Briefs: Better now, or still painful?

[newsmike]

I recall when Briefs replaced Buyer Requests, I had them switched on for a month or so, and after determining that it was merely a new delivery method for the traditionally horrific requests, switched it off.  Is it any better now that it is powered by the lemony scent and whitening power of Neo?

Or is it still, "Hallo dear, give me job?"

Edited August 9, 2023 by newsmike

[zeus777]

Never used buyer's request ( for obvious reasons) and never used briefs so far. I used to check them just in case, but recently I delete the message without even reading the contents because I am sure it's a gig I can't work on, or the price is way too low for me.
I'm curious Mike, was there ever a brief that was a match? For you?
For me personally it's ironically impressive of how non-matching the briefs are!

[vickieito]

I'm one of the few people who actually like briefs. I used to only get $10 orders from buyer requests, so briefs are a big upgrade. Most projects are relevant for resume writing and these orders average $300-$400 each, with repeat orders highly likely. I have Promoted Gigs turned off and mostly go off of briefs (and First-Time Buyer Promotions when they come in).

I do get the spammy ones, but I mark them as spam as quickly as possible. I also report suspicious buyers as soon as I get their briefs. To me, the Promoted Gigs feature is more spammy than Briefs. My returns for Promoted Gigs also aren't as high as last year (now it's 2x versus 15x last year). so it doesn't make sense to pay for the spam.

[visualstudios]

Much better, but still not great. A lot of people just put a random number for budget to get seen, or for ridiculous package deals, which makes the cutoff pointless. What good does it do for me to set it to "only show me briefs above $500", if then I get matched with people with a $1000 budget asking for "100 videos for my YouTube channel"?

I got 1 or 2 clients from briefs so far, and I responded to maybe 10 or so. I could take it or leave it.

[vickieito]

1 hour ago, newsmike said:

Is it any better now that it is powered by the lemony scent and whitening power of Neo?

Has any user on the platform reported using Neo yet? I'm on the waiting list (and curious to see how it will work).

[newsmike]

1 hour ago, zeus777 said:

I'm curious Mike, was there ever a brief that was a match? For you?
For me personally it's ironically impressive of how non-matching the briefs are!

Nope, not a one out of probably 50 briefs.  They were all nonsense, or for services that I don't even provide. 

[smashradio]

45 minutes ago, vickieito said:

I'm one of the few people who actually like briefs. I used to only get $10 orders from buyer requests, so briefs are a big upgrade. Most projects are relevant for resume writing and these orders average $300-$400 each, with repeat orders highly likely. I have Promoted Gigs turned off and mostly go off of briefs (and First-Time Buyer Promotions when they come in).

I do get the spammy ones, but I mark them as spam as quickly as possible. I also report suspicious buyers as soon as I get their briefs. To me, the Promoted Gigs feature is more spammy than Briefs. My returns for Promoted Gigs also aren't as high as last year (now it's 2x versus 15x last year). so it doesn't make sense to pay for the spam.

The fact that you're one of the few people, and have to point this out every time the word "Brief" comes up, tells me that Briefs is a big pile of garbage for 99,9% of sellers. While I'm sure you love it and it has worked well for you, I've never seen anyone else with the same feedback. My last 10 briefs were for translations into languages I don't provide. 

[rawque_gulia]

1 hour ago, vickieito said:

I used to only get $10 orders from buyer requests, so briefs are a big upgrade.

Here, I would definitely agree. In 'buyer requests', people were asking for an entire game like PUBG for $5. But in briefs, although my minimum rate is set to default i.e., $5, but still I am getting briefs of buyers with budget of $100-200.

But the situation is that till date I have not been able to finalise even a single deal. Either the description is too vague or the request is outside the scope of the service I am providing. And, one thing I've noticed with most briefs is that buyers always forget to attach a reference image or concept art and fill the description with gibberish that even my little brain cells can't understand.

Example of the brief I get. I don't understand a single sentence in it (and these are briefs I am getting everyday) 😄:-

Edited August 9, 2023 by rawque_gulia
Forgot to attach an image

[mandyzines]

I never had any success with buyer requests and have with briefs. For me, they're applicable and reasonable about half of the time, although I do wish that more were sent to me. I had to fiddle with the pricing because at first when I had it set to $10 - $15 I would get a lot of YouTubers wanting an 'expert' to voice 2k words for $10 - $15 total.

I've never been sent requests by people looking for jobs and I've had the feature on since it started. 

What's worked the best is when buyers send me offers. Ooh I like those. I get them far less than briefs, though.

Edited August 9, 2023 by mandyzines

[vickieito]

Hearing all the feedback on briefs doesn't really make me feel confident about Neo. Supposedly it will be using the brief feature to make matches.

