Important Update: Some canceled orders now qualify for buyer reviews

[newsmike]

5 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

But that's the best case scenario. In that case, of course it's good. But theoretically we already had the cancelation rate metric to deal with sellers doing that excessively.

What I'm worried about are unfair buyers canceling and leaving bad reviews that are completely unwarranted (because they changed their mind after delivery, because they want more services and not pay for them, because they want something different that the seller doesn't offer, because they "don't like it" and are, quite frankly, wrong, or simply on purpose). All these things can happen. On a low volume seller, that does a couple orders per month, that can be catastrophic, and there's very little they can do.

I understand. Let me ask a question, what percentage of your buyers are such "bad buyers?" I ask because as I think about what we see on an average day in the forum indicates to me that there are astronomically more unskilled scammy sellers with fake credentials than there are bad buyers.  Like 90/10%

Edited June 16, 2023 by newsmike

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, newsmike said:

Let me ask a question, what percentage of your buyers are such "bad buyers?'

I have request to order, and turn them down at any red flag. My pricing also turns many away. 

If the question is how many bad contacts are interested in buying, and would buy, but end up not buying, I'd say around 50%. If the question is how many end up being actual buyers after my selection, nearly zero. But my case is not typical.

[kawsar_log]

In My opinion, This is really Big awful news for the seller!

[lacroix88]

Fiverr has greatly demotivated me in recent months,shadowban repetine practices with related removal of promoted gig even in the same day made this site very complicated.

Now with this news you posted it simply makes it a joke.

What should a customer say after he closes an order ? 

 The boat is sinking.

[newsmike]

13 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

I have request to order, and turn them down at any red flag. My pricing also turns many away. 

If the question is how many bad contacts are interested in buying, and would buy, but end up not buying, I'd say around 50%. If the question is how many end up being actual buyers after my selection, nearly zero. But my case is not typical.

I'm sure that the vast majority of cancels happen because of seller deficiencies as opposed to bad buyers.  Think about the traffic on the forum every day. Some days that's all we seems to see.  

[newsmike]

9 minutes ago, kawsar_log said:

In My opinion, This is really Big awful news for the seller!

It is bad for sellers that cancel a lot. 

[zenter]

So apart of getting a drop on our stats after a cancellation and getting our profile shadow-banned we now have to deal with a very likely 1 star rating? This seems like a disaster feature for sellers.

On 6/14/2023 at 10:40 AM, Shiran.M said:

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.

THIS is what makes me think even Fiverr workers know that this new feature would mean a very probably massive rating score drop due to buyers trying to abuse this system or leaving nothing but bad reviews after a cancellation. Please, if you care about sellers revert this decision.

[uiuxtanim]

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.

There are some good things and some bad things for sellers. So there is no alternative for us except to see what happens in the future. 

[faijul_robin]

It's ok if I can't maintain time for my work or not responding to a buyer msg, for every delivery isn't a good idea. 

[skydesigner]

14 hours ago, Shiran.M said:

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.
 

And, let's say that you are not offering refund in your gig, client can contact support and you will cancel the order lighting fast even the order is fully delivered. Will the buyer be able to leave review?

[carrotymusic]

This is really not the best news for sellers… 😞 but Sellers who provide super quality work will have even more work. Therefore, it will be necessary to monitor the quality even more👌

[donnovan86]

4 hours ago, zenter said:

Please, if you care about sellers revert this decision.

The main focus I think is to improve buyer experience. Some buyers were left hanging dry, with deadlines and the seller just canceled to stop dealing with the buyer. In that case, I can see this as a good thing since it offers more transparency.

Of course everything is prone to abuse. For example, if they stop taking 20% from tips, then buyers would take the smallest offer and promise the remaining stuff as a tip. So yeah, no matter the situation there will be people that abuse every feature.

In theory this is a great idea, however it will affect some users. Then again, we will have way less people with a 4.9 and 5.0 score, which I guess is important, because it will differentiate sellers quite a lot more. That also means we need to focus more on quality rather than quantity. I for one focus on raising my prices sooner rather than later. 

[katakatica]

42 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

In theory this is a great idea, however it will affect some users. Then again, we will have way less people with a 4.9 and 5.0 score, which I guess is important, because it will differentiate sellers quite a lot more. That also means we need to focus more on quality rather than quantity. I for one focus on raising my prices sooner rather than later. 

What I'm curious about is how the change will affect things. Will buyers who've been here for a long time also be informed that the new standard is different? Everyone wants to see high ratings, so if some people manage not to get any bad ones (for example, lower-volume sellers who choose whom they work with, etc.), how will that shape the market? I'm - assuming - this will be a slow process, but hard to say. 

(good to hear you're raising your prices! It's scary, but it really helps in the long run, though, of course, bad apples/or just bad fits are everywhere.) 

[arifursdev]

16 hours ago, 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… 

maybe you have not met those cheap narcissistic godless people. good for you.
hope you never meet those as I met (few of them), unless you are looking forward to.

