Important Updates: Level System (now live!) and Ratings & Reviews (testing changes)

[smork]

18 minutes ago, Lyndsey_Fiverr said:

Thank you so much for this information, I cannot tell you how much we appreciate the constructive feedback. We will pass this along to the teams leading this change. 

As for how to get back on track, for now, I would strongly encourage you to reach out to your Seller Plus Customer Success Manager. They can help you pinpoint any issues that the system may have flagged and give you next steps for improvement. 

I do appreciate the response @Lyndsey_Fiverr - The problem there is that none of those success managers are available until after the review date next month (which is odd), there are no slots to book at all.  So, its not possible to have any help from them before the review date next month.

I reiterate that I don't believe the negative mark that is seemingly bringing down my score is accurate or fair, and if it is, its absolutely shocking that I couldn't see there was a problem to address it in the first place - just one look at my selling history should say enough really but I appreciate someone actually needs to look at it so I can have some sort of dialogue with someone about it directly.

I am hoping something changes before then - I feel very isolated right now, not a good place to be as a very long term seller here.

Edited February 15 by smork

[riaus_g]

1 hour ago, Lyndsey_Fiverr said:

 

 

Hi all, we completely understand that this new leveling system is a huge change. Please know that our seller's success is one of our highest priorities, and we do want to ensure that you feel supported as we make these changes.

I want to reiterate that this system is still testing, and we will continue to listen to both the concerns and questions and make changes as necessary for the best of both the sellers and the marketplace. We are taking some heavy considerations towards extending the grace period for sellers whose levels would change and will keep you in the loop as we make adjustments. Thank you for your understanding and please do not hesitate to reach out to our Customer Service team, or Customer Success, for any additional explanation. 

Your account has been flagged for a severe violation of Fiverr policies

As a result, you are not able to participate in the level system.

we are facing this problem, but No Email has been received I am a level one seller and did not break any Fiverr privacy rules but they show my account is flagged.

[emmasuebowtique]

3 hours ago, ellamicheler said:

I'm in shock at this sudden new system. I'm a Top Rated Seller in translation, with lots of returning clients, 5* reviews across the board -- and suddenly, my 5* rating has fallen to a 0.2 rating. How is that even mathematically possible? 

Like everyone else here, I've put a lot of hard work into my seller profile, and value my clients. I go above and beyond, despite having a few hard-to-please customers over the years (as we all have, it's part of the business!) How are we to address private feedback when we don't know what we've done wrong? And how can we get more clients to improve our rating when we've been given bad ratings by this new system? It boggles the mind, there's no rhyme nor reason to any of this. 

Fiverr, I implore you, please listen to the hard-working sellers that form the foundation of your platform.

Good luck to everyone on this forum, I'm so saddened to read of all the stress everyone is going through because of this new system.

I feel the same way. I work my butt off and go above and beyond for my clients. From interaction with all my customers and based on my 1100+ 5 star ratings, how in the world does my gig success have a rating of 4. My returning customer rated at 90%, all my scores like cancellation, delivery, etc are 98%+, yet I am now a level 0 and basically will not qualify to even sell on the platform in 90 days. I have made well over 100K on Fiverr in the past 2.5 years. I feel so defeated and so down about this. I have gotten 3 new 5 star reviews in the last 24 hours but the success rate hasn't moved. 

 

 

[tksk_nsk]

Gods sakes, what is this disaster...

From level 2 to level 1 here too.

 

Order cancellations

In two years on Fiverr I have had three cancellations, and two of them I am sure were due to scammers. This platform did not protect me enough from them at that time, anyway I was able to protect myself and made all these users take responsibility for the cancellation verbatim.

I wrote to support and proved that each cancellation was not my responsibility. Support agreed with me and removed the negative rate by cancelations from my profile. It is evident that the new system has eliminated that correction.

Now, leaving aside that obvious flaw....

 

Effective communication/Conflict-free orders

From the first moment my treatment towards all my clients has been extremely courteous. 

I spent many hours crafting my gigs to make information short, clear and accurate. I created forms with even much more information only for them.