[rawque_gulia]

13 minutes ago, vickieito said:

Hearing all the feedback on briefs doesn't really make me feel confident about Neo. Supposedly it will be using the brief feature to make matches.

What I personally think about Neo:-

It's just a gimmick and is exactly the same thing, i.e., "briefs". Before, everything was working in the backend and users could not see what was happening. Now, it will let buyers see a few options for sellers in the frontend of the website, and decide for themselves who to message. The functionality is probably going to remain "roughly" the same:-

1. Buyers submit requirements
2. Fiverr Algorithm Finding Matches
3. Show relevant matches to buyers (new addon in NEO)
4. Sending briefs to selected sellers.

So, I think only point (3) is a new addon in the algorithm which is showing the options in frontend instead of evaluating everything in backend. The algorithm is probably going to be the same. Now, please don't beat me because these are just my personal views. Nobody knows how things are going to turn out, so that's just what I think.

Edited August 9, 2023 by rawque_gulia

[vickiespencer]

I have received one order since briefs started and have submitted offers to two others. My minimum brief is set to $250, but the briefs I get are for far more work than $250 will cover. The one I got today wanted thirty1000-1200 blogs to be proofread for $288. That is $9.60 per blog. How did the buyer even come up with that number?  

[vickieito]

4 minutes ago, rawque_gulia said:

1. Buyers submit requirements

This is where briefs mess up - the matching feature is only as good as the input. I'm lucky because not many people can mess up the word "resume," "cover letter," or "LinkedIn."

There isn't much variation and briefs don't really provide good tools for buyers to elaborate on what they want. And we, as sellers, can only specify the price and not other parameters. Both buyers and sellers need better tools with more parameters to be set.

I'm really surprised with all of the conversations Fiverr has going on, that they have been really quiet about briefs. We've offered to give them feedback but no one on Fiverr's end seems interested in hearing feedback on this feature.

[visualstudios]

15 minutes ago, vickieito said:

We've offered to give them feedback but no one on Fiverr's end seems interested in hearing feedback on this feature.

Because unfortunately it exposes one of the main issues with the platform - buyer quality. The majority of buyers are not qualified, and they come here because they want cheap. If most of your users aren't professionals, have unrealistic expectations, and want to spend too little, a feature like briefs can never work properly.

Edited August 9, 2023 by visualstudios

[terrygrantvo]

Out of the hundred(ish) briefs I've received, not a single one has contained enough information for me to feel confident in just writing up a quote on the spot, which - correct me if I'm wrong here - is the whole stupid point.

I mean, you couldn't even message these buyers directly when they first launched the feature - that came later, and of the handful I have felt positively enough about to message, none have ever replied.

At best, this feature would be a great way to open a dialog with a potential client, but since it's not designed with that in mind, it doesn't seem to serve anyone particularly well.

[danno1950]

7 hours ago, newsmike said:

Is it any better now that it is powered by the lemony scent and whitening power of Neo?

I have had briefs turned on for the past month, and it has been the same old spectacular mismatches.

When they put out the announcement about the Product Release, you had to sign up for a waiting list to try out Neo. I asked in that thread when they were going to begin using Neo, but I never got an answer. I suspect it's not working yet, since it still looks like the same old process.

[filipdevaere]

I submitted offers to 2 or 3 buyers all this time. I never had a response.
All the rest is garbage, spam, and services that I don’t provide. Many briefs have an extremely low price for the job to finish.
I expect not much from Neo.

[smruhulkuddus]

13 hours ago, newsmike said:

I recall when Briefs replaced Buyer Requests, I had them switched on for a month or so, and after determining that it was merely a new delivery method for the traditionally horrific requests, switched it off.  Is it any better now that it is powered by the lemony scent and whitening power of Neo?

Or is it still, "Hallo dear, give me job?"

 

5 hours ago, filipdevaere said:

I submitted offers to 2 or 3 buyers all this time. I never had a response.
All the rest is garbage, spam, and services that I don’t provide. Many briefs have an extremely low price for the job to finish.
I expect not much from Neo.

Right. I also face this type of issue. I hope Fiverr take care of it. 

[smartdezigns]

I have submitted few offers to buyers. Among those, only 1 offer got accepted and I had a good experience.

But now, Briefs are sort of mismatched and full of spam even one day, I got a funny offer and it was sort of related to personal feelings (kinda). I literally laughed at it and was wondering that how I actually got it matched with that lol. 

It's been 2-3 months, I have turned it off as orders from repeat clients/direct orders (new clients) are better than this feature. It's become a useless feature now. 

[melanielm]

The briefs I get never align with my prices. I first had the limit set for my lowest possible gig price. When that brought me unsatisfactory results, I increased it to a higher dollar amount. That simply brought briefs for ridiculously high word counts (e.g., write a 30,000-word book for $100) that still don't align with my prices. I ignore most that come in now.

