Seller Additional Support

[4x4world_au]

We have been a seller on eBay for over 10 years and ship thousands of deliveries a year and spend a substantial amount on eBay fees each month.

However whenever we have an issue, as far as we know, we only have the standard option of contacting eBay customer support (I would refer to this as level 1 support) that a brand new seller.buyer would.

It is virutally impossible to get any technical or more complex customer service issues escalated (it appers like the level 1 guys must get a negative mark if they push an issue up the hierarchy?) which can be very frustrating.  

The level 1 support seem trained more in dealing with single item sellers/buyers and not the issues of a high volume eBay store.

Does anyone know of any eBay support alternatives - like store support specialists or any technicque for getting the contact details of some higher than level 1 (eg I don't think they have account managers, but something like that)?

[kopenhagen5]

Only one other option I know of.

If you request a call back rather than wait for eBay staff on the phone, the responders tend to be of better quality and more knowledge.

Or the members here are often very good with answers to queries.

Sometimes known for giving better advice than the eBay call centre. 

[phorum_junkie*]

Sometimes known for giving better advice than the eBay call centre.

Back in the old days when ebay moderated the boards themselves it was admitted that if somebody didn't know the answer to a problem they would post it on the boards as they were sure one of the regulars would know the answer LOL.

[thecatspjs]

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@4x4world_au wrote:

We have been a seller on eBay for over 10 years and ship thousands of deliveries a year and spend a substantial amount on eBay fees each month.

However whenever we have an issue, as far as we know, we only have the standard option of contacting eBay customer support (I would refer to this as level 1 support) that a brand new seller.buyer would.

It is virutally impossible to get any technical or more complex customer service issues escalated (it appers like the level 1 guys must get a negative mark if they push an issue up the hierarchy?) which can be very frustrating.  

The level 1 support seem trained more in dealing with single item sellers/buyers and not the issues of a high volume eBay store.

Does anyone know of any eBay support alternatives - like store support specialists or any technicque for getting the contact details of some higher than level 1 (eg I don't think they have account managers, but something like that)?

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Request to speak with a supervisor.

Do not speak with frontline call centre staff. 

If the supervisors response is unsatisfactory - request to speak with their supervisor and if not available, request that they contact you.

Do not accept no for an answer.  Escalate, escalate, escalate.  Be polite, but firm.

[4x4world_au]

Thanks for the feedback.

We've attempted that in the past but faced some pretty stiff opposition by the frontline staff escalating an issue.

We're assuming they must have a KPI or culture around it being bad to escalate an issue.  As the other guys have mentioned, many cases we have better knowledge/experience than the frontline guys and just end up going around in circles getting an more complext issue resolved.

[character_parties_aus]

I am of the conclusion that expecting support for my fees from any of my suppliers, eBay included if they are a large organisation is basically a waste of time on the whole.

In regards to eBay I find the quality of answers on here in regards to more complex questions pretty good as long as you can filter to odd grump / troll with some kind of personality disorder! Calling them is usually a time wasting and frustrating experience with anything other than very basic questions. Most of their staff are poorly trained gimps. If they are any good I doubt they last long!

Other suppliers for example Australia Post dont respond to my e-mails on the whole ( my account manager) and the service is pretty awful.

The only larger supplier I have that provides pretty good service is paypal where I have a dedicated account manager due to website sales volume being quite high ( not ebay which is pretty small)

[davidc4430]

i'm quite sure all the big name sellers who have been invited into the ebay family dont have any trouble getting a response from master ebay when they feel theres a problem.

the rest of us are small fish in the big pond (sorry telstra)