 

Make sure your pricing is clear and ensure your pricing factors in the time and effort required to complete a quality delivery

Any modification to the published price, which is ALMOST ALWAYS IS NECESSARY either due to extra fees or because customers request modifications, is notified in advance to the customer and they are asked whether they agree or not before proceeding with an order. 

If the customer agrees or not, is their choise. I think you as platform as no longer concerned about whether we, as sellers, add or not. Also, I almost always deliver something better than what I've been paid.

 

"Educate clients on pricing and value" 

CLIENTS-DON'T-LIKE-READ. 

Cost A LOT they read even the FAQs or terms, where reasons for price increases can be exhibited.

Now, talking about educate...

Many times clients do not even know how to buy or do not know the fees that Fiverr added for purchasing. I have had to advise them on the process using my work time, that should be Fiverr's job, not mine.
 

I have 55 reviews, all 5 stars. This translates into a satisfaction rate of 100%.

Even with all this, my gigs have been evaluated as 6 and 8.

 

What better service do you want from us?

How you can be so cold and evaluate our gigs with metrics that ignore all our effort?

Edited February 15 by tksk_nsk

[crawford_copy]

8 hours ago, visualstudios said:

Only if they have a ton of gigs. I can have up to 30, have 9 at the moment, and honestly I could do with fewer. 

Since you can't have different gigs offering the same service, to offer 20 gigs you need to be able to do 20 different services.

I'm a copywriter and graphic designer (L2).

I have 19 gigs and they're all for different services. Fiverr gig search results are very keyword based. The right keywords need to be in the title or within the five keyword tags, or else the gig won't be found in search results.

So I have gigs for Business Plans, Proposals, Capability Statements, Reports, White Papers, Company Profiles, Pitch Decks, Case Studies, Brand Style Guides, Brochures, Sales Copy, Video Scripts, Elevator Pitches, Press Releases, Landing Pages, Website Content, Blogs/Articles, and Consulting.

Each gig is different and the titles and keyword tags are used for keywords that buyers will be searching for, specific to that gig.

Edited February 15 by crawford_copy

[Lyndsey_Fiverr]

On 2/14/2024 at 10:49 AM, clemrichard said:

Working few years on Fiverr just to be blame everytime to not be "perfect". 

I'm done! 

I should be Top Seller today, but not yet because my Success Score is 8 with a "Strong Negative Impact" on my best seller gig with the Client Satisfaction. It's a 5/5 Gig with really good reviews in public & in PM. 

So? What can I do better after 3 years? 

 

On 2/14/2024 at 10:46 AM, rapidtech1898v2 said:

I have absolutely no idea what i should do now with this feedback?
I have over 40 orders - all reviews are 5 stars - no any problems in any way.

So all this stuff is coming from the private reviews?
Or is this something else?

I would like to improve but i have no idea were i should put my focus...

Hi @clemrichard and @rapidtech1898v2. We apologize that you've noticed a stagnant state in regards to how to improve these indicators, or that the indicators have misjudged your interactions. I would recommend that you toggle with the How to Improve my Gig located just below the indicators. This should give you some suggestions, or reach out to your Customer Success Manager, if applicable.  

[palmreader37]

@Lyndsey_Fiverr

I sure do hope the grace period is extended so I at least have a chance to make up for this. I am here on Fiverr since 2013, was TRS from 2016 until May, 2023 when I got demoted to level two for reasons that weren't made entirely clear to me. 

Now with this new level system I am at Level 0...How this even possible? CS is really not helping with offering any direct answers and I don't blame them. 

 

You guys should really think about this. It will lead to less sales and less revenue for you. Many sellers will also leave at least ones with many sales...ratings taken from years ago and now given a month to fix this? How can I possibly do that? I don't want to be TRS I just want to be at least level 1 and I do truly think I deserve this even now, I just got demoted due to some algorithm considering some rating left by a buyer that was too bored or pressed for time to actually think through what I do truly deserve. \

So now 11 years of hard work goes to the drain pretty much...if I can't get to level 1 I can't even promote my gigs anymore, I can only offer 4 gigs so will have to shut down the rest (I have 10 active gigs)...so a lot of trouble, essentially. I am wondering if I would be able to have any sales in two months from now. 

