Clients not responding is causing me to deliver late

[jason_doggett]

Re: content writing. Should I be delivering my first draft to customers as a Delivery rather than my final draft? 

Hello everyone. I've only been on fiverr since April 2022 and I'm slowly building up experience, mostly content writing. I thought it would add value if I  uploaded an initial draft of my work, say a blog Post, to the client for their review before the deadline date. I figured the client come back with revisions I'd make them and then send back the final draft as a deliverable, on time. But a couple of times now this policy has backfired. Clients have received my first draft and then sat on them for days running out the clock on  the deadline. We're talking about one repeat client and one new client. For both of them my account profile stats have gone down and I'm pretty sure the loss of my level one seller badge was due to this client behavior (I could be wrong I have no idea really). Does anyone have any suggestions? Should I send a draft as a deliverable and wait for them to pick it apart and suggest revisions? Many thanks, Jason

[vickieito]

Hi @jason_doggett - Welcome to the forum!

3 hours ago, jason_doggett said:

Should I send a draft as a deliverable and wait for them to pick it apart and suggest revisions?

You should always send your finished work to your customers as a delivery. What you call "draft" I call a final proof. This is work that I have written and rewritten to meet all of the specifications that the buyer has laid out in their order requirements. If I have any questions, I ask the buyer to clarify. When I feel that I have a final product that will meet or exceed the buyer's expectation, then I'll send it to the buyer as a delivery. This will stop the clock and show up as an on-time delivery.

At that point, the buyer has three days to decide to extend the review period, request a revision, close the order, or allow the order to auto-close. I offer 3 free revisions with each order, so I'll hold all of the buyer's comments until they are finished with their review and they give me the go-ahead to make all the revisions. This allows us to get the most out of each revision. If your buyer doesn't respond, the order auto-closes and you get paid for your work.

It's risky on your part to deliver in the order chats - buyers can run away with your work and disappear. On top of that, you are not handling revision the way that Fiverr intended and risk a late delivery (not to mention going crazy wondering when that buyer will get back to you)! 

I also used to deliver in the order chats and had to deal with the same issue as you. I stopped doing this after a buyer disappeared with the work I delivered and I ended up canceling to avoid a late order. Luckily, Customer Service paid me for the work that I did:

https://community.fiverr.com/forums/topic/282216-24-hrs-until-delivery-and-no-contact-from-the-buyer-also-unable-to-deliver/