How do you handle the -ve ratings?

[gauravsingh582]

Do you fear its going to hurt your business?

I was working for this client and even with the constant revision & rewriting from scratch he's not satisfied. Usually my work surpasses the client expectations but this one right here is very hard to impress. Honestly, I don't even have much clarity onwhat exactly he want and requested him several time. 

I know that I'll be getting a -ve remark and this will also affect my performance & seller level - I'm just reaching out you guys for some inspiration or suggestions. 

Thanks

[melanielm]

What is a -VE rating. I've never heard of such a thing.

Some buyers are just difficult. Don't offer unlimited revisions and make sure you're delivering top-quality work. That's about all you can do.

[visualstudios]

TIL "-" is read "negati", according to @gauravsingh582

Why do you make this stuff up? Seriously? Is writting "negative" that difficult?

[nikandco]

3 hours ago, gauravsingh582 said:

 

I know that I'll be getting a -ve remark and this will also affect my performance & seller level - I'm just reaching out you guys for some inspiration or suggestions. 

Negative ratings are bound to happen occasionally. They will eventually balance back out. But if it’s too challenging of an order, and you aren’t sure how to execute it properly, I’d probably recommend canceling the order. 

[kevindwren]

I had one buyer who left one-star review, but I was confident because I know the mistake was on his part and not mine. So I replied that review by telling my side of the story in a sensible manner. No matter how rude or difficult they are, do not name-call the buyer because it's basically just not the right thing to do and everyone would be able to read your response as well. At least this way, potential buyers would be able to know the issue from both sides and judge for themselves whether the negative review is fair.

[priyab468]

3 hours ago, kevindwren said:

 So I replied that review by telling my side of the story in a sensible manner. 

Best approach. 

[frank_d]

I used to literally have recurring nightmares about getting a negative review.

Maintaining a perfect record after completing thousands of projects takes its toll on you.

Then it finally happened and it kind of set me free. I didn’t lose everything. It just happened and I dealt with it.

So my advice is don’t spend too much time worrying about it.

Make sure you did your best and that you treated the buyer in a professional manner.

Then once the review is posted don’t trash them. Explain what happened in your review and in a reply. 

[rachelbostwick]

It always hurts me and I always cry. Even a 4.7 causes me pain, which is really pitiful and I know it. Wish it wasn't so but I am a big softie. I like to think it's the flipside of the empathy that makes me able to jump into (most of) my customers' shoes and figure out what they need and make it happen.

When I'm done with my pity party, I pick myself up and figure out what I did wrong, if anything. Sometimes it's nothing. Usually it's nothing. 

If it is something on me, I figure out how I can prevent it from happening again. Usually that involves addngi a FAQ or an order requirement to my gig. Sometimes it means changing my verbiage or raising a price. Sometimes it means deciding not to accept a certain kind of work anymore. This is a good time to remind everyone that you can and should edit your gig at any time until it's working for you exactly how you want it.

This part is my personal opinion, not advice: I never write my side of the story after a negative review. The majority of my reviews are positive enough that I leave what happened to my potential future customer's imagination. If you have five reviews that say you are a delight, one review that says you are a dope, and then five more reviews that say you are diligent, guess who looks like a dope? It actually isn't you. Your future customers will resolve the cognitive dissonance of that one bad review by deciding the customer was the problem not you. In my opinion it looks classier for me to say nothing than to speak poorly of the customer. But that may just be part of my unapologetically saccharine brand, and might not work for other people. 

[cs_evans]

I wish a lot more less than 5-star ratings were given out on this platform.  If everyone is 5-star, then no one is.  In the current paradigm, it is difficult to different the good from the outstanding.  If a rating system worked as it should, it would give the user a great deal of feedback on their actual performance, and over many reviews there should be enough data to course correct your work.  People are, generally speaking, biased to be nice and therefore either give a review higher than the person actually deserves, or in the case where they would be inclined to give say a 3-star review, they instead just don't give a review at all... or even worse, don't give a public rating with comments, and instead give a bad review on that private survey, which is a silent killer.  So, I advocate for real and honest reviews to create transparency in how well someone is actually performing. Personally, I would much rather be a 4.7 star in a system where the ratings had a big impact vs. a 5-star in a system where the ratings aren't highly considered.  There is a reason that private survey is sent to buyers after a gig is complete, and I bet you dollars to donuts it is because he public rating system is fundamentally flawed because of the reasons stated above.