Update: Addressing new level system questions and feedback

[ahunyady]

2 hours ago, anniejenkinson said:

I agree.

I am also a major shareholder and selling my stock. Moreover, a friend owns a huge value in Fiverr stock and she is selling suddenly, definitely not to free up funds as she has several million to invest from the sale of a large UK law firm. I don't know what has prompted her decision as we haven't discussed this change but I wonder if this discontent has been in any magazines/news. I can't imagine why she would do it otherwise but I haven't asked; I have my own concerns to think about!

The changes seem designed to reduce the seller base. This can only mean they are reacting to fewer buyers or they are projecting fewer buyers in the coming year. I would not be surprised if they are preparing for international sanctions as well once more news starts to come out. Re: all the locked accounts—they retain these funds, though this seems like it would be a very short-sighted cash grab. But maybe they know something we don’t know.

Edited February 20 by ahunyady

[rarapuff]

On 2/15/2024 at 8:10 AM, usamarehman99 said:

and I see that now it has a strongly negative impact on client satisfaction and effective communication I have always communicated with clients on each step to ensure everything is all right even after the order is completed. I was level 2 and was waiting to get top rated and suddenly today when the new system rolled my performance score was 4.

Can't agree any more! I was level 2 but now level 1. Can't say anything about my "client satisfaction" because there're always some clients who look satisfied to you but (maybe) leave negative private reviews. However, really feel the "effective communication" doesn't make any sense. Same here, "always communicated with clients to ensure everything is all right, even after the order is completed", it's still affecting me negatively. Even funnier, after reading Fiverr's guide "how to improve effective communication", I feel more confused. Isn't this what I've been doing?

Seems lots of randomness out there. Just like weeks ago, it happened twice in a row that some spammers messaged me and I blocked them. My response rate still dropped although the system told me "it won't affect your response rate...."

[lautaromaidana]

Hi. I agree with lot of comments here. Why is fiverr insisting on this? Would there be any relation between all this and the seller plus benefits? 🤔 I did not try it yet.

(Fun fact: After contacting support they deleted various nonsensical negative metrics from my profile. However, the success score remained unchanged at 6/10 even after that. I'm dropping level because I don't have 7/10 in one of the six metrics, the rest are all well aproved). I have three gigs. I find it perplexing that despite having one gig rated at 7/10 and another at 10/10, my overall success score remains at 6/10. It begs the question: are you evaluating my new gig, which you've tagged as 'You’ll see details here when this Gig has more activity in the marketplace,' and you show a " - " in the evaluation, with a score of 1/10? And then dividing by 3? 🤣

How is that possible if my most important gig is 7/10 (unfairly low, I would say) and my second most important gig is 10/10?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

How I'm dropping my level because of Negative impact in Client Satisfaction while mantaing 5⭐ avg., old clients returning ☺️, having tips 💸 and more:

1. At first, it gave metrics that were too absurd, such as a gray "Room for growth" in order cancellations, keeping in mind that my only cancellation since I joined Fiverr (2019) was in August 2023. The rest of the few cancellations were years ago, and because Fiverr wasn't providing solutions for customers who purchased a direct package without contacting me first, although I clarified that in all packages.

2. In my most famous gig, I was receiving a "Negative Impact" in client satisfaction. That is one of the craziest things; the only explanation I can find is that the algorithm is taking into account that in the last 2 months I have received a 4.3 (in other gig) and a 4.7 instead of the usual 5 stars. This is due to a client who never leaves 5 stars for anyone (the one client who is never satisfied) and another client who left 4 stars in communication, even though in the same comment review she highlighted my great communication.

3. I was receiving "Conflict-free orders" and "Effective communication" marked as "Negative Impact" in a new gig that I reopened from a very old one. The only explanation I can find is that 1. A client who was super happy with the updates of the work until it was 95% finished decided not to connect to Fiverr anymore for reasons not related to my performance, and for some reason, Fiverr is punishing me for it. 2. The client I named in "2." left 4 stars in communication.

🙋‍♂️I was trying to contact support because of this, but after receiving a few evasive answers that were sending me to reread all the advice on communication in the forums that I had already read and was actually following, I emphasized that they should specify where I'm failing. Otherwise, there is no connection between the displayed metrics and reality.

