Important Update: Some canceled orders now qualify for buyer reviews

[elitedesignuk]

45 minutes ago, goldenlily said:

However, aren't there ways that Buyers can force cancellations without the Seller accepting the request? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Buyers absolutely can force a cancellation - it's as simple as writing to Customer Service......they will get a cancellation EVERY TIME.

[elitedesignuk]

6 minutes ago, goldenlily said:

1. Can Fiverr Buyers ever force cancellations after delivery, even if the Seller denies their request?

2. For Seller Plus Members: At what point does Order Completion Rate for BUYERS get marked as low or medium? I would love to see an actual percentage, that way we can easily see which Buyers are likely to force cancel a lot of orders. 

1. Yes!  Absolutely and VERY easily......one message to CS from the buyer and it's done.

2. What you will be able to see as seller plus is the rating that the buyer has given - so if they give a 1* review after a cancellation it's going to show their 'rating given' low - currently I don't take orders from any client who has been rating people below 4 or where the buyer isn't ranked as 'Completion Rate High' - (Just my personal procedure - not saying it's right but I have more than enough work to be able to choose!)

[visualstudios]

6 hours ago, goldenlily said:

I'll give another scam example. Let's say an Upwork Seller opens a Fiverr Buyer account, purchases a couple $5 gigs and completes them as normal to make themselves look legit. Then they charge $20 on Upwork for fake positive or negative reviews on Fiverr. Next someone hires them, so they purchase the fake order, force cancel through customer service, and either leave a positive or negative review depending on who is hiring them. They make a profit.

You're way overthinking it. There's a much simpler, and almost undetectable way, that doesn't entail having any accounts on other platforms, and that can be quite enticing. 

Want to get rid of your competition? Ask a couple friends to create buyer accounts, and have them all place a $5 order, and complete it. Then they aren't new buyers. Then have them order from your competition, it doesn't matter if their price is high, you'll get your money back through canceling anyway, and you can leave them bad reviews for free. Hmm.

Before, if you wanted to review bomb competitors, you would at least have to pay their price for the privilege. If they were high ticket sellers, that would be very expensive. Now it seems trivial.

Edited June 17, 2023 by visualstudios

[elitedesignuk]

8 hours ago, visualstudios said:

Want to get rid of your competition? Ask a couple friends to create buyer accounts, and have them all place a $5 order, and complete it. Then they aren't new buyers. Then have them order from your competition, it doesn't matter if their price is high, you'll get your money back through canceling anyway, and you can leave them bad reviews for free. Hmm

Excellent point - With that in mind (and since I have plenty of work already) I guess I will be declining to work with buyers who have less than, shall we say, 15 completed orders - I would expect many other of the 'Good Sellers' to do the same.

Yet another prime example of how this 'update' will only serve to degrade the buyer experience leaving them with little option but to go to those sellers who actually don't care and who are more likely to provide a poor service - because even if they want to work with a 'good seller' - they aren't going to get the opportunity.....at least not with me.

Note to Fiverr - this wasn't very well thought through was it?

[freddysaint]

On 6/15/2023 at 6:51 PM, venonusa said:

Great! so this option should make you happy

⬇️⬇️ ⬇️⬇️ ⬇️⬇️ ⬇️⬇️

 

two orders in 60 days is bad ( imagine 2 one star reviews in 60 days ( terrible performance)

[freddysaint]

I might start to use words like : Client was very  "specific" meaning please dont work with this person ( in this case atleast i can leave the client 5 stars ( so he/she dosnt leave bad private review) and the next person seeing word "specific" will know its a red flag and might think twice before working with them.
Since the current system with me being able to leave 1 star to the buyer and afterwards he can leave a private review is just funny
 

Edited June 17, 2023 by freddysaint

[freddysaint]

On 6/15/2023 at 6:55 PM, venonusa said:

but why should the customer cancel the order if you did everything right? and why some sellers are thinking about it… This is not clear to me… 

Its very simple ( a lot of servises on fiverr are artistic you translation service - the seller responded fast, delivered on time and communicated clearly (there is literally nothing what can go wrong )

Now imagine client wants a music video.He has seen your gig ( which features some dope shots from high end cameras,with perfect lighting,exposure etc.Sends u a iphone 6 footage filmed in dark and thinks that all can be achieved with edit.Dosnt Mather how good you are at communicating it will never look as he imagined since the client might be "delusional" 
Result - Cancelation 
Seller already lost two or more days trying to work/communicate trough this and now due to this new feature even get 1 star 😄 it just dosnt make sense.

