New Seller level system is terrible

[azizalkass]

i really can not understand this my best seller gig which have all 5 stars reviews and all my clients are very satisfied and becomes regular clients because of it and in the success score its shown as "strong negative impact". and i was going to be top rated seller now i will be dropped back to level 1 after years of work.

[raja_ahsan]

Very strange update from fiverr. I have been a top rated seller since the past 2 years. All of my clients seems super happy and are getting back to me with more work. Fiverr rating system still scored 8 and I had to improve it by March 15 to maintain this badge.  

[eclixo]

17 hours ago, e_benincasa said:

I understand that there are private reviews as well as public, but the issue is transparency.  So, if my reviews are potentially telling a different story publicly then Fiverr needs to disclose private reviews to us or get rid of them all together as this is misleading.  How can I truly improve If I don't know what the real issue is?  I am currently following all the effective communication tips in their guidelines and "room for growth" is beyond vague.  How is that calculated and how does one of my best selling gigs have "room for growth"  That's where my problem lies and what I believe ken and others may also be feeling.  I have no issue with getting feedback.  But if you are going provide me with data and then not provide me with concrete evidence as to where this is derived from and how I can honestly improve it..... thats when I get annoyed. 

I agree with you. If Fiverr is all about transparency, then why take private feedback in the first place?

 

16 hours ago, andywarburton said:

Has anyone complaining about not knowing how to improve tried clicking the big button that says "how to improve your gig score" ? Lots of juicy information in there!

I read that page; it's all about appeasing buyers and bowing down to their demands. For example, in order cancellation, they only talk about "Be proactive with communication," "Understand your client’s needs," and "Stay in touch throughout the process." There is nowhere mentioned what to do if a buyer is asking for work beyond the scope. Because you'll never know what kind of client you've got, even if you've talked with them for days before the order.

[jesse_cl]

I thought I was one of the few unlucky ones but seems like this new level system is ruining everyone's' hard work. I had an impeccable score of 4.9 and more than 10 finished orders. I meet all the other requirements to reach top seller except the 2 non-sensical Client satisfaction and Conflict free orders. I have been in touch with the customer service so I can get an explanation on how it can be resolved but so far haven't received anything more than generic replies quoted from their rulebook.
It's so frustrating honestly with no explanation on what to fix.
In reply to Andywarburton - I have read it all and don't see anything that addresses my concerns.

If anyone knows anything or has insight into what needs to be done please share!

[irtzashahanpk]

This new level system is really horrible, I have completed 256 orders with 10 cancellations, of which only 2 were legitimate cancellations. The rest were either mistakenly placed orders or reordered immediately afterwards, which means that at the time, the cancellation rate was not affected by those 8 cancellations. However, now my success rate is 7, and only reason provided on all of my gigs is negative effect due to cancellations.

Furthermore, out of the three gigs affected, one has a "strong negative impact" for cancellations (other two only show a "negative effect.") The ratio of completed to cancelled orders for the heavily impacted gig is 53:3, with not a single one of those cancellations being genuine. These cancellations didn't affect the cancellation scores at the time either. The most recent cancellation for this gig occurred three months ago, the second-to-last over nine months ago, and the third over a year ago.

[ashelectric]

See I had confusion with this and I read through the info on what to improve, it's pretty standard stuff I'm already familiar with. The confusing part is that I got hit with a low "value for money" metric on my gigs even after a majority of clients tipped well and reviewed well, some even vocally impressed in direct messages. I can slightly understand two separate review systems for "people wanting to be nice", but the data doesn't add up in my opinion.

Like, there's not much reasoning why someone would tip almost the same amount they paid for and then rate the project bad value for money.

[johnparsons01]

On 2/15/2024 at 2:23 PM, andywarburton said:

Has anyone complaining about not knowing how to improve tried clicking the big button that says "how to improve your gig score" ? Lots of juicy information in there!

If you read the tips - they are vague and talk in generalities. We are indeed held to a very high standard but for the sake of transparency and to ensure that clients are receiving nothing but a high level of service then it would benefit everyone if specific issues were highlighted so they can be addressed in a meaningful way. Otherwise, the huge number of sellers being impacted here are simply floundering and not sure what to do 

[donnovan86]

Just now, johnparsons01 said:

We are indeed held to a very high standard but for the sake of transparency and to ensure that clients are receiving nothing but a high level of service then it would benefit everyone if specific issues were highlighted so they can be addressed in a meaningful way.

Well, put it this way. All this info was already seen in the background by Fiverr, and they were ranking us based on that. The only thing that happened is they started showing SOME of the hidden metrics. There are still many private metrics they are witholding from us. And since a lot of this ranking system is based on private data, I don't expect them to share more info. I am even shocked they display this much. But whenever they inquire people to share private reviews, they say the info will not be shared with anyone. So.. don't expect them to automatically share more info like what order received a bad private review or stuff like that. My guess is that kind of stuff will never happen. Unless they change the approach towards private reviews. 

