When should sellers leave feedback ratings?

[mandy]

Overstock advises waiting until after the seller has received the item before leaving feedback:

When Should Sellers Leave Ratings? 
Hello everyone,

Let me preface this post by reiterating that it's not my job to tell you how to sell. Everyone has their own set of personal business guidelines and criteria which supplement the ones already set forth by the venue.

Because of the number of emails I receive regarding this subject, I'm asking you to consider the following.

I receive quite a few personal messages from sellers frustrated because a buyer has blindsided them with a negative rating, without bothering to contact the seller first to work out a solution. Several of you are in the practice of rating a buyer as soon as they pay.

Business Ratings are an integral piece of your selling success here. They are meant to be left when the transaction is completed between the buyer and seller. I would argue that a transaction is not complete until a customer has received the product and is happy with it.

Please consider leaving Ratings only after you have established that the customer is content, by sending a follow-up email to confirm. In your follow-up, you may want to suggest at that point that if they are happy, you could both agree to leave ratings, or if they have a problem with the transaction, they can reply to let you know so that you can resolve it with them first.

By waiting until the customer has received the item, you are leaving yourself some leverage for resolution, and minimizing the chances of an unfair business rating.

thread: http://forums.auctions.overstock.com/vie...hp?t=15475

[xppman]

Or you can NEG them right BACK and be done with it.
Personally I've never had that problem though.

[iron_chick]

OK, I positive Overstock Customer Service experience.

I got a neg last night from a NPB.  I'd never filed on them - it just slipped through the cracks.    Just never got paid.  No email.  No nothing.  Until they negged ME because they hadn't gotten their widget.  (Yeah, I'm funny that way - I insist on payment in advance.)

So I filed a NPB on them, negged them, and whined to the big O.

The buyer paid.

The big O removed my neg.

It took 2 emails but it happened in less than 24 hours.