[venonusa]

1 hour ago, freddysaint said:

two orders in 60 days is bad ( imagine 2 one star reviews in 60 days ( terrible performance)

Everything depends on how many orders you receive during the month and how many of these will leave a review.

I see that you have 454 reviews from Jan 2019 , more/less you have received around 8.4 reviews every month... So in your case receiving 2  1* reviews in 60 days would lead your review rate to a disaster.

In my case I received 83.10 reviews every month, so 2 reviews every 60 days should not be a problem.

Sometimes I wonder, don't you think this seller is speaking about his account? Based on his performance, on his orders, etcc...

If I say that this new Fiverr option could be an opportunity for me, it is because I see it based on my seller account and not based on data from other sellers.

[Alex.M]

If the order is later or the seller was unresponsive I agree that the buyer should leave a review even if the order gets cancelled but let's hope there's nothing else involved 

[yungcazzy]

There should be a way to see how many cancelations a buyer has done. 

[vickieito]

13 minutes ago, yungcazzy said:

There should be a way to see how many cancelations a buyer has done. 

If you are on Seller Plus, you can see the buyer's cancelation rate.

[melwrde]

What if a seller cancels an order without delivering.(Also if replied within 24 hours). I believe new changes will not have an impact on such situations.

Edited June 17, 2023 by melwrde

[donnovan86]

10 minutes ago, vickieito said:

If you are on Seller Plus, you can see the buyer's cancelation rate.

If they don't hide it....

[donnovan86]

2 minutes ago, melwrde said:

What if a seller cancels an order without delivering.(Also if replied within 24 hours). I believe new changes will not have an impact on such situations.

Fiverr didn't say anything about this. HOWEVER, it will damage your stats and push you back in search anyway. And depending on the situation, the customer might go to customer support anyway and you might end up with a review. Ideally, you want to cancel the order right away if it was forced on you and it's not something you can do.  Otherwise.. that cancellation might come with a review 🙂

[yungcazzy]

39 minutes ago, vickieito said:

If you are on Seller Plus, you can see the buyer's cancelation rate.

oh cool, thank you!

[moikchap]

49 minutes ago, vickieito said:

If you are on Seller Plus, you can see the buyer's cancelation rate.

The way it's described in my Activity Information settings is "Percentage of started orders that were completed." It might lump anything in Active, Missing Details, and Delivered with the ones in Cancelled. I have 6 active and 12 cancelled, but even added together it's less than 1% (316 total orders). I dunno if it would show a difference on my account to verify how they calculate it. But if someone has stats that can be used to verify, it might be worth checking.

[vickieito]

23 minutes ago, moikchap said:

But if someone has stats that can be used to verify, it might be worth checking.

If you want to reach out to me on the platform, I can take a screenshot of your Buyer's Insights for you so you can see how you appear to sellers. 😊 

[moikchap]

To surface the result for others; it seems low completion rate buyers get a precise number but high completion rate just get a generic "High" descriptor. So we were unable to confirm if it is pure cancellation or not. But, at those extremes, it's likely not significant anyways.

[themarineiguana]

On 6/14/2023 at 9:40 AM, Shiran.M said:

or lack of response to buyer inquiries (for 24 hours or more)

Seller: "But my grandma suddenly passed away."

Fiverr: "Well you should have thought of that before you had a grandma."

─────────────────────

⭐ Honestly, the status quo was (mostly) fine.

This feels like yet another update that continues to favor one class of Fiverr's customers (i.e. the buyers) over another class of Fiverr's customers (i.e. the sellers).

This is eroding seller trust in perhaps all but only the most forgetful and untouchable of megasellers who seem to be blissfully floating in the stratospheric heights of yuppie-grade Survivorship Bias by this point... and this update is especially (and potentially) crippling to the newest sellers... who have had to deal with:

1. An influx of new "gig economy" competition since the COVID era,
2. Lowered priority sorting since the advent of the gig promotion feature, and...
3. The arguably classist lockout of features that came with the seller plus update (features of which should probably "come standard" considering the not-so-nominal fees already extracted from sellers and buyers for each transaction).

