My order traffic died after getting bad reviews... What do I do?

[Guest jeromehiq78]

Hey guys, I'm a student who started Fiverr again to start making money with my coding experience and to hopefully save enough money to do a student exchange in Germany... Everything was going good, I started in June and got 23 completed orders so far. I got all 5 stars and you can see the very nice comments on my fiverr page that I get, until I worked with someone who rated me 3 stars which disappointed me so much because I cancelled plans that day to finish their gig, and even gave them hourly updates instead of daily updates, they were happy with the end result and such, but gave me a 3 star, why? I don't know really know...

 

I got the 3 star rating on 3 July, and got a 4 star rating on 8 July, the 4 star rating was from a order that I too delivered extremely fast (within a couple of hours) and the client was very happy, I even helped them out with the setup of the product.

I'm just lost right now, because I don't know if I just lost my main income stream ($1,500+ monthly), or what's going on... I'd be lucky to get a DM even, I came from getting 3-5 DMs a day to just 0-1. My guess is that people are seeing other people with perfect 5 stars and go to them instead of me, because they assume that because I don't have perfect 5 stars, I'm like a bad developer or something. My old account (Level 2) last year always got 5 star ratings except that one 4 star rating that I got, and it's made me very very paranoid about getting ratings that's not 5 stars and my anxiety hits so hard when it's time to leave orders, because you just never know what they'll rate. I also always make a graphic art "Recent work by me" that displays the client work, but it rarely goes on my gig live portfolio... I don't know what to do anymore! Can someone advise the best solution for me?

 

edit: Is it ever possible to get back to a perfect 5 star rating?

 

I am 15 years old, so working "real" jobs isn't really so easy for me...
PS: I am using Fiverr with permission from my guardian, this account is my guardian's, he just gave me permission to use it. It is allowed by Fiverr TOS stated by Customer Support to use Fiverr as a minor as long as you are using an adult's fiverr with their permission.

Edited July 15, 2022 by Guest

[mariashtelle1]

That’s expected. Fiverr is heavily based on your performance and getting low reviews is an indication of lower performance and therefore fiverr is showing you less in search. I don’t think it will be a big problem for clients seeing 3&4 star reviews. 
Every business have slumps and yes, you might recover. 
 

What happened to your old level 2 seller account? Why didn’t you keep using that account? 

[Guest jeromehiq78]

Just now, mariashtelle1 said:

What happened to your old level 2 seller account? Why didn’t you keep using that account? 

Hey, so I created the account under my own name which obviously isn't allowed, I wasn't aware with the fine print as a quick google search showed that you could be on the platform if you're above 13, so that's partially my fault haha. Customer Support told me they would allow my business doings here if I got my guardian to make an account for me, so we did that...

[wordsfire]

3 hours ago, jeromehiq78 said:

I'm just lost right now, because I don't know if I just lost my main income stream ($1,500+ monthly), or what's going on... I'd be lucky to get a DM even, I came from getting 3-5 DMs a day to just 0-1. My guess is that people are seeing other people with perfect 5 stars and go to them instead of me, because they assume that because I don't have perfect 5 stars, I'm like a bad developer or something.

I find it hard to believe you're making anywhere close to 1.5K per month with this account. the part of the problem is having a main source of income. there is no security when you're working for yourself. your only option is to create multiple sources and make sure the largest one doesn't contribute more than 20-40%. ever.

in short, don't create the problem that you fear so much. diversify.

 

3 hours ago, jeromehiq78 said:

it's made me very very paranoid about getting ratings that's not 5 stars and my anxiety hits so hard when it's time to leave orders, because you just never know what they'll rate.

there is no way to avoid negative stars forever. everyone will get them, if not today, then tomorrow.

if you really want to ensure your client is super satisfied before you deliver, send a preview in the order message and wait for their response. but the strategy has its own downsides. 

 

3 hours ago, jeromehiq78 said:

Is it ever possible to get back to a perfect 5 star rating?

don't even try. 4.8 vs 5 star makes no difference. and those who see a difference there, you don't want to be working with them. these are the buyers who will rate you 3 or 4 stars.

 

notes - 

1. compare your stats to last month, not last week. I don't see much of a dip there.
2. buyers only see the gig ratings before clicking on it. not profile ratings.
3. stress won't help you one bit. use the downturn to create strategies, other income sources, etc.
4. my gig impressions go down whenever I buy something on 5r. but it's a personal experience and I have no proofs.
5. you're actually doing great for a new seller. keep up the great work. 

 

[Guest jeromehiq78]

5 minutes ago, wordsfire said:

I find it hard to believe you're making anywhere close to 1.5K per month with this account. the part of the problem is having a main source of income. there is no security when you're working for yourself. your only option is to create multiple sources and make sure the largest one doesn't contribute more than 20-40%. ever.

 

I've made that last month, I've made way less this month though due to lower order counts.