[leannelrivers]

Some people heading to Upwo*k (apparently a naughty word in the forum) might not have it too easy there, either. There may be an attractive 10% commission rate (the top sellers there are ranting and raving about that), but freelancers also have to apply for every job, pay to apply for every job, and pay to have things like their earnings removed from public view (yeah), and you have to pay for a badge that shows you're available to work.  

In my experience, the work there is thin on the ground and low paid. I'm not discouraging anyone from working elsewhere. We all want as many sources of income as we can get as freelancers. Go where you want, work where you want - I also have an upw profile, and the last job I got was in July 2022. That's pretty lame, considering my portfolio and skills. That site has only cost me money. It's still worth a shot with the free connects every month, but it has flaws, like this platform; and every other platform. 

I think this move by Fiverr is a positive thing overall, but the sheer number of sellers here means it won't work for everyone, and anyone with a high cancellation rate will need to think about how to avoid that in the first place. And before you all pounce down my throat, I know that many great sellers here attract buyers who have no idea what they're doing, provide minimal direction and good quality material, and then cancel, having wasted the seller's time and money. If they also leave a bad review, that's a kick in the teeth. Let's hope that CS will have your back in those cases. 

If any sellers are worried about this because they have a high cancellation rate, it's time to look at your offer, skills and communication. Cancellations now and again are inevitable. But regular cancellations can't only be the fault of bad buyers.  If you're regularly attracting horror buyers, maybe you can change some things to attract different people to your gigs. 

Many of us have wanted a more realistic review system and things to change. Now they have. Let's see how it goes. It would be great if the next change comes in the form of buyers leaving public and private reviews at the same time. Then we can feel free to leave honest reviews for buyers without worrying they will slaughter us right back with private feedback. That would be fair, and the buyer insights feature might actually be worth paying for. 

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by leannelrivers

[leannelrivers]

23 hours ago, hightlink said:

Buyers do things like this and you can't do anything about it

I don't want to kick an already raging bee hive here because some people are clearly furious with this change. But to ask your client why they rated 4 instead of 5 stars puts them under pressure to share something they perhaps don't want to share. They may have been fully aware they were leaving a 4-star rating. And that has always been a bit of an issue here: anything below 5 stars is negative. That's not how it is in the real world. 

[hightlink]

I think in the end we will have to get used with it, I can't think of a single change that we as sellers didn't agree with and FIverr has listened to us and reverted it. 

Even if I usualy have maybe 2% or less canceled orders, I will be very selective with new orders and I presume that will be the case with other sellers. If this entire change was in order for the platform to create more revenue, I think it will backfire.

[wordpress2017]

Hi, how can sellers request to cancel an order if the buyer ordered by mistake? 

and why buyers can send unlimited revisions without paying.

[visualstudios]

@Shiran.M Since you are relaying feedback, what about this idea:

We have a problem, currently, with sellers cancelling too much to distort their public metrics (and apparently the private completed orders stat is not enough to fix that), and that's why this new feature is being implemented.

What if on every gig / seller profile Fiverr showed the amount/% of canceled/completed orders? That would also let the buyers know if they were abusing the system, while not allowing a single disgruntled buyer to badmouth the seller publicly just because, and for an order that was cancelled for good reason. 

Make the number of canceled orders public information - I don't think there would be any backlash against that from serious sellers, and it would also punish the people using cancelations to game the system.

[mateusbl]

How about the platform improve the system for the Sellers?

- If we offer 3 revisions, automatically when the buyer try to open a 4° revision the platform should inform they used all revisions and they have to pay for an additional revision. "A Pop Up could also inform if the seller left things missing the buyer could message the seller in the order page".

- The same thing to Extend Review time, should be charged at least $5... because many buyers extend without reason.

Looks like the Platform do not wanna earn more money

[donnovan86]

49 minutes ago, mateusbl said:

- The same thing to Extend Review time, should be charged at least $5... because many buyers extend without reason.

 

You can't limit people to 3 days only, sometimes they need a few more days to review, maybe the gig is complex, etc.

[venonusa]

6 hours ago, arifursdev said:

maybe you have not met those cheap narcissistic godless people. good for you.
hope you never meet those as I met (few of them), unless you are looking forward to.

I already "eliminated" these people when I increased the price of my services...  ( from $5  to $15-$20

Edited June 16, 2023 by venonusa

[visualstudios]

8 minutes ago, venonusa said:

I already "eliminated" these people when I increased the price of my services...  ( from $5  to $15-$20

You can't eliminate those people. You can decrease the quantity, but I've found people like that at $1000+.

[venonusa]

7 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

You can't eliminate those people. You can decrease the quantity, but I've found people like that at $1000+.

it depends from service to service, for some of my services going from $5 to $20 removed all those people who want to spend few dollars ( $5 ) and receive a service such as the premium one and for my other services I went from $5 to $50 for the basic gig.

[visualstudios]

7 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

For example, if they stop taking 20% from tips, then buyers would take the smallest offer and promise the remaining stuff as a tip.

And sellers would refuse, because they have no guarantee of getting paid. Buyers would promise tips, then leave sellers hanging.