New review system is live?!

[donnovan86]

I was browsing the Fiverr help articles and I saw this...

https://help.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/360049982353-Reviews-and-ratings

 

So it seems to me the new review system either goes live, it's already live, and it wasn't changed from what we saw last time. Value for money is still there. And it also seems they are showing that final review score before you publish your review as a buyer. 

Since this is on Fiverr's own help page, one would think it's final, right? 

[vovkaslovesnyy]

24 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

it wasn't changed from what we saw last time

It seems that all our suggestions will be "considered for future updates" 😁

And it totally corresponds with the following quotes. Smooth as... silk.

Quote

...your feedback is invaluable and we will continue to implement changes as best as possible based on your suggestions. Our goal is a smooth and gradual transition to future changes, and rest assured we will update in a new post in the forum as soon as we have more information. 

Quote

Second, to continue our commitment of providing more transparency, we have taken much of your valuable feedback into account and will conduct further exploration on the following topics: 

Quote

We are exploring alternative options of depicting the ratings within the form (emojis, stars, etc.), and will keep you updated with future updates.

Just a comment: I am not a person, who neglects everything new, and I understand that it's "their sandbox", so they can set any rules. But if you claim to have a community or to work with it, maybe (just maybe) it can be useful to really communicate with it instead of answering only chosen questions and sending "we really care" replies, which were obsolete even 5 years ago. 

Edited January 29 by vovkaslovesnyy

[katakatica]

I'd assume so - I just got a review with this exact system and this little thing -

which is very smart (and kind of necessary) based on the past few weeks.

That being said, I do hope that they'll change the images in the article to 'sync' - e.g. either have a lower score because that's what it would be based on those ratings or pick higher ratings. 

(On the one hand, I get it - we need to see the system at work'; on the other hand.. yeah, I think it'd make sense to change the images up a bit. 

[uk1000]

Though that "it's against the community standards to...ask for the removal or modification of a published review or rating" message it now shows could be reworded as it isn't actually against the rules to ask that from Fiverr (or report it) if the review breaks the TOS (as it says in the standards page that those reviews can be reported).

[donnovan86]

Just now, uk1000 said:

could be reworded as it isn't actually against the rules to ask that from Fiverr (or report it) if the review breaks the TOS (as it says in the standards page that those reviews can be reported).

Yeah but that's the minority. They want to discourage people from going to customer support constantly in order to get their reviews removed. Because those sellers will receive a warning if nothing breaks the TOS and they just want to curate their reviews. 

[katakatica]

1 minute ago, uk1000 said:

Though that "it's against the community standards to...ask for the removal or modification of a published review or rating" message it now shows could be reworded as it isn't actually against the rules to ask that from Fiverr (or report it) if the review breaks the TOS (as it says in the standards page that those reviews can be reported).

That's true. I interpreted it a 'don't pester the buyer if they gave you a bad review'. Maybe something closer to 'if you think the review is unfair/etc.  reach out to CS? (but then that would cause other issues...)

[donnovan86]

11 minutes ago, vovkaslovesnyy said:

It seems that all our suggestions will be "considered for future updates" 😁

 

It might. I am sure it's considered, but considered doesn't mean it will be implemented.."EVER". I also had suggestions for years and they were not implemented to this day. So yeah..we'll see how they improve upon this and what changes they will eventually make, if any. But seeing how rare these review systems change, I wouldn't hold my breath for these things to happen soon. Although unlike most people, even if I do have some issues with the review system myself, I am a bit more positive. 

1 minute ago, katakatica said:

That's true. I interpreted it a 'don't pester the buyer if they gave you a bad review'.

100%.

[nicks_voice]

2 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

Since this is on Fiverr's own help page, one would think it's final, right? 

I find it hilarious how they’re showing what looks like a 3 star review showing up as a 5 stars overall, I know it’s just an example but it definitely doesn’t make this whole roll out any less confusing.

[donnovan86]

36 minutes ago, nicks_voice said:

I find it hilarious how they’re showing what looks like a 3 star review showing up as a 5 stars overall, I know it’s just an example but it definitely doesn’t make this whole roll out any less confusing.

I can only assume they want the example to contain something average, exceptional and very bad. That way, people know how stuff appears in every situation.  

[shaunbaines]

Everyone seems reasonably positive here so I don't want to be Dr Doom and bring the negativity, but I've had experience of this new review system.

I worked with a customer on two separate orders, one before the change, one after. The first review was a 5 star and a glowing report. The second review after the change was a 4.5 star, advice on how to improve my work and a glowing report, including the desire to work with me again.

