Dealing with less-than-five-star reviews – the right way

[smashradio]

Do you know what I like to do when looking for sellers? 

I check out the ones with a 4.5 - 4.9 rating. Then I look up their lower star reviews to see how they responded to the buyer. If they come across as non-caring, unprofessional or angry, they're out.

If they responded in a professional, constructive and meaningful way to their review, that might get them hired because they handled a less-than-stellar experience well. 

Expecting excellence every time is unrealistic. But knowing that your seller is willing to learn from past mistakes and work to better themselves tells me a lot about their character. 

So don't worry so much about the review, and more about how you deal with it, learn from it, and improve yourself. Show your buyers that you are professional by responding to less-than-five-star reviews with a meaningful, understanding and professional message.

Sure - having the stats drop too low will have consequences for you and your business. But I've hired sellers based on their dealings with less-than-excellent reviews alone. (Well, not entirely, since their gig description, video, image, and offering had an effect, too!). 

My point is: the way you deal with stuff like this can show other buyers that you're professional, willing to learn and get better at what you do – and that you care about your buyers. 

That's where the difference between a professional and a pretender lies.  

Obviously, you shouldn't let a horrible experience go unnoticed, but even when you have bad things to say, there are ways to do so that makes you come across as a true professional and not a bitter and uncooperative angry person. 

 

[dev_tahmina]

3 hours ago, smashradio said:

Do you know what I like to do when looking for sellers? 

I check out the ones with a 4.5 - 4.9 rating. Then I look up their lower star reviews to see how they responded to the buyer. If they come across as non-caring, unprofessional or angry, they're out.

If they responded in a professional, constructive and meaningful way to their review, that might get them hired because they handled a less-than-stellar experience well. 

Expecting excellence every time is unrealistic. But knowing that your seller is willing to learn from past mistakes and work to better themselves tells me a lot about their character. 

So don't worry so much about the review, and more about how you deal with it, learn from it, and improve yourself. Show your buyers that you are professional by responding to less-than-five-star reviews with a meaningful, understanding and professional message.

Sure - having the stats drop too low will have consequences for you and your business. But I've hired sellers based on their dealings with less-than-excellent reviews alone. (Well, not entirely, since their gig description, video, image, and offering had an effect, too!). 

My point is: the way you deal with stuff like this can show other buyers that you're professional, willing to learn and get better at what you do – and that you care about your buyers. 

That's where the difference between a professional and a pretender lies.  

Obviously, you shouldn't let a horrible experience go unnoticed, but even when you have bad things to say, there are ways to do so that makes you come across as a true professional and not a bitter and uncooperative angry person. 

 

I got 4.3 and was very broken. After that I thought it would not be good all the time. I need to do something better here. Then I try this time and hope for success.

[smashradio]

23 hours ago, dev_tahmina said:

I got 4.3 and was very broken. After that I thought it would not be good all the time. I need to do something better here. Then I try this time and hope for success.

Why would you feel broken because of a 4,3 review? It's not a bad review, it's just not an excellent review. 

Whenever you get a review like that, analyze the situation, try to find out how you could have done better and what might be changed in the way you work to avoid those issues the next time. It's not the end of the world. :) 

[newsmike]

1 minute ago, smashradio said:

Why would you feel broken because of a 4,3 review?

It's the "everyone gets a participation trophy" mentality. 

[smashradio]

1 minute ago, newsmike said:

It's the "everyone gets a participation trophy" mentality. 

Ah yes. I remember when they started doing that at my school. Yes, I'm that young. It came about when I was 12-13 if I remember correctly. The school was having a swimming competition. The most lazy, useless kid in our class got a trophy. He sank to the bottom after two feet and had to be rescued by me and two other classmates. 

That's when I realized I don't want to live on this planet anymore. You wouldn't happen to know of a planet with a true meritocracy, by any chance? 

[newsmike]

Just now, smashradio said:

You wouldn't happen to know of a planet with a true meritocracy, by any chance? 

Officially no. PM me. We leave in 4 months. 

[smashradio]

 

4 minutes ago, newsmike said:

Officially no. PM me. We leave in 4 months. 

Will we meet Don LaFontaine when we get there? 

[surajkartha]

On 8/26/2021 at 11:49 PM, smashradio said:

I check out the ones with a 4.5 - 4.9 rating. Then I look up their lower star reviews to see how they responded to the buyer. If they come across as non-caring, unprofessional or angry, they're out.

Exactly.. That's one of the things I do too.. Irrespective of whether a buyer is right or not, it matters how well you handle a feedback or complaint. 

[dev_tahmina]

On 8/27/2021 at 5:37 PM, smashradio said:

Why would you feel broken because of a 4,3 review? It's not a bad review, it's just not an excellent review. 

