Update: Addressing new level system questions and feedback

[bamisesoile]

21 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

I mean, they are quite clear, they show you exactly what's wrong and also a link to a page where it shows how to improve. And obviously a lot of those people with scores like 4 or 5 had bad private reviews. Sure, people left them a great review publicly, but the actual private review was negative. And a lot of people wonder why this is happening. Some buyers randomly leave reviews, even private reviews. Even my success manager told me last year that despite having only great reviews publicly, I had some negative private reviews. And that's despite me asking people if I can help with anything else after delivery, etc.

So in my case, I was expecting to see random reviews and low scores, even in my case I do have to deal with a lower score. Since the ratings are all-time, older sellers have the most to lose here, but as I always say.. it's not our platform, Fiverr will make some changes like removing support-canceled orders from the success score, however the bulk of this change will remain. It's always been like this when a new system was implemented. That's why I am adapting to this and understanding how it works, because I know the chances of changing anything are minimal. 

People are saying it isnt clear, and your response is to insist it is clear because it is not our platform... interesting

[samakirfan]

I am not sure how this new system works or calculate the success score. Like, I have a gig with all the 5 stars reviews on it and only 1 review is 4.7 star (out of 27 reviews) and the client did write good feedback. But still the success score for that gig is only 4 (still not sure how?).

 

I also see the reason for negative impact on my other gigs is cancellation. However, I only got 2-3 orders cancelled and some orders are cancelled because the client placed the direct order for official document editing (which is against the Fiverr Terms of Services so I cancelled them following the Fiverr guidelines) and also requested customer support to remove the impact as it was not my fault and the Customer Support did remove the impact. However, those cancellations seem to be affecting my success score now.

 

It would be nice if this new system gets it errors fixed as it is real hard to focus on the work while stressing ourselves.

 

 

[katherinasim]

I'm feeling ridiculous to get down to the Level 1 after being on the Level 2 for 3,5 years. 

The requirements to be on the level 1: Rating: 4.4 (Me: 5.0), Response rate: 80% (me 100%), Orders: 5 (Me: 1283), Unique clients: 3 (Me: 897), Earnings: €391.45 (Me: Earnings: €76 985). How can someone with 5 orders and 4.4 rating on Fiverr be at the same level as me??

 Fiverr, are you sure it's a FAIR and TRANSPARENT Level system????? 🤪

[ndm_archviz]

11 hours ago, Kesha said:

We're closely reviewing the questions and concerns you’ve raised and wanted to address them directly. We value your feedback tremendously and are grateful for your engagement, as your insights play a crucial role in shaping the platform for the better. So, we’re providing another update to keep you informed about what we're currently working on and what to expect.

The one-month buffer period serves two purposes: allowing you to adjust to the new system and providing us with time to consider your comments and take action. We recognize the significant impact of this change and aim to collaborate as a community on the best paths forward. Your contributions have been invaluable in maximizing this time for us to make fixes before changes are implemented in the marketplace.

One key point raised is cancellations rectified by Customer Support affecting success scores. We recognize this oversight and are actively working to resolve it before the transition period concludes. We will keep you informed of any updates.

Regarding the Order Cancellations key area that may be displayed under your Gig success score, it's important to clarify that this is different from OCR (Order Completion Rate %). The Order Cancellation key area considers various metrics around order cancellations, including factors related to the order process before determining bad cancellations. It's a smarter, more complex indicator and not a simple percentage like OCR. 

Additionally, we understand the need for clarity regarding the overall success score and the Gig success scores. The overall success score takes into account your Gig scores. Gigs with higher order volumes have a greater impact on your score, while those with fewer orders contribute less. This ensures that your success score accurately reflects each Gig's performance relative to its order activity.

Each Gig is unique, and its score reflects various factors specific to that Gig. It's not a one-size-fits-all formula; rather, it considers multiple variables for each Gig, freelancer and the marketplace as a whole. For example, this means it is possible to have 2 Gigs with the same score, but with different key areas highlighted, each with different weights. The key areas highlighted provide insight into factors affecting each Gig's evaluation. You can learn more about these key areas and tips for improvement here.

It’s important to emphasize that the displaying of these scores and metrics does not signify a sudden change in how your marketplace performance is evaluated. Instead, it represents a move towards enhanced transparency, providing you with deeper insights into the underlying evaluation processes. Your visibility into these scores is intended to empower you with knowledge on how to improve.

