Reviews- The biggest flaw in the system?

[rawque_gulia]

Recently, I had an interaction with a buyer who was very unresponsive and a typical rude person who kept asking revisions outside the scope of the original work. There is no way he deserved more than 1.0 star but still I had to rate him a 5.0 star rating otherwise he would have taken it on his EGO and given me a bad private rating. One bad private rating can literally make you unemployed in seconds. And we can all agree that every few weeks, we always get at least one buyer where we don't want to give a 5.0 star rating but still due to career fear we have to hold back our steps and emotions.

1. Shouldn't there be a solution where sellers can also leave their honest reviews like buyers do. Maybe, implementing something like that buyers can't see the review provided from the seller unless they leave both public and private reviews---- or perhaps setting certain timelines, such as leaving private rating after 72 hours would not be possible and review will be visible on buyer profile only after 72 hours.

2. Sometimes buyers never leave reviews for a seller, but why is it that sellers also can't leave reviews for buyers? I want to rate my buyers, whether they rate me or not.

I personally think that fixing this review workflow would solve 90% of cancellations and other problems. Sellers will be able to leave honest reviews on buyer profiles and those honest reviews will help a lot to other sellers to choose their buyer wisely. Or maybe, Fiverr intentionally doesn't want to do this so that sellers can never know if a buyer is a problem-creator? Otherwise sellers will start rejecting those buyer's projects and "bad buyers" will leave the platform because no one is taking their work? 🙂

What are your thoughts?

[Alex.M]

12 hours ago, rawque_gulia said:

There is no way he deserved more than 1.0 star but still I had to rate him a 5.0 star rating otherwise he would have taken it on his EGO and given me a bad private rating.

reviews are private, if you feel like you should leave a 1 star review then leave a 1 star review,it's your right, don't worry about private feedbacks either... if he gives you 5 stars and a bad private feedback it's the same thing 

[rawque_gulia]

1 minute ago, cre8iveartwork said:

if he gives you 5 stars and a bad private feedback it's the same thing 

Don't private ratings outweigh public reviews?

[donnovan86]

Exactly. If a buyer wants to rate you poorly, they will do that anyway. Speak your mind and be honest. Also if you do get a bad review, show proof that you never did something wrong. Then the potential customers can judge themselves.

[donnovan86]

Just now, rawque_gulia said:

Don't private ratings outweigh public reviews?

Only Fiverr can say that. But the chances of a person to leave a great review publicly and bash you in the private reviews are very low. Unless, of course, you stir the pot and that person automatically changes their mind. There were a lot of people here that insulted their buyer right after rating them very well. And then they complained why their review was changed or why they don't have any work anymore.

Stay professional, and speak your mind. If you are worried that it might affect your stuff, then don't do it, but you can't say there is a flaw in the system. There's none. There will always be consequences to any review and how you reply to it, be it in real life or online. It's a business, and no business will have extremely positive reviews, there will always be "THAT" client you can't satisfy. 

[rawque_gulia]

1 minute ago, donnovan86 said:

Also if you do get a bad review, show proof that you never did something wrong.

But here, we are talking about private reviews that are only visible to the Fiverr algorithm.

2 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

If a buyer wants to rate you poorly, they will do that anyway

If someone (seller) is going to leave a 1.0 star review for a buyer then obviously it will hurt them (at least in some cases). Just as sellers can be upset when they get a 1.0 star review, it can also be frustrating for buyers. This is a human factor!

[rawque_gulia]

3 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

bash you in the private reviews are very low

That's what I'm saying. It is "low" but not 0. Even those "low" cases can make a seller unemployed for 3 months or more just because he gave an honest rating to the buyer and he had to suffer a loss because of the buyer's ego.

[gina_riley2]

I find bad reviews to be more useful as a buyer. Good reviews are worthless, they pretty much say the same thing over and over.

When I see a bad review, I'm really interested in reading the seller's response. How well the seller articulates him/herself says a great deal about the freelancer's character.

Those that respond with a snarky, whiney, self-pity, unprofessional remark, turns me off. Those that state a well written fact and event without pointing a finger tells me all I need to know.

A buyer's bad review never turns me off, the seller's response does.

You do your thing, and let the customers do their thing. You don't have to leave a review for the buyer, if you don't want to.

Edited September 11, 2023 by gina_riley2

[donnovan86]

2 hours ago, rawque_gulia said:

If someone (seller) is going to leave a 1.0 star review for a buyer then obviously it will hurt them (at least in some cases). Just as sellers can be upset when they get a 1.0 star review, it can also be frustrating for buyers. This is a human factor!