Then again, they want people to have lower review scores and diversify the overall review spectrum. Until this change, most of the active sellers had 5 stars or 4.9 as a rating, and they were level 2. I will say, I tried to buy stuff for a few projects and everyone almost had the same rating on the first few pages. It's very hard as a buyer to purchase stuff when everyone has the same rating. But some sellers curate their orders and cancel, while others just deliver excellent work all the time. I get why they made this change, and I agree with purging bad sellers. I don't think doing that is fine if you're also harming great sellers in the meantime. But hey, it's their platform..

[fixxapp]

I don't agree, it's their platform but it became successful thanks to our hard work...

[johnparsons01]

4 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

Well, put it this way. All this info was already seen in the background by Fiverr, and they were ranking us based on that. The only thing that happened is they started showing SOME of the hidden metrics. There are still many private metrics they are witholding from us. And since a lot of this ranking system is based on private data, I don't expect them to share more info. I am even shocked they display this much. But whenever they inquire people to share private reviews, they say the info will not be shared with anyone. So.. don't expect them to automatically share more info like what order received a bad private review or stuff like that. My guess is that kind of stuff will never happen. Unless they change the approach towards private reviews. 

Then again, they want people to have lower review scores and diversify the overall review spectrum. Until this change, most of the active sellers had 5 stars or 4.9 as a rating, and they were level 2. I will say, I tried to buy stuff for a few projects and everyone almost had the same rating on the first few pages. It's very hard as a buyer to purchase stuff when everyone has the same rating. But some sellers curate their orders and cancel, while others just deliver excellent work all the time. I get why they made this change, and I agree with purging bad sellers. I don't think doing that is fine if you're also harming great sellers in the meantime. But hey, it's their platform..

Fair points but keep in mind that a lot of sellers who are impacted - like you I am certain, have invested a lot of sweat equity into building a business here - and helping position Fiverr as a brand. We hold ourselves to a very high set of standards, comply with the ToS and deliver a quality product, honestly caring about our customers here. That the goal posts are moved overnight and I think you will agree, with a lack of real insight into what specifically is impacting our scores, causes a lot of concern. There is a huge body of very concerned sellers here..... With the analytical powers at Fiverr's disposal, there is surely another way of dealing with the bad sellers without crushing those who are working tirelessly to meet the metrics we cannot see while at the same time concentrating on the daily orders at hand

[johnparsons01]

4 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

Well, put it this way. All this info was already seen in the background by Fiverr, and they were ranking us based on that. The only thing that happened is they started showing SOME of the hidden metrics. There are still many private metrics they are witholding from us. And since a lot of this ranking system is based on private data, I don't expect them to share more info. I am even shocked they display this much. But whenever they inquire people to share private reviews, they say the info will not be shared with anyone. So.. don't expect them to automatically share more info like what order received a bad private review or stuff like that. My guess is that kind of stuff will never happen. Unless they change the approach towards private reviews. 

Then again, they want people to have lower review scores and diversify the overall review spectrum. Until this change, most of the active sellers had 5 stars or 4.9 as a rating, and they were level 2. I will say, I tried to buy stuff for a few projects and everyone almost had the same rating on the first few pages. It's very hard as a buyer to purchase stuff when everyone has the same rating. But some sellers curate their orders and cancel, while others just deliver excellent work all the time. I get why they made this change, and I agree with purging bad sellers. I don't think doing that is fine if you're also harming great sellers in the meantime. But hey, it's their platform..

In a 'past life,' I used to have to write evaluation reports, often used a part of a process to determine one's eligibility for promotion. If the subject of such an evaluation was found deficient in any way, they were never told you have to do better at X - but we cannot tell you what X is, but X is a general collection of ABC. They were given specific examples, a roadmap for success and supportive coaching. The idea was to never crush anyone or let them leave a meeting feeling belittled or concerned, but empowered that positive change was possible.

[donnovan86]

3 hours ago, johnparsons01 said:

With the analytical powers at Fiverr's disposal, there is surely another way of dealing with the bad sellers without crushing those who are working tirelessly to meet the metrics we cannot see while at the same time concentrating on the daily orders at hand

I mean, it's not like Fiverr lacks sellers. So I think they just want to avoid having almost every active seller that has been here for a while with 5 stars. We'll see, I am not as heavily impacted as other people with success scores that shift often, but then again I had a lot of orders over the years, so I am pretty sure my current success score will stay the same for a while unless they make significant changes on how they calculate things.

3 hours ago, johnparsons01 said:

They were given specific examples, a roadmap for success and supportive coaching.

I am not sure if I said this here or as a reply to someone else. Buuut, Fiverr was already ranking us based on this info for years. It was private, so the fact that they are showing what is impacting us is definitely a major step in the right direction. I've been asking for the buyer satisfaction rate or success score to be public, so we know at least where we stand and why we are at the back of the pack randomly. So I am glad they went with this approach. I was sure they won't share a lot of other info because most of the information they use for ranking and the success score is from private reviews. And as I said, if they promise buyers to keep that info private, I am sure we'll never learn what happens. When it comes to how we can improve certain metrics, they have an article https://help.fiverr.com/hc/en-us/articles/21965360854673-Success-score and that's pretty much all they will give us, honestly. 

