What's your thoughts on Advanced Rating System (ARS)?

[thepromogirl]

fayestap said: They decide after the order has been completed that they would now like to provide direction. It is industry standard to repay at that point. But with this rating system and the way CS is handling feedback, it is impossible to draw that line anymore.

 

100% percent agree.

 

 

[markp]

Reply to @anarchofighter: I can shed some light on this. when the rating system was first released and when you went to view completed orders you would see a thumbs down next to orders with three stars. I started seeing it on orders with four and five star feedback and realized then there was a problem, I contacted support about it and this appears to have been fixed and it appears ( yes I am not sure) that three stars are supposed to be positive feedback.



What makes me think that three stars may still be considered negative?



If you go to any feedback left by a buyer and hover over the option to leave your own feedback everything up to and including three stars appears red, only four and five stars appear gold and to me the only logical reason for that is that three stars is considered a negative. Maybe someone should contact support, get clarification and post it on the forum.

[ozzieuk]

Reply to @thepromogirl:

thepromogirl said: threatened and bullied by male buyers because of our gender and how they think we 'should' look when it comes to filming.

I would hope customer support are objective enough to recognise this behaviour from buyers, do you have incidents you could share where they where they were not, and sided with the buyer?

In incidents where you're asked to d prank videos, I'd now consider safely cancelling those orders since they don't have any detrimental effect on your rating, of course this is only effective if you have caught the order before doing any work for the buyer

[ozzieuk]

Reply to @thepromogirl: This a self developed delivery system for Fiverr created by myself it is tailored specifically for my gigs.

[ozzieuk]

Reply to @thepromogirl:

thepromogirl said: Be polite but straight forward in your Gig description and Buyers instructions.

Totally agree

[ozzieuk]

Reply to @fayestap: I appreciate where you’re coming from



You know. I truly believe that in time, you’ll change your view of the system.



You offer great services, an that’s just it. I have decided to leave every single review on my gigs here on in with the exception of totally false reviews which touch wood I have not had yet.



As poorer sellers receive a lower 3 point average score and you maintain a high one, a few 3 / 4 star reviews are not going to hurt you in anyway. My advice would be to simpley continue as you were doing when thumbed reviews were still in force. Once you “get over” that not every order is going to be a 5 star rating it’s kinda ok… Trust me…



Don’t give up on Fiverr just yet.

[ozzieuk]

Reply to @jtengle: Customer support are still a small team, especially given the dramatic increase in buyers and sellers, I know from speak with Ryan that this is being addressed and the team are growing.

[ozzieuk]

Reply to @markp: You’re right, there was a bug. Some reviews came as 1 star but with postive comments, I believe that those issues should now be resolved as of a week ago.

[ozzieuk]

 

 

thepromogirl said: fayestap said: They decide after the order has been completed that they would now like to provide direction. It is industry standard to repay at that point. But with this rating system and the way CS is handling feedback, it is impossible to draw that line anymore.

How about the flip side of this though; the buyer still had a thumbs down button. What would prevent them from using it in this same scenario ?

[jtengle]

Reply to @ozzieuk: I know that’s true and that’s the problem.



If Fiverr is really a multi-million dollar company then I think customer support should have been priority one, especially considering a site like this with the high rate of user error and technical bugs that exist.



Everyone makes the excuse that it’s a really small team. Fine, but why is it STILL a really small team. Take a small percentage of the millions and invest in the things that really matter. Customer support has been bad for nearly a year (at least for me). They should take care of that problem before creating more.

[ozzieuk]

Reply to @jtengle: They are expanding, I imagine it’s difficult to add new team members are the rate the site expands, I know for sure just this week I have seen 3 new faces on support tickets I’ve sent in

[markp]

Reply to @ozzieuk: on this image you have posted it states “click the button below”. have you put this inside a PDF with a link that directs to the contact me page on fiverr or are you doing something else?

[ozzieuk]

Reply to @markp: Hi Mark, this is an HTML Document, pdf’s just aren’t flexible enough. I’ll be happy to send you a sample report to your fiverr inbox. Just drop me a message http://fiverr.com/ozzieuk/conversations

[spark4hope]

Reply to @anarchofighter: Damn right… I hope Fiverr staff will see all our messages. We are the one who keep this website alive with our services… Is really not fair to think just about the buyers and offering them so many chances to get a seller down.



Is like they are asking for bankruptcy constantly and we don’t let them have it… LOL

[ozzieuk]

Reply to @anubisven: I just did a quick search for the first gig in your profile



Using the keyword “holiday season logo” which is based on your tags, you’re on the first page :



http://puu.sh/a1V0R/90f386d528.jpg

[ozzieuk]

Reply to @ezinearticles4u: I just checked your gigs you have 100% rating across the board with orders in your queue. Can you say specifically that the star rating is affecting you and how, do you have analytics to share with us here?

[fayestap]

Reply to @ozzieuk: They can and did, but it was less of a problem.

