Cancellation or bad review - which is preferable

[mercurianus]

You know a client is not happy with the work,  do you prefer to refund or accept bad rating review? Which least affects your metrics.  Personally I have felt just one cancellation often brings down sales for several months?  why it has to be this way? we refund and still get hurt?  It's high time metrics are changed realistically. You do so well and one cancellation makes you bad?

[mercurianus]

you setup a $2000 pm income then one cancellation then you are out of income for months ...shouldn't fiverr care more about its sellers especially who do good sales? Shouldn't metrics be as per seller level and how much income they have generated?  I personally feel level 2 sellers with atleast 5 years should not be affected by cancellations . it makes no sense. 

[mabelma]

Yeah it's a shame indeed, however a bad review can also affect your overall score. I think the best alternative is to prevent this kind of issue to happen by making sure you and your client and are a good fit and are on the same page way before even taking the order. Perhaps having a handy checklist of things to ask your clients during onboarding can help you reduce cancellation and bad reviews in the long run. 

[donnovan86]

7 hours ago, mercurianus said:

I personally feel level 2 sellers with atleast 5 years should not be affected by cancellations . it makes no sense. 

Fiverr doesn't care about your old performance. They want you to be consistent, hence the reason they want you to have great performance within the last 2-3 months. If not, they push you back and they allow people with good performance at the front of the pack.

7 hours ago, mercurianus said:

you setup a $2000 pm income then one cancellation then you are out of income for months ...shouldn't fiverr care more about its sellers especially who do good sales?

You can have any income goals you want, but Fiverr can't guarantee anything. If people were happy with your service in the past but less happy now, they care about current performance and that's what matters to them the most. You may want to find another source of income, because putting all your eggs in a single basket is not ok if the basket ends up broken in the end. 

I've been here for 10 years and honestly it does feel that Fiverr can be a harsh environment at times, especially with this new focus on the first time buyers. But as I said, it's a good idea to find multiple income sources. I am dealing with a similar problem, Fiverr income was abysmal the past few months. We need to adapt to the platform's changes and hopefully deliver great results!

[vickiespencer]

7 hours ago, mercurianus said:

You know a client is not happy with the work,  do you prefer to refund or accept bad rating review?

It seems that @vickieito mentioned that even if the order is canceled, the buyer may still be able to leave a private review. Maybe she will enlighten us on the subject. 

[mercurianus]

34 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

Fiverr doesn't care about your old performance. They want you to be consistent, hence the reason they want you to have great performance within the last 2-3 months. If not, they push you back and they allow people with good performance at the front of the pack.

You can have any income goals you want, but Fiverr can't guarantee anything. If people were happy with your service in the past but less happy now, they care about current performance and that's what matters to them the most. You may want to find another source of income, because putting all your eggs in a single basket is not ok if the basket ends up broken in the end. 

I've been here for 10 years and honestly it does feel that Fiverr can be a harsh environment at times, especially with this new focus on the first time buyers. But as I said, it's a good idea to find multiple income sources. I am dealing with a similar problem, Fiverr income was abysmal the past few months. We need to adapt to the platform's changes and hopefully deliver great results!

Hi there, just one cancellation in about 15 months  is that not consistent enough? and yes, there may have been bad private reviews in the interim, but I have especially noticed the cancellation seems to affect the order flow the most. So the income performance everything has been going good last 18 months and a cancellation boom everything drops. I had a similar experience in 2020 as well that cut my income to half than what I was making for 7 to 8 months then..

[vickieito]

7 hours ago, mercurianus said:

You know a client is not happy with the work,  do you prefer to refund or accept bad rating review?

Why is the client not happy? If you fail to deliver to the client's expectations (as agreed when the order was placed), then canceling makes sense because you couldn't deliver what the client wanted. However, if it's because the client keeps asking for more (outside of the scope of the order), then it makes sense to accept a bad public review because that's something you, as a seller, can explain in your response to a bad public review.

26 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

Fiverr doesn't care about your old performance. They want you to be consistent, hence the reason they want you to have great performance within the last 2-3 months.

⬆️ Exactly. This works for you as a seller, too - yes, a cancelation hurts you, but it'll eventually fall off your record.

