Quick question concerning levels

[missashley8705]

I’m currently at level 1 but I’m working my butt off for level 2. So far I have the ratings just not the 50 sales in 2 months. I’m not worried about achieving the 50 sales, I know that will happen eventually. My concern is the ratings. So far I have been fortunate but I’m sure I will get a buyer that is prone to always give less then five stars or a buyer who forces me to cancel etc etc. If/when this occurs will one bad buyer ruin my level 2 aspirations or will the other 99% of excellent ratings be enough? Again this is hypothetical but I want to know if the “excellent” ratings required to move up, have to be at 100%. Thanks!

[missashley8705]

OK good thank you ladies!

[catwriter]

You mentioned cancellations (others covered the rest 🙂 ). As long as they’re mutual, they don’t affect your rating.

[missashley8705]

Reply to @catwriter: It’s not the mutal cancellation I’m concerned about as I have had experience with mutual cancellations. The cancellations I worry about is when a buyer purchases your gig without notifying you first and when you tell the buyer you can’t do it (not an offered service or the request is against the TOS etc) and ask to cancel they refuse and you are forced to do a non mutual cancellation.

My concern isn’t so much why my ratings would drop, just a general concern that if they did drop by 1% I wanted to know the repercussions.

[goodgift]

1% shouldn’t really affect you. I thought business was super slow when I first started, but I made it to level 2 in no time. Just hang in there.



Be aggressive when it comes to cancellations. I had a buyer once refuse my mutual cancellation offer THREE TIMES. He insisted that I could do what he wanted, even though it was physically impossible with the tools I had available at the time. He even reminded me that he knew how to rate a seller that didn’t do what they were told – a thinly veiled threat!



I contacted Customer Support. They were able to view the conversation and then remove the transaction altogether. If you find yourself with buyers that refuse a mutual cancellation, then do what I did and open a ticket. I know there’s been a lot of negative hoopla about CS lately, but they are reasonable when it comes to things like this.



And of course, there’s the whole spiel about asking the buyer what else can be done to improve the rating, etc. I do not recommend giving away high-dollar amounts of work for free, but if there’s a little something you can do, then do it. I don’t know if I’d feel comfortable asking the buyer directly for a star increase, but something along the lines of, “Thank you for your business and taking the time to rate my gig. If there is anything else I can do for you, or if something is lacking and I can fix it to make up the extra star(s), please let me know, and I will see if I can work with you,” should work.



But yeah, I’d say that 99% should be okay. With all the negatives surrounding the star system, I think one of the positives is that you don’t have to maintain 100% to move up.

[missashley8705]

So far in my experience, I have had two mutual cancellations and I wish I wouldn’t have had to cancel because the buyers were good ones. They appreciated the honesty of me admitting my situation and that I wouldn’t ne able to provide the quality of wanted them to have. I can only assume the buyers who won’t let a seller cancel with good reason are the buyers who want trouble. If they genuinely had their projects best interests at heart they wouldn’t want someone to do it who admitted that they weren’t equipped to do so.

Some of the issues I have read on the forums or experienced first hand are mind-blowing to me. I feel like purchasing or providing a service should be a lot easier and contain a lot less drama than it does sometimes. I can only assume it’s the universe keeping balance as some parts of society excel, other parts severely decline.