left 4 negatives and 3 neutrals for other sellers within 21 minutes. We pointed this out to ..CS they couldn’t care less. It,s the DSR,s that concern us as they affect out TRS status.
Frankly eBay seller support does NOT support honest, conscientious sellers like us. We are unlikely to bother contacting them again as it,s a waste of time.
honest, conscientious sellers are lambs to the slaughter
were still honest, conscientious sellers though we have become very cynical[suprise surprise] and have learned to tough it
I am pretty annoyed to have lost my account manager. Having gone through 6 in my first year, I had this one for about 3 years.
I spoke to a very nice lady in Dublin today.
The biggest issue I have is with weekly and daily deals. I asked my account manager what the process was for proposing deals. He gave me an email address.
I wrote to that address and got told that they would only deal with people who have an account manager.
So in effect weekly deals and daily deals are now for outlets and a few others.
Expect a LOT more hoodies!
A big backwards step I think.
to be honest those guys at ebay support have my deepest sympathy nothing could pay me enough to do their job ,if the lunatics and arseholes we get questions and complaints from via ebay are an example
New to Tame Bay and need advice should i go for a Anchor shop have plenty skus to download but worried in case Ebay stick to my current sellars allowance If Im to change to Anchor need to have huge allowance any one enlighten me with the process and tips along the way please x
Sounds like a good system to me.
What I want to know is when/ how do we find out what tier we qualify to?
and how does it work? Do we get given different contact numbers or do we get redirected when we ring up based on our account?
I am having a horrible time as a new eBay seller. It seems to me that eBay is a slave to the technology they created or they’;re just too damn lazy or don’t care about the small businesses to provide a reasonable solution. While Merchant Development Account Managers would be a great thing I have no doubt that these teams will only be available for multi-million dollar eBay sellers. Indvisual and small businesses will continue to suffer. Furthermore I now read that eBay will acquire WHI Solutions… this will add more e-commerce but will it provide better environment for small businesses or make it worse?
We had been in the account management team up until last year when our account manager left and the new guy basically said we werent turning over enough for him to bother with us which i thought was strange considering we were in and around the top 10 in terms of revenue in our categories. He told us he wanted to trim down some of his accounts to ‘focus’ on a core of customer. Some of the new chap’s ideas on how to increase our business were a laugh though. We sell electronics and he told us protein powders were a hot product to get into.
The old account manager was great and very helpful and actually became more of a friend having met up one Christmas for a few drinks while myself and another ebay account holder took him out for a few beers.
The current phone support in dublin is very hit and miss. With some of the advisors on the phone the rules are either black and white whilst others will actually listen and help you. At the end of the day its better than having no number and its a damn signht better than calling India.
The only thing an account manager was helpful for was with regards unfair feedback comments left. Some chap sitting in a cubicle telling me how to run my own business is not something anyone selling on ebay for almost 10years really needs.
For me there has been a very big decrease in all problems on the ebay uk site since ebay made improvements, whilst Oz for instance brings up the same old problems.
In all honesty, the least contact I have with ebay customer service the better.