Again I do beg you, please do reconsider, it's a  move that will bring a lot of harm to many long term sellers that made Fiverr what it is today. 

[visualstudios]

Well, you already knew this was going to happen... and already know what the outcome will be

[vhskid]

4 hours ago, Lyndsey_Fiverr said:

As for how to get back on track, for now, I would strongly encourage you to reach out to your Seller Plus Customer Success Manager. They can help you pinpoint any issues that the system may have flagged and give you next steps for improvement. 

So if someone doesn't have 'Seller Plus' and by extension no 'Success Manager', then they cannot get feedback about what actually (specific order, messages, etc.) affects the specific gig's score in the specific metric, and what specifically to improve?

Fiverr acts like: "You did something bad. You should know you did. We know you did. Our system knows what it was. But we won't tell you. Here is a long list of subjective, non-measurable communication behaviors that could cause your score." 

My gig has the 'FIVERR'S CHOICE' badge, I have 5/5 star reviews, and never had conflicts / disputes, and yet this is something I have "Room for growth". Customer Support forwards me copy-paste responses that gets me nowhere. 

How a month is enough to get people ready for a change of this caliber? 
How we can improve our "new statistics" in a completely new scoring system in a month when the algorithm takes into consideration a much bigger time scope?

Edited February 15 by vhskid

[rapidtech1898v2]

4 hours ago, Lyndsey_Fiverr said:

Our Conflict-free orders score looks into unresolved matters regarding delivery times and cancellation requests, as well as the number of disputes that had to be escalated to the Fiverr Customer Support Team. This score will also take into account any negative indicators that the client had a bad experience or was unsatisfied with the delivery. For tips on how to improve this key area, read more here.

thx a lot for your response

but why so complicated:

. This score will also take into account any negative indicators that the client had a bad experience or was unsatisfied with the delivery. 

Why not simply call it by the name. Its all about the private hidden customer review.

(cause i have no cancellations or disputes)

[emmasuebowtique]

2 hours ago, palmreader37 said:

@Lyndsey_Fiverr

I sure do hope the grace period is extended so I at least have a chance to make up for this. I am here on Fiverr since 2013, was TRS from 2016 until May, 2023 when I got demoted to level two for reasons that weren't made entirely clear to me. 

Now with this new level system I am at Level 0...How this even possible? CS is really not helping with offering any direct answers and I don't blame them. 

 

You guys should really think about this. It will lead to less sales and less revenue for you. Many sellers will also leave at least ones with many sales...ratings taken from years ago and now given a month to fix this? How can I possibly do that? I don't want to be TRS I just want to be at least level 1 and I do truly think I deserve this even now, I just got demoted due to some algorithm considering some rating left by a buyer that was too bored or pressed for time to actually think through what I do truly deserve. \

So now 11 years of hard work goes to the drain pretty much...if I can't get to level 1 I can't even promote my gigs anymore, I can only offer 4 gigs so will have to shut down the rest (I have 10 active gigs)...so a lot of trouble, essentially. I am wondering if I would be able to have any sales in two months from now. 

Again I do beg you, please do reconsider, it's a  move that will bring a lot of harm to many long term sellers that made Fiverr what it is today. 

Same is happening to me... See. I am at a loss at the moment and feel so depressed and defeated. My CS manager did say that cancellation rate is being calculated incorrectly at the moment and they are working on fixing it. If one thing is calculating incorrectly, that probability of other things calculating incorrectly is highly likely. 

[emmasuebowtique]

Just now, emmasuebowtique said:

Same is happening to me... See. I am at a loss at the moment and feel so depressed and defeated. My CS manager did say that cancellation rate is being calculated incorrectly at the moment and they are working on fixing it. If one thing is calculating incorrectly, that probability of other things calculating incorrectly is highly likely. 

