I will work in a salt mine for 5 Stars! (...)

[darkq22]

Ok, so in my entire “career” on Fiverr (2011 till now), I’ve never ever been so angry, frustrated and about to lose passion.



Since the Advanced Rating System (often referred to as ARS or Stars) I am convinced that many of you had at least once the same feeling.



Ok, I am very realistic and I’d be hypocrite to state that without Fiverr my live would be ruined, my family would die and I’ll starve to death. The most I made out of Fiverr in a month is $1k, which for me, as a marketing manager, doesn’t mean that much. No, I haven’t bought a house, neither accomplished getting to the moon or something. However, I continued offering exceptional services and invested quite a lot of time and money in my blogs, because that’s the “online” - you have to invest as well.



It’s long past the period of frustration why I never been upgraded to TRS (3 years of seniority, 2k orders, close to 1k positive reviews, I have only 3 negative reviews from which 2 are “failed to deliver” because the seller needed some revisions and after the deadline both of them cancelled the order) even if I saw sellers with 100 reviews who joined Fiverr months ago are TRS.



Of course a buyer will tick the “top rated” box because which leads to even more sales for TRS. Than, if you inquire the standard answer is related to “high volume of sales”. :)))



Oh and now there’s the ARS.



I want to highlight that I nave nothing against any 5, 10 or 50 stars based system.



However, there is something that Fiverr should fix: the unfair 2, 3, 4 stars given by buyers when you, as a seller, offer unlimited revisions AND the buyer gives less than 5 stars and he even states “Awesome job” (this one is the most hilarious), “Everything was done as stated” etc.



Fiverr should force buyers to clearly state why the lower than five stars rating? Buyers should be forced to state the reason. And they should do something against reasons like “my wife is cheating on me” or “This world is not perfect my dear, no one deserves 5 stars so I gave you 3” (my chemistry teacher used to say that only he, and no one else, deserves A+).



I got to the point I’m cancelling orders from difficult to communicate with buyers, or if I feel like the buyer is one of those you’ll never be able to be satisfied… no matter what. This is a bit too much for $4 and these stars are making me feel like a prostitute.



I do understand that a system like Fiverr relies on buyers’ money, however, we, sellers… shouldn’t be treated like salt mine miners. After doing 5 revisions, and the buyer is “100% satisfied”… he throws a 3 star review adding “Awesome job, thank you!”.



And really, it’s not about wining for a 3 or 4 star feedback. I can handle constructive criticism but I can’t stand for system errors, especially when slowly everything is being reduced to those silly stars.



Oh and another thing. If the rating system is so important, why Fiverr is not forcing ALL buyers to leave a feedback. How many PMs to send to a buyer actually begging him to leave you a feedback!? OK, let’s assume not all buyers check out your work and like 20-30% of the orders are marked as completed in 3 days. 5 stars by default in this case. That would be fair as well. I have 1.9 k completed orders and 950-ish reviews. What should I do? Go 3 years back in time and start begging every buyer to leave me a feedback!?..



My… 2 cents.

[fiveathome]

Now, this is precisely what I talked about in a discussion I just posted. I hope the team at Fiverr will take these obvious facts under consideration and make some improvements.



You may not depend on Fiverr for a living, but I am and I’m convinced that there are thousands of others who are depending on it as well.



Why throw to waste something that has proven to be so effective and profitable?!

[darkq22]

Reply to @fiveathome:



Just because selling quantity is way easier than selling quality.



Do you think someone really cares you’re offering a good, valuable service? Or that you’re investing maybe 2 hours to offer a quality service? Nope.



Anyway… awesome work. I’ll give you 3 stars. Just because I never give 5 stars and the world is not perfect. What can you do about it?

[fiveathome]

Not only do I invest hours in my work, but also money. In order to offer an even better service, I invested $300 in my blogs and Gig video during the past 2 weeks alone!

[robinoo]

I agree completely. I hate the star system! I’ve gotten a few 3-star reviews for various reasons. Sometimes they’re fully satisfied with their order. Another time they were fully satisfied but “got the sense I do my proofreading with a computer program” (I absolutely do not). Another time they commented that the work was outstanding but they had a follow-up question that went unanswered (they’d updated the order rather than sent a message so naturally due to the nature of the system I didn’t see it). Frustrating.

[judekahn]

I am most def. against the ars system and cancel an order every time I don’t get a 5 stars (I lost 20 and fiverr 5).