Whenever you get a review like that, analyze the situation, try to find out how you could have done better and what might be changed in the way you work to avoid those issues the next time. It's not the end of the world. 🙂

Thank you very much. To support me so beautifully with so much affection. I must fix all those things. I will learn from mistakes 

On 8/27/2021 at 5:38 PM, newsmike said:

It's the "everyone gets a participation trophy" mentality. 

yes, you got it 

On 8/27/2021 at 5:43 PM, smashradio said:

Ah yes. I remember when they started doing that at my school. Yes, I'm that young. It came about when I was 12-13 if I remember correctly. The school was having a swimming competition. The most lazy, useless kid in our class got a trophy. He sank to the bottom after two feet and had to be rescued by me and two other classmates. 

That's when I realized I don't want to live on this planet anymore. You wouldn't happen to know of a planet with a true meritocracy, by any chance? 

The real story of your life has inspired me. I will move forward, obstacles will come and I will have to overcome them 

[visualstudios]

58 minutes ago, smashradio said:

Why would you feel broken because of a 4,3 review? It's not a bad review, it's just not an excellent review. 

In the real world, yes. In Fiverr, unfortunately, the review system is extremely skewed. The threshold for level demotion is 4.7, so anything under that is objectively a bad review according to Fiverr. That's the problem. I would expect any normal marketplace to hover around the 3.5-4 star in terms of average reviews. On Fiverr, any average rating under 4.7 or so is a death sentence. Thousands upon thousands of sellers with 5, 4.9, 4.8 average reviews, with hundreds of reviews. That's not normal. The reviews should follow a gaussian curve. They clearly don't, they are extremely top heavy.

Edited August 27, 2021 by visualstudios

[smashradio]

Just now, visualstudios said:

In the real world, yes. In Fiverr, unfortunately, the review system is extremely skewed. The threshold for level demotion is 4.7, so anything under that is objectively a bad review according to Fiverr. That's the problem. I would expect any normal marketplace to hover around the 3.5-4 star in terms of average reviews. On Fiverr, anything average rating under 4.7 or so is a death sentence.

4,7 on average. So no, if you're getting some business on Fiverr, a couple of negative or less than stellar reviews aren't going to get you demoted, as long as you deliver the quality and level of service your buyers expect from you. 

Sure, if you get two orders and one is a 1 star review, it's going to hurt your stats! But you're not really an established and successful seller if that's the case, now, are you? 

[visualstudios]

That was not my point though. Since a 4.7 average review is the threshold, any review under 4.7 is negative. Think about it - if you only got 4.3 star reviews, and none  others, what would that do to your account? That means 4.3 is bad. If 4.3 was good, you could get only 4.3 reviews in all your orders and be fine. And that's the way it should be, an average score of 4.3 should be more than respectable. But it isn't, and that's the problem.

Besides, in a marketplace where the competition all has 5 star reviews average, anything under is objectively bad.

Edited August 27, 2021 by visualstudios

[smashradio]

Just now, visualstudios said:

That was not my point though. Since a 4.7 average review is the threshold, any review under 4.7 is negative. Think about it - if you only got 4.3 star reviews, and none  others, what would that do to your account? That means 4.3 is bad.

No, it means getting only 4,3 ratings is bad. It doesn't mean that a single or a couple 4,3 reviews in a crowd of five stars is bad. 

Since we're still talking about an average, and since any successfull seller will get plenty of orders on Fiverr, a few 4,3 reviews isn't too shabby. 

But hey, I'd prefer to get only five star reviews all the time. But that's not going to happen. 

My point isn't that you'd think a 4,3 review is great, but it's not very bad, unless you get a lot of them compared to the five star ones. And if you do, you're probably doing something wrong, and have areas where you could and should improve. 

[visualstudios]

Oh, that's a different discussion. A single 4.3 review amidst a bunch of 5 star reviews is not a catastrophe. However, 4.3, according to Fiverr, is bad. Of course you can get a way with a couple of bad reviews if you have a ton of good ones to compensate. But that doesn't mean they cease to be bad. 4.3 may not be "very bad", but it's bad. Anything under the threshold is bad, by definition. If a rating is not "bad", then I can get only that rating, repeatedly, and it won't harm my business. Since getting 4.3 reviews repeatedly would definitely harm my business, they are bad reviews.

In addition, you just confirmed that "if you're getting a lot of 4.3 reviews you're doing something wrong". That's the point, shouldn't be the case. 4.3 should be perfectly fine. The best movies, games, albums, etc. of all time don't get 4.7 average ratings on imdb, metacritic, etc. The system on Fiverr is skewed heavily towards the top end. Any honest, natural review system should follow a normal curve - more hits in the middle, less hits in the extremities. Because come on, almost nobody is perfect, and almost nobody is absolutely horrid. 5 means perfect. 1 means the worst possible. Most reviews should fall in the middle. At the very least, 1 star reviews and 5 star reviews should be equally common, since they are the extremes. But what do you see? I don't have data, but I would say at least 80% of all reviews in the platform are 5 stars. What? 