Whoops I meant to attach this in my last comment but it didn't go through. As you can see we are in the same boat, however I am only level 2. 

[emmasuebowtique]

8 hours ago, zerlina84 said:

That is obviously a bug. This new system is stupid but not THAT stupid 😅  Reach out to Customer Service so they can help you.

Um yes they are, all of us are reaching out to customer service and I am sure we all got the same copy and pasted reply straight out of there handbook. This is happening to lots of us and the numbers are not accurate. CS even admitted that the cancellation rate is not calculating properly into the success score.

[emmasuebowtique]

Is everyone getting this same response from Customer Service about the success score?  Sounds like Fiverr doesn't even know what is going on and they rolled out a program clearly before all the bugs were fixed. 

[kickgom]

I've have mantainted:

100% reponse rate
100% order completition
100% On time delivery
5 Positve rating

Just to realize today that I have a negative impact on customer satisfaction and cancellations, when I haven't had a single cancellation in more than 3 months, it seems like a bad joke but nothing surprises me anymore on Fiverr, it seems that every so often some members They require them to make changes to the platform where they put more pressure on the seller. I can't imagine how the value for money works if the client is seeing the type of work and gallery before purchasing as well as the price. There is no way to know what I can improve because they are all metrics that the client does privately, how can I improve something that I don't know?

My impressions dropped from 2000 a day to only 190 a day as did my orders. No matter how hard I try here I can never have the client 100% satisfied, I have been on Fiverr for 9 years and I have never been able to reach the highest level, neither maintaining the best attitude, nor staying up late, nor doing everything humanly possible. and this is not going to change, these changes to pressure have been since I can remember, that is why in my case I am going to migrate my talent and my work to other platforms and not keep all my eggs in the same basket, i need to feel valuable again. After more than 8000 orders now they realize i do not have any value for their system.

I think I'm more than tired of this situation, there has come a point where I don't even care anymore.

Can you imagine how i feel after so much time and effort, trying to keep the perfect score?

Edited February 16 by kickgom

[vhskid]

3 hours ago, Lyndsey_Fiverr said:

We apologize that you've noticed a stagnant state in regards to how to improve these indicators, or that the indicators have misjudged your interactions.

So you are admitting here, that the algorithm / AI can misinterpret some data (or human interactions) and the scores can be wrong / unreliable?

Does the Customer Support or other internal team have means / tools / rights to manually change the scores / metrics?

If so how manual re-scoring would be assessed? What factors would be considered?

Edited February 16 by vhskid
missing text

[kickgom]

9 hours ago, ellamicheler said:

I'm in shock at this sudden new system. I'm a Top Rated Seller in translation, with lots of returning clients, 5* reviews across the board -- and suddenly, my 5* rating has fallen to a 0.2 rating. How is that even mathematically possible? 

Like everyone else here, I've put a lot of hard work into my seller profile, and value my clients. I go above and beyond, despite having a few hard-to-please customers over the years (as we all have, it's part of the business!) How are we to address private feedback when we don't know what we've done wrong? And how can we get more clients to improve our rating when we've been given bad ratings by this new system? It boggles the mind, there's no rhyme nor reason to any of this. 

Fiverr, I implore you, please listen to the hard-working sellers that form the foundation of your platform.

Good luck to everyone on this forum, I'm so saddened to read of all the stress everyone is going through because of this new system.

Well....i implored 9 years and now i am tired, nothing will happen, it is always the same pushing us sellers. It seems like they care no more about us

[vhskid]

12 hours ago, voicedbyken said:

Just reread the Success Score page and from what I can gather [without it being explicitly stated] is that they are using a Grammarly-style ai to monitor and review communications, gig descriptions, etc... to determine the mood, context, and other factors in both the seller and buyers communications. This is why many of us who are borderline over-communicative are seeing strikes in our success rating for communication issues. The algorithm does not understand human speech in the same way actual humans do, so it makes a generic interpretation that does not align with what is actually going on.  

My thoughts exactly. 

I see more issues with the AI. 