[visualstudios]

30 minutes ago, melanielm said:

The briefs I get never align with my prices. I first had the limit set for my lowest possible gig price. When that brought me unsatisfactory results, I increased it to a higher dollar amount. That simply brought briefs for ridiculously high word counts (e.g., write a 30,000-word book for $100) that still don't align with my prices. I ignore most that come in now.

Pretty much this. The issue with asking for a budget, is that people can write whatever they want on there, even if it's not their real budget, just to be seen.

 

Here's an idea for an improvement: have buyers actually have to pay for the briefs when they place them.

Want to place a brief with a $1000 budget? Pay Fiverr, just like it was an actual $1000 order. That means the buyer is actually committed and serious about what they are asking for.

Then, once they select a seller to go with, the payment gets transferred to the order.

If the seller you want to go with sends you a higher priced proposal, just pay the difference to place the order.

Do not allow bids under the budget, to avoid meksells and race to the bottom pricing.

If the buyer ends up not selecting anyone in x amount of time (say, a week), the money gets returned to them, and the brief removed.

This would decrease worthless briefs substantially, and increase the likelihood of conversions immensely.

Would this decrease the number of buyers placing briefs, because they don't want to put the money upfront? Probably, and that's a good thing. Those buyers are not serious about actually spending what they claim, so there's no loss there.

Edited August 10, 2023 by visualstudios

[donnovan86]

25 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Here's an idea for an improvement: have buyers actually have to pay for the briefs when they place them.

 

If the buyer doesn't find a seller they want to work with, Fiverr will just have a lot of refunds on their hands and unnecessary issues. I agree it would help if buyers committed to the brief, but I don't see Fiverr forcing people to spend hundreds or thousands without knowing who they are working with and if they will even find someone in the first place.

[visualstudios]

18 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

If the buyer doesn't find a seller they want to work with, Fiverr will just have a lot of refunds on their hands and unnecessary issues.

What difference does that make? What issues? Send me money, I'll send you money back. No issues.

The fee buyers pay for orders (which is non refundable) pays any transaction costs, if needed. It doesn't cost $1000 to place a $1000 order, for a buyer, it costs $1000 + the fee. Make briefs the same.

It can be automated, and it can cost next to nothing. No need for CS, no need for any manpower, buyer wants to back out, clicks a button, gets their money back. Even if 100% are refunds, Fiverr loses nothing. If anything, Fiverr gains something by having the cash on their side for however long, generating interest.

This could be implemented with next to no downsides for Fiverr, no excuses. The only "downside" would be that this would make a lot of bad briefs from non serious buyers disappear. But that's not a downside - that's an upside. Those briefs ain't generating Fiverr any real money either way, and getting rid of them would motivate many more serious sellers to activate the feature, and reduce the bad sellers selling through them and giving buyers bad experiences.

Edited August 10, 2023 by visualstudios

[donnovan86]

17 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

next to no downsides for Fiverr, no excuses.

Payment fees and refunds. More work for customer support. I think AI will improve the matching process for briefs so for that alone I am confident briefs will stay here in the long run. 

18 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Those briefs ain't generating Fiverr any real money either way,

Well Buyer Requests were not generating a ton either and they were around for more than a decade. We will see, but if Neo integrates that Brief system, then I am pretty sure it won't go anywhere. Or maybe they improve upon it. 

24 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

would motivate many more serious sellers to activate the feature, and reduce the bad sellers selling through them and giving buyers bad experiences.

I mean, every buyer sets their desired price and sellers also get to choose what briefs they can receive.. It all depends on the budget, you have to realize that not everyone needs $100 or $500 projects. I had people request a single article at $15, obviously one can't charge hundreds of dollars just for that. The brief system is fine, specifically for larger projects based on my experience. However the matching process could improve and that's where I think Neo will help. 

As always, we have to wait and see. Things can only get better, or maybe I am just a glass half full kind of guy. 

[visualstudios]

24 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

Payment fees and refunds. More work for customer support. I think AI will improve the matching process for briefs so for that alone I am confident briefs will stay here in the long run. 

I addressed all that already. CS would need zero involvement in this. Refunds can be automated.

Buyer wants to place a brief, it's like placing an order, pays (brief budget + transaction fees), Fiverr keeps the money.

Buyer finds a freelancer, the brief is converted into an order, already paid for.

Buyer wants to cancel the brief, clicks a button, brief is removed, money is returned (minus fees). No human interaction at any point in this process.

Transaction costs are covered by buyer fees, which they would naturally pay for briefs, as they pay for orders. No downsides.

Edited August 10, 2023 by visualstudios