1 SIMPLE Tip for Winning at the Advanced Rating System

[sebski22]

Hey guys,



I see a LOT of sellers worrying about the 5 star system. But where some see it as a HUGE negative, you could also look at it as a POSITIVE and a way to SERIOUSLY make yourself standout from the competition by properly managing it.



Before turning to the “Gig Life” I spent 8 years working for Volkswagen and was consistently the Top Ranked Salesperson in my region.



Just like Fiverr VW rated us sales guys on a 5 star system where anything less than a 5 was a FAILURE! and VW had a lot more than 3 criteria to catch us out.



What I quickly learnt was that I needed to prepare EVERY customer properly for the 5 star rating system in order to prevent any unnecessary failures.



By properly broaching the subject with clients and telling them the importance of the 5 star rating to me personally, as an individual, I found that as long as avoided any SERIOUS misconduct customers genuinely wanted to support me and ranked me with 5 stars across the board.



So my tip to every seller worried about the 5 star system is to ensure you communicate thoroughly with ALL your clients so they understand how anything less than 5 stars will genuinely hurt you as a person and then BE SURE TO ASK FOR 5 STARS!!



If the customer does not understand that anything less than 5 is a FAILURE how can you be mad at them for giving you a 4? I mean in the real world 4/5 is a pretty good result in my opinion!



Make sure your customers know why you deserve 5 stars and then ASK FOR THEM, do not just assume they will give you them and then B*tch about it when they don’t!



Delivery of every gig is closed off with a quick message stating that “if for any reason you feel I do not deserve a 5 star rating please contact me before leaving feedback to discuss how I can meet your 5 star expectations”.



This approach worked very well for me in my Sales role and I see no reason why it will not offer the same results here on Fiverr.



I hope that helps at least a few sellers.



Seb

(always looking on the bright side!!)

[chrishardy]

sigh, once again, it’s being suggested that the way to deal with the new system involves MORE WORK for $4. sure, it’s just some extra typing, but it really adds up when you’ve got dozens of orders at one time.



my way of dealing with this ridiculous and unnecessary system is just to keep on treating the buyer as a human, as i’ve always done. sometimes they leave signals that mean they want you to respond, so i’ve learned to heed them. as far as messaging EVERY buyer to beg for 5 stars, no. just no.

[mgjohn78]

Asking for high ratings might work (dunno as it would go against my work ethics) but it raises a question!



If the idea is to ask every buyer for a 5 star rating then what is the point in having a rating system?

[steveeyes]

Nothing new here. Same talking points for thumbs system.



Tell me are there abusive sellers on Fiverr? The answer is yes. There are plenty of tools to avoid abusive sellers with the feedback showing in in the seller’s profile being the best tool for buyers to use when checking out sellers.



Tell me, are there abusive buyers on Fiverr? So what tools other than begging or providing extra work at no charge, can the seller use to avoid abusive buyers? Answer NONE!

[prettyseogirls]

We like the new 5 star rating because before it there was top sellers who have negative feedback with a thumbs up or should not have a 100% rating. We learned that as long as your profile is 95%-100% and your gigs are 4.8-5.0 you will still get a lot of orders and appear a lot in Fiverr’s new search.

[stop_it_man]

Reply to @chrishardy: Exactly, Chris. The whole point of Fiverr is that we earn our four dollars by doing something that can be done in a few minutes.

[bestinmarket]

Reply to @mgjohn78: Point!!

[typingservice]

Thanks for this idea - I think it will be helpful.



Upon delivery I always write my buyers a message anyway, I’ll add that part to the end. I’ve frequently added a delivery message to let them know that if they’re not completely satisfied I will revise my work or just send them an immediate refund. Not a single buyer has taken me up on that. So I know adding, "…if for any reason you feel I do not deserve a 5 star rating please contact me before leaving feedback to discuss how I can meet your 5 star expectations…” isn’t going to result in a bunch of buyers making unreasonable demands. Instead, it will just let them know I stand behind my work and that I’ll work with them if they’re not completely satisfied.

[gingerwriter]

Reply to @steveeyes: This is my complaint as well! When will good sellers like the majority of us be able to prove that the less than 5 star rating was given because of the buyer, not the product? Sigh… we keep on waiting for fiverr to change this system.

[chrishardy]

Reply to @mgjohn78: it’s possible that sellers are being “trained” (or forced) to give better customer service through this system. heck, if i was fiverr and buyers were complaining of poor customer service from some sellers, i’d try to find a new way to manipulate more of these sellers to be better. of course, i always thought having the levels was good enough…



me, i’m not asking anyone for stars, that’s just idiotic. i’ll just do what i’ve been doing and if i get a low rating i’ll deal with it when it happens.

[deannabalestra]

I don’t like the system because when you do get a less than 5 star rating it doesn’t tell you why - like I have no idea which of the three categories they rated lower. There is no way to look at this right? If so I can’t find one.

[artworkking]

I have to say I don’t mind the new rating. It’s crap if you only have, say, 10 orders as one bad review will effect it greatly, but when you’re in the hundreds, it’s not that much of a problem.



Fiverr support have also been very good in assisting me to get rid of a couple of bad ratings where clients didn’t understand the turnaround times.