[irtzashahanpk]

11 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

Well, put it this way. All this info was already seen in the background by Fiverr, and they were ranking us based on that. The only thing that happened is they started showing SOME of the hidden metrics. There are still many private metrics they are witholding from us. And since a lot of this ranking system is based on private data, I don't expect them to share more info. I am even shocked they display this much. But whenever they inquire people to share private reviews, they say the info will not be shared with anyone. So.. don't expect them to automatically share more info like what order received a bad private review or stuff like that. My guess is that kind of stuff will never happen. Unless they change the approach towards private reviews. 

Then again, they want people to have lower review scores and diversify the overall review spectrum. Until this change, most of the active sellers had 5 stars or 4.9 as a rating, and they were level 2. I will say, I tried to buy stuff for a few projects and everyone almost had the same rating on the first few pages. It's very hard as a buyer to purchase stuff when everyone has the same rating. But some sellers curate their orders and cancel, while others just deliver excellent work all the time. I get why they made this change, and I agree with purging bad sellers. I don't think doing that is fine if you're also harming great sellers in the meantime. But hey, it's their platform..

 @donnovan86 Very well written explanation I understand this, but I still don't understand why my gigs being dragged down while having excellent client satisfaction and all other metrics just because of mistaken cancellations as explained in this post.

12 hours ago, irtzashahanpk said:

This new level system is really horrible, I have completed 256 orders with 10 cancellations, of which only 2 were legitimate cancellations. The rest were either mistakenly placed orders or reordered immediately afterwards, which means that at the time, the cancellation rate was not affected by those 8 cancellations. However, now my success rate is 7, and only reason provided on all of my gigs is negative effect due to cancellations.

Furthermore, out of the three gigs affected, one has a "strong negative impact" for cancellations (other two only show a "negative effect.") The ratio of completed to cancelled orders for the heavily impacted gig is 53:3, with not a single one of those cancellations being genuine. These cancellations didn't affect the cancellation scores at the time either. The most recent cancellation for this gig occurred three months ago, the second-to-last over nine months ago, and the third over a year ago.

 

[faiz_creations]

Same this happened to me. I completed many orders with 5 stars after new level system and my success score is decreasing instead of increasing. Very unfair system

[e_benincasa]

The new rating system is also a mess especially the "value for money" question.  Almost everyone is picking less than 5 stars, because naturally people always want it cheaper.  It should be "would you refer to a friend"  That shows they value your work if they are willing to refer you to other people.   

Additionally, people are clicking so fast and I am getting reviews that say "No other words than excellence" and then they have all these things listed in areas to improve.  I reached out to them to clarify, only to find out they didnt see it said that and were clicking all the things they liked about me.   So now my gig is showing as a "strong negative impact"  

Thanks fiverr. 

Edited February 26 by e_benincasa

[litcornerbooks]

Hi. 

Another very strange thing I would like to add here is an unexplainable fall in "response rate." Just yesterday I qualified. Today my response rate is 75% and the metrics is "in progress." The thing is, I did not see any new message that I should respond to. Nothing in the inbox, no email alert... The only message I did not reply to was an ongoing order chat when I messaged a client I made progress with the order and I will finish it soon. The client answered "thank you." An ongoing conversation should not be part of the response rate metrics, this just doesn't make sense and I think it is another proof that the new system just doesn't work.

[sirouss]

I think that the algorithm that fiverr uses in the new seller level system can be affected by the cliques of the gigs because since the update I have been at 4/10 success score then I went down to 3/10 without anything do and then yesterday I had a click on my gig and I came back to 4/10

[litcornerbooks]

This new system is getting more and more ridiculous. This is my latest finished order and the customer review. The customer even left a tip and we are planning the third order from this customer. And my rating went from 4 to 3 after finishing this? I really do not get it.

[hightlink]

The "value for money" one is stupid considering you know the price before ordering and a lot of people will not give a 5/5 because they consider it can be cheaper.

I'm on Fiverr since 2012 and all the changes only help pressure the seller in accepting the bs of some buyers and sell for lower price, don't cancel any order and so on. Some of the changes also feels like it's some sort of experiment to see how it will go.

I for one will do my job as usual until it will not be worth my time anymore, it's just business. At the moment Fiverr values a buyer that just placed 1 order VS a seller that has invested years of work in this platform, do I have to say more?

Also, feel like our feedback is not appreciated. Remember the hidden buyer reviews? private reviews? reviews on a canceled order? and now this system? we never agree with any of it yet it as implemented. I think it's safe to say that people who made the changes never sold any gig on this platform, we are just statistics.

Edited March 25 by hightlink

[sagor_expart]

You are right brother

[ajommahmud]

I have completed 1200+ orders, but now my SS is 4 and all gigs are removed from the marketplace! My business and cariare are done for the new level system.

[hightlink]

Another day, another review that is not relevant, yet Fiverr will not care. I know we had the option to ask the buyer to review again if they wanted, of course this option it's now gone.