💧 The reason Fiverr got so popular is because there was a "water cycle" of sellers who could join the platform, compete, and work hard for a chance to succeed, but the recent updates keep widening the success gap between the haves and have nots of Fiverr.

And if the new sellers are not properly cultivated to hone their skills and eventually join and/or replace the "old guard" at the top, that proverbial "water cycle" risks ceasing in its tracks and creating a proverbial drought.

[webbylynx]

This update not only gives the buyers the opportunity to damage your gigs/profile at zero cost but here is more:

Let's say your competitor has 10 friends, or fake accounts with different credit cards.

They can order your gig 10 times and then cancel them refunding their funds and leaving you 1 star reviews at no cost.

Such action will completely demolish you from the platform.

In modern world even 1 person can have about 5 credit cards from different banks and creating accounts are 5 min task.

I personally have had a client who asking for a service. He started asking for a discount lowering the gig price( $100 > $90 > $80 > $70 > 60 and so on)

I have refused working with him at all. I have blocked him. Let's say his username was davidbrown

 

Then he created a new account davidbrown2, asking for my service. I recognized this and blocked him twice.

Then he created about 5 new accounts (i.e davidbrown321, davidbrown63441) in an hour trying ordering my gigs.

I have blocked all his accounts and cancelled the orders. So in total I have received a heart attack, zero money, lost my time, received 3 order cancellations. With the new update I would have 3 1-star reviews in an hour.

 

It is a fact and after this update sellers won't have any protection at all. All reputation can be lost in a few clicks and for zero cost.

Edited June 18, 2023 by webbylynx

[elitedesignuk]

On 6/14/2023 at 2:40 PM, Shiran.M said:

We believe that this update will yield long-term benefits for both buyers and sellers, especially those who provide quality user experiences.

I would be VERY interested to hear how Fiverr believes this will yield long term benefits and, of equal or greater importance, what those benefits will be to sellers who provide a quality user experience?

The answer should take into account the indisputable FACT that not all buyers are 'good' - there are some, a minority, who are not.

From my own gig analysis I rate the proportion of 'bad buyers' at around 1 in 150 but, if this update had been in place since day one, that would still give me a grand total of TWENTY TWO 1* CANCELLED REVIEWS - and remember that's just from the 1/150 buyer who is 'bad'.

So I ask with clarity and sincerity - what is the benefit (short / medium / long term) - to the 149 'good buyers' who have used my services and what is the benefit to me as a seller who is driven to provide a quality service?

Your clear, concise and detailed response, in support of YOUR own statement, will be greatly appreciated by myself and everyone else on the forum.......a lack of response will of course be equally telling.

[mehedipro]

On 6/14/2023 at 7:40 PM, Shiran.M said:

In order to create a more accurate review system and to increase transparency and trust on our platform, starting next week, buyers who cancel an order will also be able to leave a review and share their experiences. 

This applies to cancellations of orders in which a delivery was received and/or orders that involve lateness or unresponsiveness. Of course, this option won’t be available for orders made by mistake.

Following this change, we will decrease the rating score threshold for all levels from 4.7 to 4.2 in order to help sellers maintain their rating levels.

We encourage our sellers community to use this feedback as an opportunity to improve your services and address any issues that may have led to cancellations. As always, you will be able to add a public response to the review on your Gig page.

We believe that this update will yield long-term benefits for both buyers and sellers, especially those who provide quality user experiences.

Click here to learn more about this upcoming change.
The Fiverr team

****In case you missed it, here is some clarification we posted in a reply on page 8****

We understand that cancellations can be frustrating and sometimes feel unfair. However, sometimes service quality does not meet buyer expectations set by high rankings that don’t reflect quality properly. This change is intended to foster transparency and trust on our platform through a more accurate reviewing system, recognize and reward sellers who provide exceptional service, and improve the buyer and seller experience in the long term.

Here are some things to keep in mind: 

• Reviews for canceled orders will only be enabled in cases of late deliveries (24 hours or more) or lack of response to buyer inquiries (for 24 hours or more). Buyers will also be able to review canceled orders that include deliveries, but safeguards have been put in place to prevent abuse or misuse of this feature. Sellers, first-time buyers, buyers who didn’t understand the service and placed an order by mistake—are not eligible to leave reviews on canceled orders.
• Cancellations can cause inconvenience to both buyers and sellers, and the time and effort you put in your deliveries are important to us. We encourage you to keep up communication, make sure expectations are aligned, and address any possible misunderstandings at the start of an order. In case you still think you can’t meet buyer expectations, you can cancel the order prior to delivery without prompting a buyer review. If you think a buyer-initiated cancellation is unwarranted (like when buyers ask for unlimited revisions), you can reject the cancellation, as long as you’ve delivered based on requirements that were set. 
• Sellers can always leave a response to reviews, both for completed and canceled orders. 
• Please remember, not all canceled orders will result in a review as not all buyers choose to leave feedback.
• We lowered the rating score threshold from 4.7 to 4.2 to help sellers better maintain their levels.