You are overthinking it. If you are not comfortable rating the buyer the way you want, that's on you. It's a personal decision. If you think a customer is not fine, just cancel the order as soon as you identify any issues, it's much better than just drag things to the point where bad reviews are taken into consideration. Or complete the order, take the money and speak your mind. You can't bash a person in your review, talk bad about them and then think they are ok with it. They won't be. Every action causes a reaction.

Honestly, I rarely encounter any issues like these, if at all. But to each his own. As Gina said, do your thing and let them do their own. 

[tazp27]

If I get a rude or disrespectful buyer, I generally don't leave a review. I would hate to leave a dishonest 5 star review only to then find out they gave me a 1 star, and I would also hate to leave a 1 star only to find out that they put personal feelings aside and gave me a 5 star. So I just play it safe and don't leave a review. As far as I know, if you have a respectable amount of 5 star reviews that outshines a handful of low reviews you should be okay.

[Alex.M]

16 hours ago, tazp27 said:

I generally don't leave a review. I would hate to leave a dishonest 5 star review only to then find out they gave me a 1 star, and I would also hate to leave a 1 star only to find out that they put personal feelings aside and gave me a 5 star.

I believe that honestly always wins , if I am having a bad experience with a buyer I will sure let others know just to avoid putting them in the same situation that I was ... but that's only what I would do. 

[sripra9007]

37 minutes ago, Alex.M said:

but that's only what I would do

Trust me, most (if not all) Sellers would love to give an honest review IF the Private Review is not asked to the Buyers after 24-48 hours. Especially when that Private Review is powered enough (unfortunately) to keep a seller away from their job for the next 2-3 months.

[rawque_gulia]

2 minutes ago, sripra9007 said:

Trust me, most (if not all) Sellers would love to give an honest review IF the Private Review is not asked to the Buyers after 24-48 hours. Especially when that Private Review is powered enough (unfortunately) to keep a seller away from their job for the next 2-3 months.

This is what I have been trying to say since eternity but everyone is saying "Honesty always wins"....but the correct quote should be "Honesty wins at a cost and the seller has to pay that price", haha. I am not a saint that I will remain honest even after knowing that the buyer can harm my profile.

Anyway, everyone has a different take on this and I don't think Fiverr is going to make any changes to the review system, so let's leave it as it is.

[Alex.M]

10 minutes ago, sripra9007 said:

Trust me, most (if not all) Sellers would love to give an honest review IF the Private Review is not asked to the Buyers after 24-48 hours. Especially when that Private Review is powered enough (unfortunately) to keep a seller away from their job for the next 2-3 months.

 

4 minutes ago, rawque_gulia said:

"Honesty always wins"....but the correct quote should be "Honesty wins at a cost and the seller has to pay that price"

completely irrelevant, the buyer can give you a bad private review even if he gives you 5 stars.. also if he leaves a 1 star review how do you think his private feedback will be?  

[sripra9007]

7 minutes ago, Alex.M said:

 

completely irrelevant, the buyer can give you a bad private review even if he gives you 5 stars.. also if he leaves a 1 star review how do you think his private feedback will be?  

It's not irrelevant, it's just about looking at things from an angle.

What about a situation wherein a buyer gave a seller 5-star rating (because he felt Seller has done a good job), however, the seller gave him 1-star (an honest review because his behaviour was not good or some other reasons). After 24 hours buyer is asked for a Private Review.

Seller gave an honest feedback to Fiverr, so that other sellers are benefitted. But what do you think the buyer will do in that Private Review? What he/she will do is called Retaliation and not an honest review, and that retaliation keeps the seller out of job for the next several weeks (or months).

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by sripra9007

[rawque_gulia]

10 minutes ago, Alex.M said:

bad private review even if he gives you 5 stars

I think you misunderstood my messages (or maybe I was not able to write them properly). Here, I am not talking about cases where buyers are dissatisfied. Here, I am talking about cases where “only seller” is dissatisfied with the buyer.

In such situations, the buyer has no reason to leave a negative review...of course, unless the seller leaves a 1.0 star review that hurts their ego (and that's what I am trying to explain).

Here, I am only talking about specific cases!

Edited September 15, 2023 by rawque_gulia

[mercurianus]

Fiverr can introduce a rating system which collects all ratings and reviews but does not show them by 5 stars, 4star. 3,2 or 1 star. 

Let it be as most recent /oldest/most favourable/most critical sorting only and let there be an average rating to the seller profile and seller gig.  The seller won't get to know which buyer left which no. of stars and let buyer also not know the star rating left by seller for him/her.

As sellers with more orders won't get to know who left which rating, they can rate buyers more genuinely.  This can obviously be apparent as a new seller starts his profile, but for gigs with more orders, a seller may not know exact star rating left by a buyer as average will be around 4.9.

This will reduce the case of retaliation by sellers and buyers. 

Edited September 15, 2023 by mercurianus