Amazon Strategic Account Services
Hello all,
I recently signed up for Amazon's Strategic Account Services. It is costing me over $2k per month and was sold as a was to get insights to help resolve issues and more importantly to help grow the business. I have been with them for a month now and I must say I am regretting this (they require you sign up for a three month commitment). The benefits have been minimal at best. I expected some insights into areas of opportunity and how best to optimize the listings I have.
Does anyone else have a positive or negative experience they can share? I am trying to figure out if the program is not worthwhile or if I just have an account manager that is not (or maybe I just expected too much).
Thanks
Amazon Strategic Account Services
Hello all,
I recently signed up for Amazon's Strategic Account Services. It is costing me over $2k per month and was sold as a was to get insights to help resolve issues and more importantly to help grow the business. I have been with them for a month now and I must say I am regretting this (they require you sign up for a three month commitment). The benefits have been minimal at best. I expected some insights into areas of opportunity and how best to optimize the listings I have.
Does anyone else have a positive or negative experience they can share? I am trying to figure out if the program is not worthwhile or if I just have an account manager that is not (or maybe I just expected too much).
Thanks
18 replies
Seller_OvL8C4BJWiuS9
I have never heard good things about it. Most people that post on here about it have had zero help where they thought they would.
Seller_9yQUzZAP34cYw
Unfortunately it is like every other paid "service" Amazon provides, over priced, broken, and generally useless. Every experience I've ever heard is similar to yours. Amazon is not going to help you fix any listings. They will not give you any insights as to how to grow PROFITABLY. The information provided is extremely basic.
Strategic Account Services, AWD, CSBA, and many more. I'm sorry you got sold.
Seller_btw1hdzhQ4dCW
@Seller_1YkWo4vbgfSN0
We too regretted paying for SAS and discontinued it after 3 months. We were on the waiting list for so long and when we were assigned a SAS core manager, she had just come off training. We knew more about Amazon's inner workings than she did. And her manager was always a "no show" on our calls, etc. All she did was try and push a higher advertising $ spend. Unfortunately it was a disappointing waste of our money
Seller_TFtK05AWCtKWm
I avoid these programs like the plague. They promise the world and deliver very little. I recall a conversation with a sales person at Amazon about this, once they told me they also have to rely on seller support internally that was my cue to end the conversation.
Seller_Nu640cuxLLO4H
a friend of mine uses it for his account and says the main value for him is when things go wrong, he actually has someone to speak to that can help escalate issues. The way I look at SAS Core is that it's more of an insurance policy... an expensive one so you need to be at a certain revenue level to justify that extra expense. Hope that helps.
Seller_8ESHZD3bXlVUv
We've been happy with the advice so far - they've been able to highlight some gaps that we can correct in our listings and product details, as well as keyword insights. The reports we get sent are phenomenal, I wish we could access them outside of SaS.
The support flow is meh, but I don't think that's their focus - it's more a side benefit. It's not bad, overall. still a lot of hoops to jump through. In a way - it's a lot like bypassing a "forum mod escalation" and going right to the guys that can fix things - the support path is pretty much the same with the end being that you have a human you can complain to that can advise on how to better word your issue to get results you're looking for. Basically, Open a standard ticket, when it fails, escalate to SAS support with a case number (or for those without SaS, a forum mod), and if that still fails, escalate to your rep who can help you rework your wording/escalate internally.
I meet with our rep bi-weekly and find the insights valuable. A lot of what we are shown is stuff I had been trying to do on my own, fumbling around with inadequate exports and reports for a long time. One breakdown we received shows listing by listing where images are lacking, not zoomable, missing or suppressed descriptions, A+ content not enabled, etc. My catalog is huge so this is invaluable. Another report helps us understand keywording for our products better. Another report gives anticipated sales projections. I love this. Wish access to them wasn't via the rep and so expensive.
We managed to get in on this during our off season, so our costs are lower than they would have been during our peak period. I'm not an Amazon fan or nay-sayer, it is what it is (and honestly I'm usually grumpy about dealing with the Amazon brick walls I am faced with here frequently), but overall I appreciate the SaS service.
TLDR: As a service to improve listings and your bottom line, it's fantastic. As an escalation path - maybe not so much.
Seller_8ESHZD3bXlVUv
If Amazon reads this - note that I think I could justify paying a small bonus subscription to have access to these better reports regularly - say, 1x a quarter, or 3x a year at a minimum.
Seller_E5ZoM4Qb6xvFt
[Moderator Edit: Comment containing solicitation removed]
Seller_89IBsGNTxQDtH
Here is a link to some of the SAS services you can initiate-- like edits to the category or changes to the title and more
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gc/strategic-account-services/self-service
The big thing is their help overcoming support failures. If support doesn't fix things in 5 days you can get your SAS person it.
It is expensive but if you keep pressing the buttons you will get a reward
Seller_HRcJa1gdGHeov
In general, any Amazon service or product offering will be bad; they almost always over promise and under deliver and the bots they use are just terrible.
As a rule we try to use Amazon as little as possible; they are either downright terrible or widely inconsistent, either case is no good for business.