We are committed to fostering an environment of open communication and collaboration, and your feedback remains instrumental in driving our continuous improvement efforts. We will continue listening here in the forum. If you have concerns or questions about your individual metrics, please reach out to our Customer Support team. They will prioritize assisting you as quickly as possible, ensuring that all crucial requests are addressed before the buffer period concludes. 

"It’s important to emphasize that the displaying of these scores and metrics does not signify a sudden change in how your marketplace performance is evaluated. Instead, it represents a move towards enhanced transparency, providing you with deeper insights into the underlying evaluation processes. Your visibility into these scores is intended to empower you with knowledge on how to improve." 

I'm sorry, but the new success score represents the exact opposite of "transparency". Until now every metric could be justified by numbers and real  and objective facts: you can quantify the earnings, the response time, the client rating, the order completion. But now, with this new metrics, incoherent and far away from being transparent, I lost my motivation and I don't even know how to talk with my client and to make a price according to my effort, whitout being aggected from this new bad metrics system. 

[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.

[charlsmcfarlane]

In my opinion, this new system is not providing nearly enough information for sellers, in order for them to improve. It seems that everyone has these reports of negative impacts that don’t correspond or correlate, at all, to the stats that they can see.

I understand that some of this information comes from private reviews and they need to stay private, but if any of these scores are coming from objective metrics, please show us what that metric is and where, specifically, we have fallen short on it.

The help page it sends us to is basically a ‘how to not be a terrible seller’ page. Unfortunately, the tips on this page are practically useless for a lot of us, as they give various tips that are absolutely obvious and completely in-line with the way that any decent seller is already working.

Rather than saying things like, ‘ensure you are communicating regularly with customers throughout the order’, the system should be highlighting specific situations where we objectively did not do that. For example, show specific orders where the system has identified an issue, so we can review the order and make an effort to understand where we could have done better. The system should be able to surface this information, seeing as it must be referencing it anyway, in order to establish the score. This is one example of how the system could provide actionable feedback, rather than generic guides that don’t really help.

Basic analogy – you’re building a Lego set and it has 100 steps. You get to the end and the model is wrong. It’s way more helpful if someone can tell you, “you made a mistake at step 34”, rather than just giving you the instructions again and you have to work it out on your own.

My success score has landed at a 9, which I’m relatively happy with, but even still, I can’t glean any useful information from the new metrics about how to bring my 8/10 gigs up to 9s and 10s, because the guidance is way to generic and, in some cases, completely at odds with the data we can actually see.

I think making improvements to the information sellers get and how they can turn that into actionable feedback will make these new updates much more useful.

Edited February 16 by charlsmcfarlane

[donnovan86]

47 minutes ago, bamisesoile said:

People are saying it isnt clear, and your response is to insist it is clear because it is not our platform... interesting

What I mean by it's clear is this: https://www.fiverr.com/cp/success-score-explained They explain it very well, and they do show the info for each gig. Obviously since this info is from private ratings, it won't show what order influenced that negative review. Which renders the information useless for sellers, because you know an order affected your gig or maybe more orders, but you don't know which ones and why. 

So yeah, it's clear how you can improve, they have guidelines in that link and I think Kesha sent another one. But the reality is that you don't really have any specific feedback when it comes to what was wrong. Not to mention some buyers leave reviews randomly. In my case, I understand what needs to be improved, so it's clear to me. I do understand some people don't have any clue what went wrong since they only had great public reviews, and for them the answer is... private reviews. A lot of buyers leave random or even bad private reviews. We never knew them (how bad they were), and now they come to light in a devastating way. 

[donnovan86]

15 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

In my opinion, this new system is not providing nearly enough information for sellers, in order for them to improve.

Yeah, we just have a score and a few tips on what was wrong.. I was sure that people will be upset once this goes live, since I saw it in early January and I was not ok with it either. That being said, they do offer more info than we had until now. At least we know how bad our private reviews are based on that score. Also, they do show what points are the best/worst for the gig. I think that's what Fiverr's staff means by more transparency. 

Don't expect them to show info from private reviews anytime soon, if it will ever happen. Those are private for a reason. It would be great to see more info, but I know it's not going to happen so.. 🙂 I'll work with the stuff they share, since it is something, at least.

[lakris16]

After receiving "Pro" status, I've been told by Fiverr support that I am allowed to take the communication and delivery off-platform as long as the billing goes through Fiverr. This is also strongly preferred by my clients. Since I work with large amounts of data, the delivery through Fiverr is not even possible. 

