Deliver late or cancel: Which is least bad?

[Guest qloudpress]

Can I get some friendly advice please.



If a customer doesn’t provide you with the info you need to complete your gig for him within the time you have set for the gig, what’s the best thing ~ or least bad thing ~ to do?



Post a dispute (don’t like doing that) and ask the customer to cancel the order and rebook when they have the information you need, OR deliver it late, when the customer finally gets off the pot?



I would like to know how top sellers handle this.



Terence.

[jamescott]

That happens every now and then, and I will always cancel and ask the buyr to rebook when all materials are ready.

[mrproofreading]

Yep, I would absolutely cancel it. Response time is now rated, and if your delivery is late because of the buyers inability to send the requirements, I’m pretty sure you’ll be marked down. Then, customer support will do absolutely nothing about it and tell you to fix it with the buyer, which essentially means the following;



You deliver the order -> Buyer marks 3/5 on response time -> You ask the feedback to be changed as it was the buyer fault -> Buyer declines -> Customer support aren’t interested -> You have to cancel the order to preserve your rating.

[Guest qloudpress]

I had a suspected that was the best thing to do somehow.



Thanks for confirming that for me.

[Guest celticmoon]

If your buyer never responds to your “buyer instructions”, the order will not be activated-the clock won’t start running-and you can just leave it open, if you want. If, however, you’re talking about the buyer not giving you further information, after an order has been activated/clock is running, personally I would cancel, too.

[creativeman]

In this situation I write please provide xyz info and same goes for if they have misunderstood something, I then explain it, then I say “type yes if you would you like me to proceed?” - Then the ball is in their court.



Most will reengage it depends on how long is the duration of your gig. If it’s getting to the end I would cancel if a bigger order. But if its a small order and they’ve shown real interest and you are not getting feed back I might write something like I will deliver on what you’ve told be so far if I don’t hear from you to keep my deliveries on time within fiverr. Then they are usually saying sorry for themselves holding me up.

[kywong85]

Reply to @mrproofreading: Could we just deliver an empty files and just told them to submit all the details and click on “Request Modification” button?

[mrproofreading]

Reply to @kywong85: You could, however, it depends on your familiarity with the buyer, and their understanding of fiverr.



Some buyers may take a blank delivery as some kind of scam (especially if they are new) and immediately opt for a bad review. In fact, I think I’ve seen that happen on the forums before.

[gingerwriter]

This is a great question! One I’ve often wonder about. I actually have an order ticking down as we speak were a buyer informed me they would be sending more information the next day, needless to say I still haven’t received any more info. I think cancellation is the best route as well. It keeps things neutral on both sides. I don’t get negative feedback and they get their funds returned upon cancellation!

[seo_alchemy]

This happens to me all the time 🙂

1. Send them 2 messages to remind them toat they have placed an order, and you need the order info.
   
   
2. If no reply, cancel every single time.
   
   
   
   Many times, buyer will respond with “ohh sorry I was busy” or “I forgot” and give you order info.
   
   
   
   Never let the order run late, especially not 24 hours. They will simply reappear, cancel gig and give you poor rating.
   
   
   
   If both parties agree to cancellation, not negative effect on your gig or rankings/standing
   
   
   
   If they just ignore cancellation, then neg effect on them, not you.
   
   
   
   Final answer for your scenario: Always always put forward cancellation request if buyer is being unresponsive.

[Guest qloudpress]

Reading through these different experiences with akward or forgetful customers makes me realize just how different everybody’s customer relationship experience is, and its not just because we all sell different gigs. People really are odd.



I sell WordPress services, install plugins and themes, build super-fast WordPress servers and generally help people get the best out of their WordPress websites.



Right now I am working with a lady who gave me a big sob-story about how she just was distraught her website (cheap hosting!) was running so slowly, and she had to get a new web-server and her website up immediately or her startup company was in real trouble.



So me, being the big softy I am, I dropped everything, pulled an all-nighter, built a high-speed server with WordPress on it and, because her server was broken, migrated her website to it by hand, file by file.



Then today, when I needed some information from her, no answer.



Messages were eventually exchanged late this evening, but by now there is only 3 hours left and there not enough time to complete the gig.



So, very shortly I am going to have to deliver what I have done so far and write to her something like ~ “I will deliver now on what you’ve told me so far, and what I have been able to do with the website as it is, this is because I didn’t hear from you in time to keep my delivery schedule within Fiverr”.



Then if that’s not acceptable to her I will cancel the order and ask her to reorder.



More than that, I don’t know what to do.

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