Buyer not able to accept Custom Offer while Seller in Out of Office mode

[miiila]

I don’t know if it’s a bug or a new setting, but in any case, it’s very inconvenient.

It used to work to send custom offers to regular/return customers even when in out-of-office mode, but it doesn’t seem to work anymore.

I’m sure I’m not the only seller who can and wants to often still send custom offers to regulars even though in out of office mode (to prevent people from ordering directly when we’re at or over capacity - by the way, the Writing & Translation category still needs the option to limit gig multiples). There are regulars who want to order timely, to make sure a seller will be able to do their job, even if it involves longer delivery times, at least I do get messages of the “whenever you have the time” kind, or sellers who might not want to take up new buyers during their ooo but are fine taking orders from regulars.

Just now, I had to unpause a gig and deactivate out of office mode, because a buyer couldn’t accept the custom offer I was able to send - if it doesn’t work, it would be better to tell us already when wanting to send a custom offer, by the way, then we wouldn’t have to incommodate the customer needlessly but could deactivate, etc. before the customer tries to accept the offer.

I can’t see a good reason for sellers not being able to send custom offers to their regulars/former customers while in out-of-office mode, since they are also able to message sellers even though they are in out-of-office mode, that doesn’t quite fit.

So, I’m hoping that it’s either a bug that will get fixed, or if a new setting, that it will be rethought.

[nadiappp]

My customers could never accept the custom offers sent from a paused gig. So I unpaused it, put a huge price to prevent receiving sudden orders from other buyers, waited for the acceptance by the buyer, then paused it again.

[miiila]

My customers could never accept the custom offers sent from a paused gig. So I unpaused it, put a huge price to prevent receiving sudden orders from other buyers, waited for the acceptance by the buyer, then paused it again.

That’s interesting. It did work just fine for me in the past. Then recently, it started, one customer couldn’t, but after that, another one could, now it doesn’t work again. Hence, I wasn’t sure if it was a bug, or if it’s by design now.

This is very inconvenient. I used to send custom offers to regulars who asked for one while in ooo, and not everyone logs in right away and accepts when I send it, obviously, which now means I’ll have to leave ooo deactivated until they do and I myself can log in again to activate ooo again … and in the meantime, people will be able to order directly without checking back, even using the unlimitable multiple gigs function.

Well, I hope someone looks at this and reconsiders if it’s how it’s supposed to be now. Many regulars are regulars for a reason, they don’t want to, in some cases, even really can’t, just look for another seller, only because theirs is in out of office mode. And Fiverr lets former/regular customers message sellers even though they are in out of office mode (while you can choose to not let new people message you). It simply makes no sense to not let sellers send those customers offers from out of office mode then.

Like this, if things go wrong, while I’m waiting for the regular to accept the custom offer he asked for, other people would be able to directly order my gig because I had to deactivate ooo, and then I might not have the time anymore for that regular’s order when he is about to accept it, that’s a bit surreal 😄

[krheate]

Many sellers have also been dealing with this: Buyer is unable to accept custom offer!

What I usually do is just disable out-of-office for like 10 minutes until the buyer accepts my custom offer, and then I turn out-of-office back on.

It’s a little risky, as a new buyer could place an order within those 10 minutes, but that’s never happened before for me (knocks on wood).

[miiila]

Many sellers have also been dealing with this: Buyer is unable to accept custom offer!

What I usually do is just disable out-of-office for like 10 minutes until the buyer accepts my custom offer, and then I turn out-of-office back on.

It’s a little risky, as a new buyer could place an order within those 10 minutes, but that’s never happened before for me (knocks on wood).

Yes, but that only works if your customer is online when you send the offer. I have some regulars who aren’t online all the time. I’m booked out for next week and re-activated ooo, after one customer accepted his offer, but this means another customer who hasn’t yet but will eventually try to accept the offer, will have to message me and tell me he can’t accept it.

Alternatively, I might have to deactivate out of office until Monday or so, and that would mean several days of

• potentially getting an order/orders that would be an issue to fulfill/I might have to cancel
• spending time on inquiries of new people for orders I won’t be able to do anyway
• spending time on seller spam messages

It worked just fine like it did, with being able to send and buyers being able to accept custom offers while being in ooo, I really don’t see the point of changing this.

Anyway, I hope that posting this in Report a Bug makes Fiverr fix or reconsider it if it’s not a bug.

[victel]

I am experiencing the same irritating glitch! When I get backed up I activate the out of office mode but am still happy to accept new jobs from regular buyers (I mean, I wouldn’t send a custom offer if I wasn’t going to do it!) I have complained about this before but it doesn’t seem to be high on Fiverr’s bugs to fix list.

[miiila]

This is still an issue.

I’m in out-of-office mode currently, because I can’t have people order God knows how many Gig multiples of my Gigs (without the delivery time going up accordingly, which is another major issue for sellers in the Writing&Translation category that’s been addressed here already often) at the moment, but sent an offer to a regular customer, which they said they couldn’t accept because of my status.
Thus, I had to turn off out-of-office mode, tell the buyer I did, and hope that they’d accept the offer before someone else directly orders some amount of my Gig that I’d not be able to deliver without contacting me first.
Then, after the order came through, I had to turn on out-of-office mode again.

This is pretty annoying for both buyers and sellers, and I’m sure there are many sellers who sometimes need to turn on out-of-office mode but would still be able and willing to do orders for returning/regular buyers via custom offer.

The customer today told me they think it works from the app but not from the browser, but that the app doesn’t support their payment system, while the browser does, so they can only order through the browser.

It would be great if this could be fixed. 🙏

[miiila]

An update to share a possible workaround with the one or other two people who aren't afraid of using big bad 🐺 out-of-office mode 😉

 

After more "samples", it seems that indeed the phone app is the magical key to your buyers being able to accept your custom offers while you're in out-of-office mode. A customer who couldn't accept on desktop, kindly tried via the app, and it worked. Two others, as well.

So, if your customers use the app, and don't happen to use a payment system that the app doesn't support (see post above), you could ask them to try via the app, if you don't want to turn off ooo and potentially need to leave it turned on for a longer while until the customer can/will accept, risking direct orders you can't accomodate, and getting loads of spam in the meantime ...

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by miiila

[designs_taskbar]

On 4/10/2021 at 1:50 PM, miiila said:

 

So, I’m hoping that it’s either a bug that will get fixed, or if a new setting, that it will be rethought.

I think It should be rethought

[sk_moni]

This threat is so much helpful. Commenting just for follow up on this topic. 

[victel]

I am getting so sick of this now. It is such an irritating glitch that really should have been fixed already. Fiverr seems to have it waaaay down the list after launching further money making schemes like 'Seller Plus' and 'Promoted Gigs'. I have pretty much the same issues as Miiila, with buyers ordering huge multiples of my gigs which means I have to use 'Out of Office' but then when my regulars want to purchase (eg I have one who buys every Friday) I have to turn it off, wait for him to purchase, turn it back on and hope no other huge orders have sneaked in in the meantime. Yes I could always change my delivery from 7 days to 14 days but why should I put customers off (who assume they will wait the full 2 weeks) just because of this dumb glitch? If I send someone an offer, obviously that means I want them to accept it! 

Edited September 1, 2021 by victel
Typo