I'm not complaining. 4.5 is still pretty good, but what changed? It's possible my standard of work wasn't as high, but I worry the new system invites criticism where none previously existed, particularly when it comes to the buyer's expectations.

If I expect to fly when I jump out of a window, is it gravity's fault when I don't?   

[edc_lab]

This "value for money" score impacting the seller's rating is incomprehensible.
When a buyer's price expectation meets the seller's offer, the deal is done, and that's the reason why I think value for money should be always considered positive.

Yes, it can be slightly above or below buyers' expectations, but a real entrepreneur thinks about goals and if his/her budget allows the buyer to purchase the service, the only thing he/she wants is to fix his/her problems.

This platform is made to connect buyers and sellers to solve buyers' issues, nobody forces buyers to hire that specific freelancer with high rates.

In my opinion, that statistic could be used just to understand what people think about my prices and the service that I offer, but without impacting any statistics.
For instance, if people keep hiring you, leaving many five stars, but you have a low "value for money" score, this simply means you're a sort of premium seller ("he's expensive, but he works amazingly!").
On the other hand, if you have low ratings with a high "value for money" score, this could mean you're not offering exceptional results, but considering the money spent, the buyers cannot complain much.
This rating should be part of the seller's private reviews, where this and a couple of more tips are suggested to help the sellers understand which skill they need to work on to improve the quality of their service.

So, In my opinion, a buyer cannot rate sellers as "very poor" just because he/she considers the price to be too high.

I know, it's not possible to talk about reviews with a client, but I imagined a conversation like this:
* work completed *
🐼 Did I solve your problem?
🦊 Yes, I also rated your quality as "exceptional".
🐼 Oh, many thanks, but why did you give me a "very poor" rating under "value for money"?
🦊 You did a great job, I solved the issue, but $1000 is too much for me / my business / the world's economic situation / my cousin, etc., you could have made it for less, I'm sure.
🐼 Ok
🦊 Ok
🐼 Bye
🦊 Bye
* blocked *

P.S. No animal emojis were harmed in the making of this film.

[donnovan86]

1 minute ago, edc_lab said:

So, In my opinion, a buyer cannot rate sellers as "very poor" just because he/she considers the price to be too high.

 

That's true. It's also subjective, because value for money might not represent only the product quality. Maybe the buyer liked the product a lot, yet the communication was cumbersome, the product had to go through a lot of revisions, etc. So yeah, they might like the final delivery, but sometimes it can take a while to get there. And again, there are also various sellers that become irate when someone tells them their work needs revisions, etc. So in my opinion, value for money can also encompass that, among other things.

Yes, if the buyer agreed to your price, the value should be great. But I think other factors are taken into account by a buyer when sharing the "value for money". Because yeah, you might have a great result, but the value wasn't that great if the seller was difficult to work with, and it also took 3x the time advertised, right? Just sharing an example and a few thoughts that came to mind. It's a huge platform, so this type of situations happen. Also, most people that complain about value for money receive 4 instead of 5 stars for that metric. I didn't see people complaining they got less than 4 stars there, at least they are not the majority anyway. I've stopped chasing a perfect score myself, I always try to deliver the best quality that I can at my price, and combine that with proper customer service when necessary.

[donnovan86]

And it's now fully live. 

https://www.fiverr.com/cp/freelancers-levels-ratings

There are also more details about the new leveling system. 

[uk1000]

8 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

There are also more details about the new leveling system.

And their new "success score", which according to that page takes into account many things including customer satisfaction (maybe that's the buyer satisfaction rate - so the hidden ratings might be part of that score).

Edited January 30 by uk1000

[Alex.M]

Just now, uk1000 said:

And their new "success score" takes into account many things including customer satisfaction (maybe that's the buyer satisfaction rate - so the hidden ratings might be part of that score).

we'll have some ' fun ' times for the next few days 

[uk1000]

They're also upping the new minimum avg ratings for the levels (even though they've altered the rating system to try to make people get lower ratings!).

So currently it's min of 4.2 stars rating of 60 days to keep ratings.

In the new system it will be:

>= 4.4 star rating for Level 1, >= 4.6 stars for star rating for Level 2, >=4.7 stars for TRS.

So with the updated review system people will get lower ratings, and they'll likely lose levels compared to now with the updated min level system.

Also they say that we have to maintain a particular success score for each level but they don't seem to say exactly how that is calculated (eg. just that it's made of many variables including customer satisfaction I think).

Edited January 30 by uk1000

[emmaki]

Am I thick or is this just complicated? 

[emmaki]

I mean, I've basically got to get nothing BUT 5 stars to keep my TRS since I'm a N/A currently? Bleh. This just encourages me to put everything on RTO and only accept orders from people I work with. 

