Losing 100% rating - no chance of Top Seller now? Might as well quit?

[adversity]

So, I had an order that ran a bit late; I mailed the buyer and told him it would be late and that I would be finishing the job last night. So, he says OK and leaves the order open and I go ahead and do it, print out my flyers, drive out to post them up, take the pictures etc., and then when I get back to deliver them this morning, the buyer has cancelled the order just a few minutes before, which slaps me with a negative review (my first), a thumbs down and did not do the job comment, and takes my gig down half a star. Now, I currently have close to 100 positive reviews and almost 150 delivered orders… 41 positive reviews on the gig in question, and just 1 mistake is able to drop it down half a star? If another order is cancelled for whatever reason, I’ll lose another half?



My 100% rating is now gone, replaced with 99% and I feel like this basically just killed over 3 months of hard work on my profile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Top Rated seller with less than 100% or perfect reviews, so now I’m staring at the 20+ active orders on my list now and… kinda not wanting to do them now because what’s the point? My goal of Top Seller might be unobtainable now? Just 1 mess-up and it feels like my time here is wasted. Now, I don’t necessarily mind the cancelled order, even though I paid for the production costs, spent my time delivering it, etc, but the automatic negative review slapped onto my gig and the resultant hit to my profile as a whole just leave a bad taste in my mouth.



I’ve not had any bad experiences with buyers before, and I don’t think the customer would just slap me with a negative review like that on purpose. Cancelling the order is certainly his prerogative, but why must negative feedback be automatically generated? Can a person not cancel the order without animosity? When RL jobs or businesses have a cancelled order for whatever reason, does the customer automatically go onto yelp and leave a horrible review?



I tried to message the customer to tell him, ‘Hey dude, I finished your job just as promised when you said ok yesterday. I’m even in the process of uploading the pics right now’ hoping to get the review fixed, but there is no option I see to directly contact another Fiverr user aside from doing an order. And as the order is cancelled I cannot message him through that either. So, as I can’t even message the guy to tell him the job was complete, I can’t get the review fixed and he is unaware that he basically got his gig done for free.



So, what am I supposed to do now? Abandon this account/profile and create a new one and start over just because of 1 bad instance? I’m not so sure I want to be doing that. I’m honestly pretty upset right now, it almost feels like I just wasted the last 3 months.

[adversity]

Reply to @madmoo:



First things first, thanks for the quick reply and feedback 🙂



I’d love to do that, except I cannot for the life of me find any way to contact the buyer through Fiverr aside from through order updates or clicking the message button on gig listings (which he doesn’t have). I’m sure the buyer wouldn’t have left a negative review on his own accord, or if he had but then saw that the order was actually complete, he might have changed it.



I just find it messed up that Fiverr itself decides to step in and slap the negative review there on their own. I’m busting my behind to succeed on here and generate income, and I had been doing well, and ofc Fiverr is taking 20% off all those sales, so to me it seems more like they shoot themselves in the foot doing that. People might be more hesitant to order after seeing what looks like a user-written bad review… and if my bottom line is affected, so is Fiverr’s.



I petitioned customer support regarding the issue: I’m hoping that as the buyer had said OK earlier to my telling him I was running late, they might remove the auto-feedback.

[ryangillam]

kjblynx said:

I've seen a couple TRS without 100%, they just don't seem to go below 98%.

 

There was a TRS with 94% for about 8 months. Ended up getting demoted to Level 2 when they hit 93% feedback.

 

 

[chaihock]

To achieve Top Rated Seller (TRS) is more than simply having the 100%.



It’s not as simple as keeping your 100% rating. If it’s just that, then the hundreds of thousands of people here with 100% would become a TRS overnight.



I think you have clearly misunderstood the concept of being a TRS.

[adversity]

Reply to @chaihock:



Yes, of course, but the rating is of course a factor. And even if it does not affect my chances of becoming a TRS, it is still extremely disheartening.



I spent around 10 hours delivering orders today after this episode, and I barely turned a profit on most of those jobs after production and delivery costs. I’ve been working for almost nothing on many occasions for the last 3 months just focusing on getting those good reviews, figuring that once the reviews are there the bigger and repeat orders will follow… just to find out that one single mess-up can significantly impact my ratings. I didn’t even realize it was an automatic review either as that is not mentioned anywhere, so it was like a kick in the … out of nowhere as I didn’t even know such a thing occurred.



My gig went down a half star… what happens if another mistake occurs? 4 stars?



I’ve looked at my competitors and many of them don’t even offer much proof of delivery, etc, if at all, whereas I go out of my way to place my flyers in good locations and take a great deal of high quality pics. I think the reason I get as many orders as I do, even thought I don’t offer as many units as the competition does, is because my gigs are literally full of good reviews and picture proof.



If my rating goes down, there isn’t much to set me apart from the others, and the result is that I lose orders to people that I doubt are even doing what they claim to be doing. If you see two sellers both with a 99% rating but one of them offers more units per order, wouldn’t you go for that one? Not everyone realizes that the pictures are scrollable, I often have to tell people who ask about if I give pics. So, those customers would be lost. Would you want to go and work a 10 hour day for a handful of dollars, just to turn around and see some guy getting paid just as much, if not more, and not even proving he actually did any work? If you cancel an order with another site/service/business, does your cancellation automatically go and leave a thumbs down on your yelp profile?



This probably belongs in the rant section now, heh. Sorry to vent, it’s just extremely depressing and frustrating.



EDIT:



Reply to @ madmoo:



Excellent advice! It worked and I was able to message the buyer. I sent him the photo proofs of his completed job and am hoping to get this resolved favorably 🙂