I’d never ask for Five stars though. I’m a believer in letting my work do that for me 🙂

[gams]

As many of you, when i first heard about this new rating system, i was kind of pissed off for the consequences that it may have in our rating and work. I even sent a message to the fiverr team expressing my nonconformity as other sellers did. After a couple of days, i started to receive all customers reviews with the new system. I really care about my clients, and communication, so far i got all 5 stars except for one client that gave me 3.5 stars, it lowered my “Buy Again Or Recommend” stars to 4.5, then i kept getting more 5 star ratings, it took 4 more 5 star ratings to get back my “Buy Again Or Recommend” half star, i think that’s too much, maybe if they adjust a little more the way this system calculates the stars it may be more fair for everyone.

For my little experience with this new rating system, if you give the customer a good service and communication, no matter if you even deliver the work late, he will leave a 5 star review in most of the cases.

[darkq22]

gams said: For my little experience with this new rating system, if you give the customer a good service and communication, no matter if you even deliver the work late, he will leave a 5 star review in most of the cases.

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

 

[s_sayan]

gams said: As many of you, when i first heard about this new rating system, i was kind of pissed off for the consequences that it may have in our rating and work.

I was worried about that too, but not anymore. :)

 

gams said: For my little experience with this new rating system, if you give the customer a good service and communication, no matter if you even deliver the work late, he will leave a 5 star review in most of the cases.

This is so true. Most buyers will give you 5 stars and only some of them will give you less than that if they liked your service.

 

kjblynx said: I had a buyer on an old freelance site give me a 4 instead of a 5 because, and I quote, "No one is perfect. I never give 5 stars."

Yes, that happens sometimes, but most buyers will be reasonable and give you the deserved 5 stars. If you have enough 5 stars, one 3.5 star rating won't hurt that much. New sellers are probably having a hard time though.

 

I've got two 3.5 star ratings and they did nothing against my gigs. That's because I receive many 5 stars on a daily basis. But hey, nothing is perfect, I can live with that.

[kiffinyjean]

Dude. Exactly. EXACTLY! Good advice.

[delightedtoaid]

Well, one of my customers accidentally(tapping issue) gave me 4,5 stars and now can’t fix it. And she doesn’t want to waste her time on this time consuming rating fixing issue but left me a very good review… Honestly, i’m putting all my efforts to my job… So receiving many 5 stars on a daily basis, i’m ok with all kinds of rating systems BUT…

Even most of my buyers started not to rate bcs they think it’s so boring to click 3 times to rate someone… thumbs up-down was more easy for buyers offering a 2 answer option to that one question: up or down?



now buyers are facing with this tooo many optioned poll-like rating system. -go multiply the possible answers and questions coming out from this new system. Too many decisions to make…-



I think one of the reasons why Fiverr came to this business level is because it kept its smooth interface for both buyer and sellers, as simple and energetic as a swedish furniture… it had this all systematic simplicity based functionality inside, and no trash. All you need, nothing more, straight to the point.



I’ve been using fiverr for over an half year as a seller. Trying to earn extra cash for my little brothers education expenses. Used to work in other freelancing websites which (can’t name bcs of IT laws) are by now singing the famous song “goodbye my lover” to their users… What i see is that fiverr now is getting too much complicated and hungry for that piece of pie and is serving the opportunity upon a gold tray to buyers to abuse them sellers, fullfil their egos.



Plus, i’m trying to look from the fiverr point of view, as i said, many of my buyers doesn’t even rate compared to past. If fiverr wants to attract more buyers then more “rated by buyers” numbers are needed in each individual gig page. This ARS system is not good for business revenue point of view.



Dear team, Relax. Keep it simple. Thumbs system was fine. Or an alternative “yes or no” rating system would do the job. (Maybe your branding team stucked on that thumbs down picture…tell em to find a positive way to express giving a negative rating…They’d know how to do it.)



Fiverr is already advanced.

and…

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. -Da Vinci.

[Guest bigmish]

I believe that the decency and kindness of people will over power any rating system.

🙂

[vijayjangid]

I think when anything less than 5 is “NEGATIVE” and only 5 is “POSITIVE”…then why do we need 1 to 4 stars?



Its a simple Thumbs Down vs Thumbs Up.



To have 5 star rating successful, the buyers rating should be displayed along with sellers. So that other sellers can know that whether the buyer understands the meaning of start rating or he just put less than 5 star to annoy sellers.



Completely agree with @bigmish: No rating system can stop your client to reach back to you if you are decent, kind and honorable to them.



Thanks,



Vijay

[jamillustrator]

Nice discussion guys. I am not sold on the idea of asking each client for a positive rating myself. Indeed, treating clients as human beings and thus, with respect is one sure way to guarantee success. This along with world class output, of course.



Still, I do believe some buyers are on a mission to tarnish sellers’ image and will stop at nothing to ensure that a negative rating is given.

[sasha168]

I really do appreciate this article but you need to understand “puss and dog don’t have the same luck” meaning what works for you might not work for me. Also, it’s easy for to say especially when you have 5 stars from most of your your buyers…For people like me now who has 4/5 stars and that came from only 1 negative review. This rating system has completely tarnish my reputation on fiverr and also prevented me from working with other clients. Whether we like this system or not, it’s always going to be there, so that buyers can always be in control and this also determines if you make money on fiverr or not. I think if they should do r-system for buyers, they should one for sellers too.#JusSaying