Sometimes part of the communication goes outside Fiverr eg. because the buyer cannot bring their whole team here, so Slack / Google Meet / others are used. 

This means that the AI doesn't see the full picture of communication and if for example some topic was resolved during outside-Fiverr communication. 

 

The other thing is that non-native English speakers might use some expressions that come off as less polite than they think / would like. They might not know it their whole life because the other side understands the situation and the original intention, so there are no negative consequences and no feedback.

In practice, this isn't a problem, but AI doesn't get that.

[kickgom]

14 hours ago, smork said:

@Kesha @Lyndsey_Fiverr

As someone who has been selling on Fiverr for nearly a decade and has held Top Rated Seller status since 2015, I urge the relevant team to reconsider this update, which seems nothing short of a disaster. The overwhelming negativity, confusion and disappointment in the fifteen pages of comments here and numerous other posts across the forum should be evidence enough.

This update is not only harmful and derogatory but also further punishes hard-working sellers who are the backbone of Fiverr - We are just as important as buyers. Once again, it's clear that Fiverr isn't listening to its sellers. This update demonstrates a serious lack of understanding of what it is to be a freelancer and how to create an environment that is balanced and fair for both sides, sellers and buyers. Surely, if even one freelancer were involved in the decision-making process, they could have provided countless reasons why this doesn't make sense.

While I understand the need to weed out low-quality sellers, Fiverr is unquestionably harming a significant number of reputable sellers in the process.

The Fiverr team seems to be continuing on a disappointing path of grinding down its sellers for no apparent reason - Hassling buyers to leave private reviews?  The seller not knowing what has been said or how that impacts them? The clearly huge amount of weight you've assigned to these tattletale style private reviews and not disclosing it to your sellers? You are playing with people's livelihoods as if it's some sort of game, and that is incredibly disappointing.

Regarding the previous post I made in this thread, I received an 8/10 score with no clear explanation or means to address it. The offending statistic was "Client Satisfaction." In my almost ten years on Fiverr, with nearly 6000 completed orders and a 5-star review score, I have only received three negative reviews, and none of them are accurate; two were left by mistake.

As a Top Rated Seller, you've always said that we are periodically reviewed to ensure we a maintaining the level of service required to be a TRS. So, Fiverr knows I uphold my end of the bargain. If some disgruntled buyers have unfairly criticized me in private reviews, Fiverr should present that information to me so I can defend myself, rather than blindly siding with them and damaging my business.

Your support team seems clueless about the situation, providing nonsensical copy-paste responses when asked for clarification.

@Kesha  I hope you'll relay this feedback to your team. They have reached out to me in the past via email asking if I'd come and contribute to the forum, I've had s***e chats for feedback on new features that were in testing, interviews for blog posts, and asking me to look into starting up Fiverr workshops. I've had a seller success manager before they started charging for the feature, and he frequently sought my opinions to relay back to the team. I am pretty sure that I speak on behalf of many when I say that Fiverr needs to listen to its core sellers instead of throwing them under the bus.

Today I can see the Success Score has received another threatening update for me to enjoy

How am I meant to get back on track when I don't know what the problem is in the first place or what I can do to fix it?  How can I get back on track when I don't believe I've done anything wrong and you apparently only give me 30 days to fix something that is the result of you drawing from 2 years of data to punish me for?

Do better please.

I am in the same situation as you unfortunately and I know what you feel, I am one of your competitors, I have been there since 2014 and it is a shame that every "improvement" that is made in the system we are despised more and more, just like You have kept my job as professionally as possible to find out this terrible news. Every day I have had to endure more and adapt to the system but this is the last straw, I think this will not end until we sellers leave Fiverr.