My success score is negatively impacted by "Effective communication". How are you even evaluating this when I barely communicate here?

If you force me to do all the communication here to get a good score, you also go against client preferences. Did you think this through?

[charlsmcfarlane]

Just now, donnovan86 said:

Don't expect them to show info from private reviews anytime soon, if it will ever happen

Yes, I wouldn’t expect to see anything regarding private reviews but there are more objective measures that could be surfaced – orders with ‘conflict’, for example. Some of these data are generated by objective metrics rather than only private reviews.

[donnovan86]

2 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

Some of these data are generated by objective metrics rather than only private reviews.

From what I read here, seems that conflict can be even an extension or multiple extensions, since that's also characterized as a dispute. My problem is that it's lifetime, and for someone with a lot of orders over the years, there are few chances to increase the current score, you're pretty much stuck there for a while. 

[carddesignrr]

12 hours ago, Kesha said:

One key point raised is cancellations rectified by Customer Support affecting success scores. We recognize this oversight and are actively working to resolve it before the transition period concludes. We will keep you informed of any updates.

Regarding the Order Cancellations key area that may be displayed under your Gig success score, it's important to clarify that this is different from OCR (Order Completion Rate %). The Order Cancellation key area considers various metrics around order cancellations, including factors related to the order process before determining bad cancellations. It's a smarter, more complex indicator and not a simple percentage like OCR. 

what is bad Order Cancellations?

[dusuacangmon]

If Fiverr moves to a new update like this, please find 100% buyers who are willing do a 100% 5-star rating  + Budget 1k 2k so they will rate the 5-star value of money easy for Pro gig starting from 200$ :))). That is what I want to hear.

[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. 

 

[sunshine15]

11 hours ago, bbakersvoice said:

Do you value your freelancers as much as your clients?  I mean you can't have one without the other...correct?  Why do you put so much "teeth" into clients' review while the freelancer has a  simple 5 star tool with comment section?   Believe it or not some clients are not professional, friendly or/and honest.   Some want the world for nothing and no matter how fast you deliver, the quality of the work, the communication, etc. they are never satisfied.   This really comes to light with the "value for the money" rating.   Right from the start this is flawed as it is so subjective in nature.   The fact that they hired me should imply that they felt my work/service is worth paying the price.   

Your rating system creates a "power struggle" between the hardworking freelancer who make Fiverr successful and the client.   The client has all of the power over the freelancer due to the rating system and their ability to just extend/cancel projects at will.   It's obvious this is creating undue stress on many professional freelancers who are now wondering if they will see a significant drop in revenue when their 5 star reviews drop to 3.  Same quality, same service, etc. but a new tool that seems to want to drive ratings down.

It will be interesting in 3 months from now (or sooner) when potential clients come to Fiverr and search for a professional (in my case Pro Voiceovers) and see a talent pool with low ratings (i.e. 1 to 3 stars).  Are they really going to have confidence in our services?   Will they be more likely to hire us?  Time will tell.

I make a great income here on Fiverr and Fiverr benefits from this as well.   However, I definitely concerned this will change everything.

 

 

Couldn't agree more as a Top Rated Seller myself. You made some great points. They have always cared more for clients and not sellers which has always been abundantly clear. Yet, us high quality sellers are what make Fiverr what it is. 

[nadiappp]

My overall success score is 0 - probably because I have too few sales on my gig, whose score is 8. I assume they could not take into account client satisfaction (private reviews) only because of low volume. So sellers with a low sales volume, even if they have a perfect gig score of 10, will be demoted to level 0.

[arianelaurent]

14 minutes ago, nadiappp said:

My overall success score is 0 - probably because I have too few sales on my gig, whose score is 8. I assume they could not take into account client satisfaction (private reviews) only because of low volume. So sellers with a low sales volume, even if they have a perfect gig score of 10, will be demoted to level 0.

Maybe check with Customer Service, it sounds like it could be the glitch someone else on the forum was talking about!

[gunawanguan]

6 hours ago, gunawanguan said:

@Kesha

Hello Kesha.
Sorry for asking it here.

I just check my level page and got this warning messages.

Your level progress is on hold

You’ve received a warning about activity that violates Fiverr’s policies. Your progress in the level system is on hold until the warning expires on Feb 21, 2024.