 

Now, let's address some specific questions you posted:
1. If a canceled order is over 14 days old, the buyer won't be able to leave a review on the order?  
That’s right, reviews for canceled orders must be posted within 14 days. After this time, there will no longer be an option to leave a review.

2. First-time buyers can't review a canceled order at all or are they just excluded from the rule?
First-time buyers, which means buyers who purchase on Fiver for the first time, will not have the option to leave a review for a canceled order. 

3. Is it a manual process or does the system determine what's eligible for a review or not? 
It is not manual. Buyers can leave reviews for canceled orders in cases of lateness, unresponsiveness (even if a delivery was provided). This doesn’t include orders placed by mistake or by first-time buyers. Sellers who are buyers are not eligible to leave reviews.

4. Is there any indication in the ratings that they are from canceled orders?
Yes, reviews for canceled orders will be marked with a relevant tag.

5. What is considered an unsatisfactory delivery?
Unsatisfactory deliveries vary, so it really depends on the specific case. Our customer support team is here to help if you have questions about deliveries.

6. Can a random seller try to abuse this system to give you a bad review?
No. We will block these reviews, and we’ll treat such bad behavior on our platform with the appropriate means.

7. What does ‘unresponsiveness’ mean? 
A seller who fails to respond for 24 hours (or even longer for orders with a very long delivery time) is deemed “unresponsive” and may be subject to reviews on canceled orders. 

We are collecting all of your feedback and will do our best to address concerns so we can improve your experience on Fiverr.

Can I request a review of my past canceled order?

[rashidnawaz995]

This is the worst update, like always Fiverr does not support the sellers and this update confirms that again. There is no benefit for the sellers in this update. Sellers even lose money and their ratings as well.

Order cancellation means a 1-star rating. Why would a person leave positive feedback after the cancelation? This update makes no sense to me.

[donnovan86]

41 minutes ago, rashidnawaz995 said:

This is the worst update, like always Fiverr does not support the sellers and this update confirms that again. There is no benefit for the sellers in this update. Sellers even lose money and their ratings as well.

 

This is more of an update to benefit the platform. There are way too many people with 4.8-5 star reviews, to the point where ratings make no sense. Fiverr tries to find ways to show who really deserves the 5 star or 4.9 star rating when compared to people that curate their reviews and cancel stuff whenever they feel it affects their stats. That being said, it does leave some room for vindictive buyers, but overall it should benefit the platform in the long run.

42 minutes ago, rashidnawaz995 said:

Order cancellation means a 1-star rating. Why would a person leave positive feedback after the cancelation? This update makes no sense to me.

I mean.. I had my only cancellation in months the last few days. And it was due to the buyer not exactly knowing how to explain what they want. I offered 4 versions and he didn't like them, so obviously I decided to refund him, and we both agreed it would have been better to contact first. He was very professional and courteous, and also appreciated my work, it just wasn't what he was looking for. Does that mean he would leave a bad review when it was a courteous, amiable refund? I doubt it. So there will be some cancellations like this when the seller might not be a good fit, but as I said, I really tried based on the info that was there. I am sure any buyer would appreciate the work that went into it.. 

Of course there will be bad buyers that try to take advantage. But I think that will surely be in the minority. We will see next week, when I am sure some people will start posting on the forum about their cancellations. 

[uk1000]

On 6/14/2023 at 11:05 PM, hightlink said:

I sell a youtube outro graphic design service, in the gig description is stated in bold letters "This gig will get you a IMAGE to use in your video editing! I will NOT do a video outro!" + all the samples in my portfolio are images. There is no video on my gig!

...I take about 2h to do the job, I deliver the design and I get the response "I thought it was a video, I need a video".

If you put the word "image" somewhere in the title as well as in the main gig image then that might reduce the chance of people thinking they will get an outro video.