[Alex.M]

Some strong suggestions that could make the new level/rating system better and acceptable for sellers:

• - Lower the threshold for each level: Level 1 - Success Score 4 / Level 2 - Success Score 6 / TRS - Success Score 8
• If the current rating system especially the value for money remains the same then the average rating should be lowered as well: Level 1 - Rating 4.4  - Level 2 - Rating 4.5 - TRS - Rating 4.6
• More transparency on how the success score is calculated
•  If the success score won't change that often at least add a couple of decimals so we can see when it goes up or down ( Success score 8.49, 9.55, etc ).
• Remove the lowest rating in a 60-day period from all the metrics ( as it was )
• Perhaps make the ' value for money ' part of the rating count less from what it is now.
• Change the way buyers rate when they leave TIP. If for whatever reason they give 3-4 stars for value for money but then they tip... the value for money should still count as 5 stars, there is no reason to tip if the value for money was anything lower than 5 stars.
• If something should be increased perhaps the average response time. Level 1 85% Level 2 90% TRS 95% , 24 hours to respond to a message is more than enough for anyone who cares about their Fiverr account in my opinion.

[kickgom]

11 hours ago, leonormiserol said:

Exactly the same thing happens. I have more than 1500 positive reviews. I ONLY CANCELED 2 ORDERS IN 2 YEARS. Only 2! It's not fair that this is happening. My clients always leave me good reviews and tip , doesn't this mean they are satisfied?
I can't understand if this is a bug.

Totally agree. I quit my job hoping to be a freelancer, now this is worse than any boss I've had before

[kickgom]

21 hours ago, jonbaas said:

Exactly. 

The success score should start at the same point for everyone -- under the new system -- and give sellers, like you (and others) a chance to ease into the new score. Old data can be added in slowly, to bring seller histories into focus. It is unwise to dump everyone into the mix based entirely upon old data (especially when some great sellers worked hard to overcome past challenges that, now, once again, penalize them severely under the new rules). This disqualifies some great hard-working sellers right off the bat, with little to no chance to operate (or sell) under the new requirements. 

You are right, this will only encourage old sellers like me to run out of here

[martian_guy]

19 hours ago, martian_guy said:

Same thing happened to me as I often visit my parents house and in-laws. 

I have massaged customers support and they are saying that I am permanently banned from participating in Fiverr level system! 

I am selling on fiverr for last 3 years and completed over 1900 orders with 5 star ratings, but it looks like all the hard work I did is going to waste. 

Update! 

This is the the latest reply from customer support. 

It looks like even they are not sure about the ban if it was due to location inconsistencies or link to a banned account. 

This confuses me even more because I never got any warning about that. 

They also did not clarify about the future of my account. 

This new level system update has ruined everything and no one is happy about that. 

[sunshine15]

This entire new rating and level system is flawed. Did Fiverr just decide to "wing it" and see what happens? As a Top Rated Seller and being a full time freelancer for several years now, this just reiterates my feelings about Fiverr as a whole...they do not care about their sellers and definitely do not listen to them. I have yet to read one positive thing about this entire new system. 

I've had numerous repeat buyers at this point who are non-native English speakers, misinterpret the rating system. They have left me amazing, written reviews and mistakenly are marking items as "Where You Can Improve" when what they mean to select is "Things That Went Well". This is very apparent based on what they are listing in their written reviews. After reaching out and speaking to some of these buyers to see if there was anything I could do to improve their experience (keep in mind--not asking them to change any review and risk my account being banned), they have stated they were confused and didn't mean to mark it as this.  

[anniejenkinson]

1 hour ago, Alex.M said:

24 hours to respond to a message is more than enough for anyone who cares about their Fiverr account in my opinion.

1 hour ago, Alex.M said:

• If something should be increased perhaps the average response time. Level 1 85% Level 2 90% TRS 95% , 24 hours to respond to a message is more than enough for anyone who cares about their Fiverr account in my opinion.

Except that for many of us, the notifications system is long since malfunctioning . It has been failing to send me Order Dashboard new message notifications for more than a year and I have so many orders, it's impossible to check manually every day as I'd have to open every job just to see if 'by chance' I have a message. 

So I and the other sellers who get no notifications (despite all settings ticked, to ask for notifications) would be punished for yet another Fiverr glitch thay're failing to rectify.

Love the other thoughts though! Full thumbs up!