Plus like someone has probably already pointed out, the example shows someone getting a medium review in one of the things and yet it's a 5 star review? What do these emojis mean? 

Anyway, well done for not listening to anything anybody said and saying "we'll do it in future, maybe" Fiverr. That's even less transparent than "we listened to you and made some micro-changes" with the cancellation stuff last year. Please stop introducing this stuff as transparent and start focusing on targeting the actual people who are creating problems in this marketplace.

To start off the top of my head, there's still a 1-star difference between 💩 and 😍 so far as the levels are concerned. How does this make anything better in terms of "buyers trust reviews between 4 and 4.9 more"? Why not just make it binary again...

....Because this is just pretending to be a fully-fleshed out system when it seems the reality is you needed more metrics for AI and had a superficial fiddle with the rest. 

If I got anything wrong, this is all based on a 20 second glance at everything before becoming immediately outraged at the absolute gall of this fiesta de mierda 🙂

[donnovan86]

20 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

And their new "success score", which according to that page takes into account many things including customer satisfaction (maybe that's the buyer satisfaction rate - so the hidden ratings might be part of that score).

Yes, but unfortunately they will not share everything. It does say what things you could improve. However, based on what I was told, there are still plenty of metrics that stay hidden. It's definitely a step in the right direction with transparency, but don't (ever) expect full transparency. After all, transparency can lead to abuse and people manipulating the system. Basically, this product update brings some parts of the private reviews to the public side of things, both with the buyer satisfaction rate and value for money. 

[donnovan86]

1 minute ago, emmaki said:

Plus like someone has probably already pointed out, the example shows someone getting a medium review in one of the things and yet it's a 5 star review? What do these emojis mean? 

 

That link just has example images. They tried to show an example for average, excellent and very bad selections, for everyone to see what they would receive. Plus, since the focus is on lowering reviews, obviously they wouldn't show 5 stars for everything in those images.

23 minutes ago, Alex.M said:

we'll have some ' fun ' times for the next few days 

I think the next month, month and a half in particular will be a joyride 🙂

[donnovan86]

10 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

>= 4.4 star rating for Level 1, >= 4.6 stars for star rating for Level 2, >=4.7 stars for TRS.

 

I saw that, and also TRS sellers get early payout for free. Pretty sure it was just for Seller Plus until now. Interesting. 

[donnovan86]

13 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

>= 4.4 star rating for Level 1, >= 4.6 stars for star rating for Level 2, >=4.7 stars for TRS.

 

I forgot to say this.. Considering it will be more difficult to keep levels, I can see a LOT of people dropping from level 2 to level 1. Not sure if that's intended or not, but clearly if someone has a few orders a month and 2 of those have a 4 or 4.3 rating, then that puts them in peril of losing their level. 

[uk1000]

So Fiverr say in that link above,

Quote

The previous rating system was dominated by near-perfect scores, making it harder for exceptional work to stand out.

And research shows, ratings between 4.0-4.9 are actually more trustworthy.

So if they think ratings between 4.0 and 4.9 are actually more trustworthy why will they now start making people lose levels if their rating is <4.4 stars,  or < 4.6 stars or < 4.7 stars? 😕

Edited January 30 by uk1000

[katakatica]

7 minutes ago, emmaki said:

Anyway, well done for not listening to anything anybody said and saying "we'll do it in future, maybe" Fiverr. That's even less transparent than "we listened to you and made some micro-changes" with the cancellation stuff last year. Please stop introducing this stuff as transparent and start focusing on targeting the actual people who are creating problems in this marketplace.

 

Gosh, I wanted to say something but realised that it needs to be censored...

I think if there was a way to safely get rid of all of the fakes/bad sellers, they'd have done it. I'm not sure why that isn't an option (could be many reasons), but... well, this is what they think makes sense...

In a way, I'm all for 'let your buyers' experiences speak', but with sudden changes (the level system at least will take a bit, but not the review system) that CLEARLY many aren't understanding, I'm confused. 

I'm also a bit nervous about having to keep a 4.7 rating when we are told that worse reviews are actually better.

I honestly would prefer if Fiverr took a stance here and stuck to it. It's either 'do well or else' or 'try to have honest ratings'. 

 

[donnovan86]

1 minute ago, uk1000 said:

So if they think ratings between 4.0 and 4.9 are actually more trustworthy why will they now start making people lose levels if their rating is <4.4 stars,  or < 4.6 stars or < 4.7 stars? 😕

Yeah, I think they want to give more power for that level 2. Because right now, most people that are active sellers have level 2. This might be a way to differentiate make level 2 more valuable. Because the difference between level 2 and TRS is minimal star-wise.