What does it means?
I mean, where can I know what activity that I did that violates Fiverr's policies?
Thank you.

@Kesha

Still waiting for this reply.
Thank you for your time Kesha.

I really appreciate that.

[arsalanco1]

8 hours ago, Kesha said:

 

 

 

 

i did contact the Fiverr support and they saying this to me i mean i don't have any other account or nothing they are just providing the general statement
Hi there,
 
I understand you believe you should not have received the Account Flagged level and would like us to reinstate your eligibility for the level system.
 
I manually reviewed your account again.
It appears that you have a location inconsistency or connection to another account that was disabled due to a violation of our policies, which is why the system flagged your account as ineligible for selling.
 
As much as I understand your frustration, you were not found eligible to be removed from the Account Flagged status.)

 

 

Hi everyone! Location inconsistencies can indicate the use of false or inaccurate location information on your account. If you believe your account was flagged incorrectly, it's best to reach out to Customer Support for assistance with your specific case. They can provide further clarification and help resolve any issues related to location discrepancies. 
 

 

[anniejenkinson]

13 hours ago, smork said:

This is absolutely not happening for a tremendous amount of people.  In fact, quite the opposite.

Where are those of us who are stuck not knowing how to proceed meant to go from here? 

In my case your system is threatening to remove my TRS rank that I have maintained since 2015 for stats that I cannot see or respond to / address.  I tagged you in a post on the very large thread you started yesterday

Here is a screenshot of a section from that post where today I your system warns me I'm going to lose my rank:

You can see how this is so detrimental to someone's well being right? 

The support team are using copy and paste answers and are not responding to direct questions - So that leaves people like me and many others in a limbo of dread because we can't get any clear guidance right now.

Totally agree with every word. This is a shambles.

I just sent this to my SM!
I have to correct the long email I sent to you after your reply.

 

I think you can see in it the effect of not sleeping since these metrics broke, because the email was in two parts I did not manage to bring together due to exhaustion.

The email reads better as:

Hi,

With respect, I feel your reply has missed the key points I am making which is that only two areas are flagged and both of these, I perceive, are Fiverr glitches. I know you do mention no-fault cancellations being something Fiverr is looking at but I am distressed that you're asserting I can 'make improvements' myself to either of those metrics. 

How? I do not cancel out of desire; clients make booking errors. And I communicate fast and in depth each time I see an incoming message, but Fiverr doesn't send notifications to tell me new messages have come to the Dashboard. 

ISSUE 1. Communications - I get no notifications when new messages come to the Orders Dashboard, and you know this. This has gone on for over a year and I made a specific effort to contact you and clarify it. I told you of the problem with this a few months back when I received that odd email from Fiverr saying I needed to improve communication and you said, there is nothing showing any issues about communication in my stats. I had 'nothing to worry about', you said, 'it must be a mistake'.

I asked several times on this and said, well, I sure hope it IS a mistake as I have a feeling this will come back and revisit me, and Fiverr won't have done anything.

I could seek out and send to you screenshots from months ago where I have been asking clients to please not just message the job dash because if they do, I won't know. Indeed, I have sent you six comms threads in which I and clients discussed our lack of system notifications for new messages. But it applies on every job; no job produces any dashboard notifications.

You asked for a report; I provided it. You flagged it to 'the relevant team' and nothing has improved. Many sellers have the same issue, see attached. I do not believe I have any other communications problems but the effect of this one major flaw should be self-evident, and now it's being passed on to me, like passing the buck, a metric I can do nothing about.

It seems clear that if I do not know there are messages, I cannot go opening every job in the dash once an hour, can I, just to see if there happens to be a message? If i did that, I'd have no work time. How can I 'improve' what is a Fiverr glitch?

I used to get notifications until about a year ago, and they simply stopped. There's also no visual dropdown anymore in the dashboard, saying that 'X has been waiting for a reply'. I have been telling clients for over a year that if they message only in the orders dash, I will not know until I happen to open the job file. They often respond that they also get none and are left guessing. Some get no notification even when I make a final job delivery.

2. Cancellations: I do not cancel on clients because I wish to. Cancellations are caused by client booking errors, and in each case, customer support took action after the cancellation to rectify the OCR. I have, as have all sellers, been told that these do not affect our stats at all. Now, they have done. How can I improve on cancellations when these are non-fault?