18 minutes ago, vickiespencer said:

It seems that @vickieito mentioned that even if the order is canceled, the buyer may still be able to leave a private review. Maybe she will enlighten us on the subject. 

If the seller cancels the order, the buyer can't leave a private review. If a buyer cancels an order, then they can leave their private reviews. Private reviews have greater weight than public reviews (and can affect your gigs for months).

[donnovan86]

24 minutes ago, mercurianus said:

Hi there, just one cancellation in about 15 months  is that not consistent enough?

You don't know what people say in private reviews. That's the issue, we never know and our gig ends up pushed back for months. Plus, there are people that just place an order and then mark as complete without saying anything. Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to what those people say when they are asked by Fiverr to privately rate.. plus add to that people that share a random review just to get past this and move on. I had a person that gave me the worst possible number of stars because it was 12 AM and they wanted to go to sleep. His written review was positive and great, but if he left random stars publicly I can only imagine what they left privately.

The bottom line, private reviews, especially those from first time buyers matter. And don't think that if all your public reviews are great, that means private reviews are great. I think Vickie said it, only a few people on the platform have excellent private reviews, and those most likely don't have a ton of sales. The more people you deal with, the higher the chances of having a bad private review. But it is what it is...

Add to that the HUGE competition and you can see why people are pushed back. I am dealing with the same thing, I receive a small push here and there, but most of the time I end up in the back no getting any exposure. And it's hard to say because aside from a 3  star  review that I had close to 3 months ago (from a person that just randomly ordered without asking if I can help), every review I got was excellent. It is what it is.. At this point all we can do is to ensure we deliver our best.

And from my perspective, raising prices and having less, but more expensive orders can diminish the issue. HOWEVER, if you end up with a bad private review from these more expensive orders, that really pushes you back for months..

Edited June 13, 2023 by donnovan86

[mercurianus]

24 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

You don't know what people say in private reviews. That's the issue, we never know and our gig ends up pushed back for months. Plus, there are people that just place an order and then mark as complete without saying anything. Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to what those people say when they are asked by Fiverr to privately rate.. plus add to that people that share a random review just to get past this and move on. I had a person that gave me the worst possible number of stars because it was 12 AM and they wanted to go to sleep. His written review was positive and great, but if he left random stars publicly I can only imagine what they left privately.

The bottom line, private reviews, especially those from first time buyers matter. And don't think that if all your public reviews are great, that means private reviews are great. I think Vickie said it, only a few people on the platform have excellent private reviews, and those most likely don't have a ton of sales. The more people you deal with, the higher the chances of having a bad private review. But it is what it is...

Add to that the HUGE competition and you can see why people are pushed back. I am dealing with the same thing, I receive a small push here and there, but most of the time I end up in the back no getting any exposure. And it's hard to say because aside from a 3  star  review that I had close to 3 months ago (from a person that just randomly ordered without asking if I can help), every review I got was excellent. It is what it is.. At this point all we can do is to ensure we deliver our best.

And from my perspective, raising prices and having less, but more expensive orders can diminish the issue. HOWEVER, if you end up with a bad private review from these more expensive orders, that really pushes you back for months..

yes, I understand that but what I observed in my case was the orders stopping post a cancellation. and quite visible that the algorithm has pushed me back due to that, if without the cancellation the orders stopped one could understand it is the private reviews.  Last year a buyer did chargeback and I faced similar issue of orders stopping post that.  In fact, two of the worst months was immediately post the chargeback and right now post cancellation.  Say I was having 50 orders average pm till that chargeback,  the next 3 months it was just 30 average. For no fault of mine, orders stopped 

Edited June 13, 2023 by mercurianus

[donnovan86]

8 minutes ago, mercurianus said:

For no fault of mine, orders stopped 

Well cancellations are problematic and can lead to issues.  So that can be a factor. But it's one of the many things that can damage your account honestly.

[zeecreations]

They answered your question. Many sellers avoided bad reviews by simply cancelling and refunding. Now they can leave a review even if you cancel the order.

Check new update. No point in mutually cancelling the order now, keep denying cancellation, get paid and accept the review.