1.) because CS used to be pretty easy to contact and work with

and

2.) because a thumb is more of a yes or no question. Did the seller deliver what was advertised? With the rating system people are being asked and encouraged to rate their experience! For goodness sake. Of course your experience is going to be tarnished if you make a mistake and have to repurchase the gig, or for myriad other reasons.



There is a psychological shift that takes place when you start talking about 5 star experiences.



5 star hotel. 5 star meal. 5 star gig experience…

[goodgift]

Reply to @thepromogirl: These were generally with extras. I’d worked on moving things around to make pricing fair, and some things drove people away, while others brought them in. The thing that takes the longest is obtaining images/video/etc that I can get a license to use for a book trailer. I had a hard time determining how exactly to price this, because I’d find good images, but then the client would say something like, “Oh, that person looks NOTHING like my main character - I need someone that looks like Leonardo DiCaprio,” or, “That rose has NOTHING to do with my book” (not realizing it’s ABSTRACT because I couldn’t find an exact match, but when viewed in context of the ENTIRE video and not by itself, it makes perfect sense).



So I would end up doing twice the search and not sure how to fix this in the gig description/extras. So yeah, hours of work. But making videos is something I enjoy doing. The part I never did like about doing gigs is all this crap some of these buyers bring (not all buyers - just the ones that make it a hassle).

[goodgift]

Reply to @thepromogirl: Also, I like this:



"Should you grant creative liberty no revisions will be granted."



I wish I’d thought of that a long time ago! Would have saved me a lot of headache.

[bjbravo]

My humble opinion on the matter, I’ve been reading a lot about the opinion of each of you and I think in part they all have some reason (with respect to the new system).



In my particular case, the system has not really affected me, I think it is because of the attention I’ve tried to give each order, since the implementation of this system, I have only received 1 order with 4 stars in about 70 orders with 5 stars.



What I’m basically saying is that there are times when the customer orders more than necessary and it is time to make him understand that it’s okay or otherwise satisfy the requirements until fully satisfied.



All this is based on my own experience.

And of course each case is different maybe I.



Sorry for my bad English

BJ

[ozzieuk]

BJ



Your English is perfect and thank you for your own personal insights.

[goodgift]

Reply to @ozzieuk: The very last piece of feedback I received before shutting down was “Not great.” (With no reason why two videos – one for free – and a bunch of revisions were “not great”, and a bunch of BS about how I didn’t do what the buyer had asked, even though I did that and then some, including starting over like it was a whole new order after I’d already created a complete video.) But it was still a thumbs up because the buyer could not reasonably say that I didn’t provide service.



If it had been rated under the current star system, it would have looked horrendous on my rating. Why? Because now it’s not objectively that I provided exactly what I said I would. It’s now subjectively that the product was “not great” because I’m not a mind reader and I didn’t know that the buyer wanted things they never specifically stated until after the fact. So I probably would have gotten one or two stars based on that alone, and then the fact that I had to squeeze this project between two outside jobs, and there was so much back and forth that I had to mark the item as delivered and return two days after that to re-do the video, would have likely dropped me to a one. (The actual final video had already been sent – this was for all the mind-reading extra work I had to do.)



So I still abhor the star system, and I will not do business under it. Especially since we cannot rate buyers in the same manner (and reviews don’t show up on buyer profiles).

[ryuken]

Best solution, to improve this system is - adding the buyers own rating on their profile, their weight to others should affect. e.g. If one of the buyer constantly getting 1 star from sellers, his rating on other seller should not affect much. So that way, even buyers will be in same depth of water as sellers are. Let’s throw in pagerank like stuff in ARS. Make it a level playing field. Obviously TRS and established fiverr users won’t be affected much with star rating unless they get 10 ratings of 1 star every day or even higher, till then they’re going to comment I like it or I don’t care. But new users won’t grow much in terms of rating if ratings become one sided.

[fayestap]

Reply to @ozzieuk: I know what you’re saying. I really do. In a sense it doesn’t matter. Business as usual because we’re all being subjected to the same rating system. Those of us with high ratings have already proven ourselves. A few bad reviews aren’t going to spoil all our work. I get that. And I’ve always taken that view in the past.



But some of the work that is sold here is very, very personal. Writing, acting, design. My skin is about as thick as it’s ever going to get–years in the New York writing scene and now having my face on camera everyday.



But there is one thing I know. No matter how thick your skin is, when your offering something that is personal and creative, those ratings are always going to matter. No matter how many thousands of positives you have to cushion them. That’s just the truth of it.

[looknofurther1]

I think the bright side of the ARS system is that it’s going to separate the mediocre from the stellar. It gives the seller as well as the buyer the opportunity to give varying degrees of ratings. I do understand that it can be totally subjective and some customers are impossible to please, however, it works both ways. I can give the buyer a poor rating as well if they are impossible to please along with an explanation.



I think what most concerns me is the message in my inbox saying they can hire people to give you good or bad ratings… WITW (what in the world)