I am utterly perplexed, still, and suffering an inability to focus, sleep, and work because of the stress this 'transparent' system causes. The fact is I have no control over either of the above points; Fiverr needs to fix its own internal mess-ups and adhere to its promises, and not take the effects out on sellers who work as hard as I do; I even answer clients at 3am, daily, I am that dedicated. I work around the clock for them.

This is like airlines cancelling flights, and then telling me I need to do better to get to destinations on time.

There is also the fact that any changes effected do not have an immediate visual effect on the success score, ie, we cannot see if what we are doing has any effect at all since the metric won't change daily.

Given 30 days to alter something I believe comes about due to Fiverr's system and not me, even if I take on 100 new jobs and complete them in a month (impossible to do more jobs as they are high value tasks requiring weeks each) then I still cannot see if anything has changed until after it is too late. 

How, specifically, can I change this when it's 'stab in the dark', when I am operating against two major Fiverr issues, when there's a ridiculously short timeframe (stats don't change that fast on jobs of $3k each as I can only complete two between now and the review) and there are Fiverr discrepancies on both issues?

To put pressure on vendors to 'improve' within 30 days, then a daily, constantly changing metric should be given, changing fast according to alterations we make. We should make a change and then see an immediate effect, thus knowing if what we are doing is the correct thing. 

It is just impossible to do more on metrics outside my control, and the system has caused so much feeling of being blindsided that this shows how badly it's been introduced and researched. I never saw this mayhem and lack of transparency in 25+ years of being a corporate strategist for Bernstein Research Inc, and there, I was hire to look at corporate miscommunications and bad, clumsy roll-outs across the globe.

I've never seen any company go from 'Hey, you are doing great! Keep it up! All your metrics are 100%!' one day to, 'we will remove your TRS status in 30 days if you do not correct our own colossal mismanagement and miscalculations mess.'

I am now not taking new orders out of cold fear and misery, and have about 10k of orders for which I have not sent the Custom Offers. i don't see a point when the system is so unpredictable and unfairly weighted, and staffed by AI-driven cut-and-pasters. Humans, board member inputs and far better stats, put in place by statistical agencies and consultants, not AI data scrapings, are needed.

As for communications also, I send clients massive long messages helping them to do just about everything; if I added up my advice, it would come to reams per most clients. My messages are in great depth and address every single thing they ask. They send me a short question and I give them my full knowledge to ensure they have all the detail and help, and I am paid for none of that.

So, I may lose TRS based on two Fiverr glitches? Fiverr is relying on the unreliable systems it has put in place through misguidance.

Best,

Annie

[creativecolumn]

My two cents regarding these words:

Location inconsistency - Your IP may shared between multiple Fiverr users. I saw this problem especially freelancers in Asia. Most ISPs offer dynamic IP addresses unless you pay extra for a dedicated IP. I think now Fiverr tracks them. 

Conflict orders - When a buyer send a cancelation request and you reject, it may be marked as a conflict. When you send an extra, but buyer degrees, it may be a conflict. 

Official documentation does not have enough information. So we are just building hypothesis. 

[vickiespencer]

3 hours ago, bamisesoile said:

People leave private reviews? I didnt know about that

Private reviews have been a thing for a while now. Hanging around the Forum helps keep sellers updated about them. 

[priyank_mod]

9 hours ago, vickiespencer said:

Private reviews have been a thing for a while now. Hanging around the Forum helps keep sellers updated about them. 

A lot of noise around in the last couple of days is primarily about two things:

1) Seller having 100s of public 5 star reviews and being outraged about their gig scores;

2) Sellers knew about the new system and were expecting to become TRS by default this week!! 🫠

 

A general lack of knowledge among people about their own business/platform which takes care of their livelihoods feels so odd. Not like Fiverr is doing everything perfectly - there are a million things which can & should be improved. But being informed is for your own good!! 

PS Its like govt introducing new tax laws but people only knowing and sticking to what they learnt and was prevalent in the 90s. 🤦‍♂️🫠

Edited February 16 by priyank_mod

[alanletsgo]

4 hours ago, gunawanguan said:

Maybe it's a typo, cause it's like an odd jump from 10 - 10 - 30.
Maybe it should be 10 - 20 - 30?

I hope it's a typo!

[terrygrantvo]

At the very least, I think we can all agree that Fiverr themselves get a -5 for 'Effective communication'. (as in negative five)

 

Good god, this is a catastrophe the likes of which I have rarely ever seen. It would actually be sort of funny if it weren't so vitally important that they not mess this part up.