Revisions harmful?

[geo316]

So I've read that customers asking for revisions can be held against you by Fiverr (impacting your secret hidden internal ranking). Does anyone know if this is true? And if true, if a Gig actually OFFERS 2 or 3 revisions and a customer uses them would that STILL count against you? In my line of work (music production/mixing/mastering) every project has revisions...

 

Info about how Fiverr actually works is as hard to find and decipher as today's daily news reports 😒

[newsmike]

7 minutes ago, geo316 said:

Does anyone know if this is true?

I have never seen revisions hurt anything.  They are there for you to fine tune as the buyer often needs tweaks or additional takes. 

[jonbaas]

On 2/24/2022 at 10:58 AM, geo316 said:

So I've read that customers asking for revisions can be held against you by Fiverr (impacting your secret hidden internal ranking).

Where did you read that? 

To my knowledge, revisions don't hurt you -- they help you improve an order, according to the needs of a buyer.

[geo316]

47 minutes ago, jonbaas said:

Where did you read that? 

To my knowledge, revisions don't hurt you -- they help you improve an order, according to the needs of a buyer.

I think it was in that "Fiverr 3.0" thread. I'm learning fast not to take all that's said here as gospel - or even as informed opinion.

[imagination7413]

@frank_d's thread? Really? I don't recall...

Oh, you mean this:

On 3/20/2021 at 1:57 PM, frank_d said:

The need for SPEED: (performance B)

Fiverr 3.0 loves speed. The quicker you can respond to inquiries the better. The sooner you get that custom offer accepted, the better. Other factors that may show Fiverr you are rocking it:

-Delivering fast
-Buyers accepting their delivery relatively quickly
-Not getting lots of revision requests
-Not leaving order updates unanswered for too long (the “buyer has posted an update for X amount of hours” notification)
-Delivering before the “you have 12 hours to deliver” notification
-Avoiding cancellations
-Avoiding time extensions

That is a bit different from: 

On 2/24/2022 at 11:58 AM, geo316 said:

customers asking for revisions can be held against you by Fiverr (impacting your secret hidden internal ranking)

He clarified a few things in a later post in that thread. https://community.fiverr.com/forums/topic/243824-welcome-to-fiverr-30/?do=findComment&comment=1463943

[mehedi_shawon]

From my experience I did not find anything harmful for that. But you can show the work with your client before delivery then I think you will avoid revision.

[anwarhossain_]

I think revision is not harmful. To avoid excess revisions buyers should be informed the updates of the work.

[frank_d]

4 hours ago, geo316 said:

I think it was in that "Fiverr 3.0" thread. I'm learning fast not to take all that's said here as gospel - or even as informed opinion.

You are free to do your own research and you are correct to be cautious about what you read on this forum.

You should always check the source of information and compare what you see with your own findings.

If you have any questions about something I said in my effort to help sellers like yourself, you can always mention me or quote me with your question.

So to clarify on the revisions:

Revision requests are part of the system.

It is part of every freelancers process and so I don’t think you are being punished in any way when a buyer asks for the revisions you offer on your gig.

However: my thesis was about Fiverr favoring speed and efficiency.

I made an assumption in an effort to figure out why some gigs outperform others.

So I made the assumption that Fiverr may favor gigs that go smoother than gigs that usually get stuck under revision for a while.

To expand upon that logic: I know for a fact, -this is not “gospel” or an “informed opinion” - that when Fiverr gets to present a buyer with two equally relevant gigs, it prefers to show the one that has a higher average sale first.

So that tells me that the core logic behind Fiverr’s programming is about making more money, faster.

That being said, me assuming that lots of revisions or long delivery times hurt one’s placement in search results is an oversimplification. I am leaving out price, buyer satisfaction rate, response rate and SEO.

The point I wanted to make is that the more efficient you are as a seller, the better your daily operations are and you increase your capacity to serve more clients.

I make custom animated videos and anything over 1 revision I consider a “failure”.

It means I failed to get a proper brief, show relevant samples, educate the buyer on my process or manage their expectations.

I am sure you are doing an amazing job and that you are an experienced professional.

But if you are consistently getting 3 revisions on every delivery it means you may need to work on your pre-purchase stage of the process and your onboarding.

EDIT: you also mentioned hidden metrics. The most important one is “buyer satisfaction rate”. Again not an opinion, fact.
 

So let me ask you this question: wouldn’t a smoother order experience help buyers submit a better private review?
 

[ikbalangular]

🙄

[frank_d]

9 minutes ago, ikbalangular said:

🙄

What’s with the eye roll @ikbalangular ?

[williambryan392]

15 minutes ago, frank_d said:

What’s with the eye roll @ikbalangular ?

Assuming it was directed at you I'd say that some people just don't like long, informative and helpful answers @frank_d

[frank_d]

6 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

Assuming it was directed at you I'd say that some people just don't like long, informative and helpful answers @frank_d

I don’t think it was directed to me.

I thought he may be confused about something that I could help clarify.

[williambryan392]

 

5 minutes ago, frank_d said:

I don’t think it was directed to me.

I hope so! When I queried this I was told that revision requests aren't directly harmful to a seller, you can have lots and they are not an issue in themselves, but I think you're completely correct that indirectly they are harmful.

I wonder... is an order that is awaiting requirements for a long time harmful 🤔. I think probably not but just occurred to me.

[frank_d]

16 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

 

I hope so! When I queried this I was told that revision requests aren't directly harmful to a seller, you can have lots and they are not an issue in themselves, but I think you're completely correct that indirectly they are harmful.