But I noticed another way of doing developped by fellow sellers.

Click the delivery without delivering. Find an explanation and wait for the rating. Only when the 5 stars are given deliver the work.

I believe this could very well be the way i will deal with the ars problem.

Ju

[darkq22]

Reply to @robinoo:



I ordered one of your gigs several times and you deserve 10 stars.



Yesterday one of my buyers left me a 4 star feedback

Out of curiosity I contacted him to ask if everything’s fine with the order and if so, why the 4 star feedback instead of the 5.



He told me he is going modify his feedback to a 5 star one ONLY if I offer him something I have in one of my extras. I did it… just to have evidence how things really work. Very humiliating.

[darkq22]

Reply to @judekahn:



How can you cancel an order after it’s marked as completed? Is that even possible?

[fluidmarket]

@darkq22 many can relate to you. even new members that encounter those buyers

gets a mini trauma. what more can you feel if you have been here for 3 years and sold so many gigs (i checked your profile).

[robinoo]

@darkq22 Aw thanks!



I wish it was possible to see the breakdown of the starred orders, just to see which aspect someone marked lower without having to actually ask them. I never felt it before the star system but you’re right, in some was



I posted about this elsewhere but last night I discovered the worst star-related phenomenon I’ve encountered yet: Revenge. A previously satisfied customer made a new order asking for something I specifically state in my gig that I don’t provide, and they responded to my prompt, polite mutual cancellation request by going on a vengeful rampage, giving me 1-star feedback on multiple orders completed months ago that they hadn’t given feedback for yet. This should not be allowed.

[darkq22]

Reply to @robinoo:



rofl (Ok, it’s not funny, but reading all the stories scattered among various related threads makes me feel amused 🙂 )



Revange, huh?

[darkq22]

Reply to @fluidmarket:



Neah… that’s it. As long as there isn’t a checklist on what you really need to do in order to become a TRS… every chit-chat is in vain.



When you see people with 30% of your stats being TRS it’s a bit frustrating, but that’s it. 🙂

[mgjohn78]

Pretty soon we will see gig descriptions such as

• For a fiverr and five star rating i will…
  
• For a five star rating you also get… (for anything less than five stars see gig extras)

[maenoko]

I agree completely. I’ve gotten 3 star reviews from people who’ve sent me messages singing my praises and then placed more orders.



I’ve also had attempts to defraud me into completing free work for a better rating.



On the old system, Fiverr would remove ratings based upon fraud. But now your buyer has to agree to remove the rating?



Ugh!

[djweller44]

The problem is FIVERR… How brain dead do you have to be to create such a POOR feedback system. All of the micro-tasker sites either favor the buyer or the seller. But with Fiverr the party favored is Fiverr, NOT the seller or the buyer. Fiverr is all about Fiverr. It’s not about YOU. It’s about them!

[inkpetal]

What was the old rating system like?

[laughingcrow]

Reply to @inkpetal: I believe a simple thumbs-up and -down system. You saw only the total thumbs up and down, and below with each rating a comment. A lot less detailed, in other words.

[inkpetal]

Reply to @laughingcrow: I like it. Simple. Really it should all come down to, up or down, and maybe a ‘tip jar’ points system for when a client is really impressed and wants to show everyone they appreciate the work if it was excellent. You could search for gigs with the most tip points, but it wouldn’t be a factor in the displaying gigs, and that would all depend on actual delivery. Gosh the whole thing is complicated.



I don’t like the idea of ‘front page competition’. Display the sponsored/recommended/featured gigs for the period, sure!, but have the rest of the layout put into category service previews that rotate gig displays entirely at random.



Buyers could navigate to the area of interest with the subcategories also displaying features entirely at random at first with the rating search then offered within.



The ultimate in fairness for all, and sellers would still be motivated to keep their quality high to be on the first section of most tips pages.



How’s that for an idea?



I don’t know.

I see a lot of complaining about the new rating system but not much in the way of offering up actual solutions to deal with it.

[mgjohn78]

inkpetal said: I see a lot of complaining about the new rating system but not much in the way of offering up actual solutions to deal with it.

 

Most wanted back the old rating system and countless of ideas to make the new system work + ideas of alternative rating systems were posted everywhere. Hundreds of us protested by shutting our gigs down for a day. In the end there was not much response from fiverr.

 

 

[inkpetal]

Reply to @mgjohn78: I wasn’t here for all of that so I’m sorry for my ignorance. That’s awful 😦