 

6 minutes ago, wordsfire said:

if you really want to ensure your client is super satisfied before you deliver, send a preview in the order message and wait for their response. but the strategy has its own downsides. 

 

Yeah exactly, I give daily updates to the clients and always ask for feedback, etc. My order process is very extensive in how I communicate with sellers and always respond as soon as I can, enabled push notifications on my phone, etc.

 

8 minutes ago, wordsfire said:

don't even try. 4.8 vs 5 star makes no difference. and those who see a difference there, you don't want to be working with them. these are the buyers who will rate you 3 or 4 stars.

 

Oh lol, I'm just extremely paranoid about it... we'll see to be honest...

 

9 minutes ago, wordsfire said:

ou're actually doing great for a new seller. keep up the great work. 

Well most of my fast growth on here and meeting the Level 1 requirements already is with me redirecting my existing clients onto Fiverr for a couple orders, these orders would range from the 50$ to 250$ range (just to be broad). I do client work outside of Fiverr as well, coming back on Fiverr is just something I wanted to do again to save up even more.

 

Thanks for the tips!

[yannisenglish]

Like others have said, I think you are doing fine.

Yeah, the system does take your performance into account but you can't expect 5-star ratings across the board.

The ratings aren't there just to determine your position in the search rankings. They're also there for you to learn.

If you can honestly analyze what led your buyers to rate you the way they did and honestly pinpoint what you can improve (and don't ever assume you don't need to improve), then you can answer the question "what do I do?"

[Guest jeromehiq78]

Hey guys, I'm back with another question. I recently got Level 1 and I already got my money/order requirements for Level 2, it's just senriority now ! 😄
Anyway, back to my question. Is there any probable cause for why my gig impressions fluctuate?

I currently do Discord Bot development on here and will do Website Development soon when I settle in my new hybrid independent/classroom based studying since it's been really hard to get used to getting thrown like 13-20 pages of homework for each class at the start of the week, I know it doesn't sound a lot but it gets stressful.

As you can see, it has these weird fluctuations especially at the start where it jumps from 400 to 1,000 and then back down to 400, and I was wondering why this is the case? I mean, nonetheless I'm not complaining because I average 1-2 daily orders still ! and that's really good considering my average gig price is 42,28$

 

But I was wondering why it's the case for this gig while my Minecraft Video Editing gig has stayed way more consistent.

As you can see, this gig has stayed more or less the same throughout the last 2 months and started to rise lately.

Any comments/replies/reactions would be nice!

 

To be transparent:
I am 15, My parents owns this account and I have their full permission to sell my services on Fiverr. Thank you.

[vickieito]

Hi @jeromehiq78, it's awesome seeing a kidpreneur doing so well on the platform!

I see the same thing as you - I have some gigs like your Minecraft Video Editing gig that are pretty consistent, and other gigs that see huge fluctuations, such as 5,000 impressions in one day versus only 500.

It's only natural to see fluctuations - people do searches every day and it's unlikely that the number of people doing searches each day are the same all the time.

Like you, I don't concern myself too much with the fluctuations as long as I'm getting orders on my gigs.

Congratulations on hitting all the targets for Level 2!

[Guest jeromehiq78]

4 minutes ago, vickieito said:

Hi @jeromehiq78, it's awesome seeing a kidpreneur doing so well on the platform!

I see the same thing as you - I have some gigs like your Minecraft Video Editing gig that are pretty consistent, and other gigs that see huge fluctuations, such as 5,000 impressions in one day versus only 500.

It's only natural to see fluctuations - people do searches every day and it's unlikely that the number of people doing searches each day are the same all the time.

Like you, I don't concern myself too much with the fluctuations as long as I'm getting orders on my gigs.

Congratulations on hitting all the targets for Level 2!

Haha good to know it's not Fiverr slowing down my gigs after they invited me to the "Promoted Gigs" feature...

Maybe I should just stop worrying as long as I keep bringing business & 5-star reviews in, I'm still new to this so hopefully over time I can get rid of that little anxiety of mine...

 

Thank you for the congratulations btw !

[vickieito]

Oh that makes sense, if you are using Promoted Gigs! You will definitely see greater fluctuations if you're using that feature.

In Promoted Gigs, your gig is competing against other sellers' gigs based on performance, quality, and relevancy to the search term. If your gig "wins" it'll get more impressions and if it doesn't you'll see less impressions.

[Guest jeromehiq78]

Just now, vickieito said:

Oh that makes sense, if you are using Promoted Gigs! You will definitely see greater fluctuations if you're using that feature.

In Promoted Gigs, your gig is competing against other sellers' gigs based on performance, quality, and relevancy to the search term. If your gig "wins" it'll get more impressions and if it doesn't you'll see less impressions.

Oh no I'm not using them, I don't plan to for now since my Discord Bot gig is pretty busy anyway... >_>

[vickieito]

Yes, I have my Promoted Gigs turned off, too. It's great that you can turn the feature on/off based on need. If you need that little "boost" in orders, go ahead and turn it on. 😊