I wonder... is an order that is awaiting requirements for a long time harmful 🤔. I think probably not but just occurred to me.

I used to have over 250 orders “awaiting requirements” and during that time I didn’t notice anything that indicated my performance could be affected by them.

Heck you can even cancel them after 14 days have passed with absolutely 0 negative effects.

Revision requests are not punishing one’s performance. 
 

My point always was:

a) revisions are not helping a freelancer be efficient. It slows you down and hinders sales growth. All freelancers need to work on their pre-purchase phase and overall process if they are constantly bombarded with revisions past initial delivery.

b) Let’s assume Fiverr favors efficiency and two gigs of equal relevancy are competing for a spot. One of them has an order or two in revision, and the other is wide open. Which gig will take the spot?

And I usually feel paranoid when making assumptions like the following: what if Fiverr somehow keeps score? Like what if out of 100 orders how many were accepted outright, how many requested 1 revision, 2 revisions and so on.

This last part is admittedly a huge leap in logic and I am working on disproving it, but it may not be that far fetched.

My SM used to tell me that requesting time extensions do nothing to hurt my gig, but when I had a $X,XXX order stuck for months because of the client not being fully ready to complete, I was faced with one of my biggest sales slump in my Fiverr history.

Causation or correlation? That’s how I always start my research. With a simple observation.

[williambryan392]

5 minutes ago, frank_d said:

Heck you can even cancel them after 14 days have passed with absolutely 0 negative effects.

This I definitely did not know! So if it's in the awaiting requirements stage it doesn't hit your stats when cancelled. Amazing. I have an order from months ago. Buyer has ignored every message. They'll still have to accept the cancellation though right? Unless I ask CS to do it of course. 

[frank_d]

8 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

This I definitely did not know! So if it's in the awaiting requirements stage it doesn't hit your stats when cancelled. Amazing. I have an order from months ago. Buyer has ignored every message. They'll still have to accept the cancellation though right? Unless I ask CS to do it of course. 

It’s been a while since I did this but I think there’s a way to bypass the “buyer needs to respond” thing if they never posted requirements.

I can look it up a bit later if you want but also yes, asking CS to cancel is the same thing.

To be clear: this is for orders that were never activated by the buyer and that have been that way for at least two weeks.

[donnovan86]

1 hour ago, williambryan392 said:

This I definitely did not know! So if it's in the awaiting requirements stage it doesn't hit your stats when cancelled. Amazing. I have an order from months ago. Buyer has ignored every message. They'll still have to accept the cancellation though right? Unless I ask CS to do it of course. 

Unless the rule has changed, if the inactive order is older than 10 days, you can go and cancel yourself, and it won't affect your stats. You can go to CS and ask it to cancel even before that, of course. 

[rosebarlow]

Interesting . I've never heard this said before. I would think it is highly unlikely as the ability to offer revisions is part of many gig offerings. In my field (editing), revisions give the buyer a chance to communicate with you so that the work can be refined to their liking. I don't think Fiverr would punish you for this.

[frank_d]

1 minute ago, rosebarlow said:

Interesting . I've never heard this said before. I would think it is highly unlikely as the ability to offer revisions is part of many gig offerings. In my field (editing), revisions give the buyer a chance to communicate with you so that the work can be refined to their liking. I don't think Fiverr would punish you for this.

I never said you were being punished for revisions.

Revisions are part of the system.

Seems the OP mixed up my efficiency remarks on a thread I created.

[rosebarlow]

3 minutes ago, frank_d said:

I never said you were being punished for revisions.

Revisions are part of the system.

Seems the OP mixed up my efficiency remarks on a thread I created.

Sorry, but I was commenting on the OP's original post. I hadn't read what you said. Yes, he probably misunderstood.

[williambryan392]

Thank you @frank_d and @donnovan86! #knowledgemasters!

[frank_d]

10 minutes ago, rosebarlow said:

Sorry, but I was commenting on the OP's original post. I hadn't read what you said. Yes, he probably misunderstood.

I understood that you were replying to the OP but I replied to your post as people tend to not read the entire thread and that’s how misinformation spreads.

[rosebarlow]

2 minutes ago, frank_d said:

I understood that you were replying to the OP but I replied to your post as people tend to not read the entire thread and that’s how misinformation spreads.

Understood. I don't always read the whole thread unless I am particularly interested or feel I need to. 

[catwriter]

4 hours ago, rosebarlow said:

I don't always read the whole thread unless I am particularly interested or feel I need to. 

But then you risk repeating what 10 people before you already said (they didn't read the whole thread, either).

[geo316]

 

7 hours ago, frank_d said:

12 hours ago, geo316 said:

I think it was in that "Fiverr 3.0" thread. I'm learning fast not to take all that's said here as gospel - or even as informed opinion.

You are free to do your own research and you are correct to be cautious about what you read on this forum.

You should always check the source of information and compare what you see with your own findings.

If you have any questions about something I said in my effort to help sellers like yourself, you can always mention me or quote me with your question.

 

@frank_d just to be clear, I didn't mean to toss a grenade. My comment was (still is) my observance of the forum in general and not specifically your post - which among most of what I've read here is very helpful.Again I should have been a little clearer. Yes, I did interpret you saying "-Not getting lots of revision requests"  as meaning that buyers asking for revisions can be bad.

 

Thank you for your responses here, I'm honored that "forum royalty" would visit my humble thread lol!