Edited August 27, 2021 by visualstudios

[smashradio]

1 hour ago, visualstudios said:

Oh, that's a different discussion. A single 4.3 review amidst a bunch of 5 star reviews is not a catastrophe. However, 4.3, according to Fiverr, is bad. Of course you can get a way with a couple of bad reviews if you have a ton of good ones to compensate. But that doesn't mean they cease to be bad. 4.3 may not be "very bad", but it's bad. Anything under the threshold is bad, by definition. If a rating is not "bad", then I can get only that rating, repeatedly, and it won't harm my business. Since getting 4.3 reviews repeatedly would definitely harm my business, they are bad reviews.

In addition, you just confirmed that "if you're getting a lot of 4.3 reviews you're doing something wrong". That's the point, shouldn't be the case. 4.3 should be perfectly fine. The best movies, games, albums, etc. of all time don't get 4.7 average ratings on imdb, metacritic, etc. The system on Fiverr is skewed heavily towards the top end. Any honest, natural review system should follow a normal curve - more hits in the middle, less hits in the extremities. Because come on, almost nobody is perfect, and almost nobody is absolutely horrid. 5 means perfect. 1 means the worst possible. Most reviews should fall in the middle. At the very least, 1 star reviews and 5 star reviews should be equally common, since they are the extremes. But what do you see? I don't have data, but I would say at least 80% of all reviews in the platform are 5 stars. What? 

You make a good point. I don't think it's meant to be viewed as single reviews, but an average. So the system works as intended, but could certainly be improved. The end result of the system is that each buyer gets an average, and that average indicates how happy their buyers are. 

Is the system skewed? Yes, it is, because Fiverr has thousands of sellers, and it has to know who to prioritize. If a seller isn't a top performer, they need to go, so the best sellers can replace them. It's a hard game, and we're all in it to win. 

[visualstudios]

Yeah, I get it, it's all about optics. Fiverr thinks it looks better to just show 5 stars across the board, and heavily penalize those who can't keep up with that. They are probably right in a business sense - but it's just not really fair on honest working people. Having an average review of 4.5 or 4.3 shouldn't mean demotion and basically killing your profile. That should be a good average. At least let the buyers decide. You'll already be at a disadvantage if your average is 4.5 instead of 5.0 in terms of looking appealing to buyers. That on top of that you are also demoted? Come on.

And this is particularly bad for high ticket low volume sellers. If you sell 100 gigs a month for $10, sure, you get the average. But if you sell just one for $1000 per month, you're making the same money, you're making Fiverr the same money, but a single bad review can nuke you. Highly risky. This is my case, I rarely do more than 10 orders a month, they're just big. A single review has a lot of impact on my profile, even though I have, with less than 200 reviews, made Fiverr more money than a lot of sellers with thousands of reviews. If you're selling several gigs a day, then yes, a 4.3 review is not a big deal. But if you're selling a couple a month, it's bad. And selling a couple a month doesn't mean you're not a successful seller. What matters (both for you and specially for Fiverr) is how much money you're making, not how many gigs you sell.

Edited August 28, 2021 by visualstudios

[rkjensen7005]

Smash:  great points.   The sign of good customer service is how they handle customer feedback when the feedback is NEGATIVE.

ANY company/provider can handle positive feedback, that's easy.   But if any company's reflex reaction to negative feedback is to be defensive
and lash out, then that's probably not a company we should want to do business with. 

Companies should try to respond to all negative feedback politely and try to understand the customer's viewpoint, and also make an attempt to satisfy
this customer.  

[mabelma]

Great points indeed. I think we should respond to bad reviews and uncomfortable experiences with kindness and gratefulness. I personally like to thank the buyer for their business regardless of their review, and if it's a bad review it all depends on how bad the experience was. If the buyer is lying, I will politely clarify my version of the encounter whilst validating the experience of the client and will close it off with a call to hopefully do business again or further revise their order if they reach out. I agree with this post wholeheartedly, be professional in every step of the way.

[kevin_etugala]

What a thought-provoking article! It's refreshing to see someone emphasize the importance of how sellers respond to lower-star reviews. It's true that nobody's perfect, but how we handle criticism and learn from it truly reflects our character. This article reminds us that being professional, understanding, and proactive in addressing feedback can make all the difference in a competitive marketplace. Kudos to the author for shedding light on the qualities that separate true professionals from mere pretenders.
Great read!
Thank you.💕

[charlsmcfarlane]

Love this. Thanks for writing this post @smashradio. I respond to every review, regardless of the rating and I’ve always endeavoured to respond to negative reviews in as positive a way as possible, while attempting to clarify my point of view. It can be hard to remain objective and not take negative reviews personally, but I think it’s important.