Early in the ebay days I felt like you, that a negative feedback was such a destruction of everything I had ever done right and I prided myself on how good I did things and how could a buyer be so callous and all that...
Then I learned a little something...
The reply to negative feedback is most often viewed by other potential and future buyers, and is thus my opportunity to shine in front of them. And because of that today I always use negative feedback as a way to show off my good customer service skills, with comments such as "Dear Buyer I am so very sorry you are not happy with your purchase, please contact us at once or open a return request so we can initiate a return of the bad merchandise and issue you a full refund, thank you kindly for your understanding and have a pleasant day."
Which sounds a whole lot better than...
"My buyer is a complete idiot that fits in the human category of people who can't be helped, which is very sad but yet they walk among us and here they are, destroying everything we have worked for our whole entire lives with their slanderous nonsense."
Because I learned is replies to feedback are rarely viewed by the buyer who left it. More often than not it's future buyers perusing the feedback who will read it, and I want them to read that I really tried to help the buyer and nothing more (granted it would likely also be a good idea if one actually did try to help the buyer).
On rare occasion that buyer will return to read their feedback after the reply is left, I have had it where such a buyer did actually open a return likely in response to my reply but it happened maybe once and it is truly rare. Many sellers who practice the same reply tactic have never had a buyer react in response to their reply but again I wish to reiterate it is very important to be positive in one's reply and to be the seller who did everything possible to help that buyer even after the negative feedback was left.