Quote

How can I improve my negative "Effective communication" if all clients highlight my communication, if you put in my profile that I'm known for my great communication, if I maintain a 5-star average in communication, if I answer literally in just minutes and have a response time of 1 hour, If you literally check any conversation and you realize that I always ask to avoid misunderstoods and, even in the delivery message, I make sure to highlight that they can contact me if they need anything else? It would be helpful if you tell me how to solve the "problems" or literally delete them because they are not real (...) If there is something to adjust on my part, just let me know and I will gladly do my best to improve, but the actual performance metrics are not showing real things

I received the response, "I have forwarded your inquiry to the relevant team for further review."

A few days later, I received an email and an update:

"Thank you for your patience while our relevant team thoroughly reviewed your Gigs' success score. It was confirmed that there is no discrepancy and the scores you are seeing are correct and reflect your performance."

Then:

1. They updated the "reopened gig" to display 'You’ll see details here when this Gig has more activity in the marketplace.'

2. The order cancellation metric in my most famous gig was removed because, of course, it made no sense.

3. However, they left the Client Satisfaction marked as 'Negative Impact.' Despite receiving tips and having old clients returning with a 5-star average, this lone 'Negative Impact' is keeping my 'Success Score' at 6/10 instead of 7/10. As I said before, that must be because a 4.7 and 4.3 (in other gig) stars reviews in the last two months. As a result, I'm losing my level despite meeting all the other requirements.

Now, As you see in the attached image, I have only ONE negative advice in Succes score. One gig with 7/10 and one gig with 10/10, how can be result in 6/10 in succes score? Are you counting my new gig as a 1/10?  🤣 

The success score remained unchanged even after they removed the nonsensical negative advices.

Does anyone else think this doesn't make sense? Or am I just wrong?

[visualstudios]

We're also buyers on Fiverr so posting this here for those who are not familiar with the private feedback form. 

Same punitive language with 5 stars being "perfect" and "exceeded expectations". 

Edited February 20 by visualstudios

[carminesannino]

4 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

We're also buyers on Fiverr so posting this here for those who are not familiar with the private feedback form. 

Same punitive language with 5 being "perfect" and "exceeded expectations". 

It looks like a questionnaire about Fiverr as a platform, not about the seller. Mamma mia!

[venonusa]

2 hours ago, angelmarywriter said:

Dear Fiverr,

I hope this message finds you well. I recently received a notification regarding my account, stating that it has been flagged for a severe violation of Fiverr policies. However, I am unclear about the specific reason for this flagging. Could you please provide further details regarding the violation, such as its nature or location-based aspects?

I have been residing in Lodhran, Pakistan since 1998, and I haven't traveled elsewhere, not even for vacations. Regarding the level system, when can I expect to participate in it? Is it possible for me to promote my gigs without being part of the level system?

Furthermore, I would like to inquire about my current account status, particularly regarding my level 2 status. Could you please provide more detailed information on this matter?

If necessary, I am more than willing to provide additional verification, such as my IP address or any other documents you may require. I want to assure you that I use Fiverr ethically and responsibly.

As both a student and a working professional, I have been offering my services on Fiverr since 2021. I am also prepared to provide my government-issued ID for verification purposes.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to your prompt response and resolution.

Sincerely, [marry]

 

 

 

they will not answer here, you have to open a ticket

[katherinasim]

17 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

We're also buyers on Fiverr so posting this here for those who are not familiar with the private feedback form. 

Same punitive language with 5 stars being "perfect" and "exceeded expectations". 

Does this questionnaire go AFTER you leave a public review? I mean, can the clients give a private feedback without a public one? 

[visualstudios]

5 minutes ago, katherinasim said:

Does this questionnaire go AFTER you leave a public review? I mean, can the clients give a private feedback without a public one? 

You get the e-mail and notification a day after an order is marked as complete, it doesn't matter if you leave public feedback or not. This is in the e-mail you receive:

Edited February 20 by visualstudios

[katherinasim]

The more I look at my dashboard, the more confused I get. My previously best-selling gig which helped me to become a full-time freelancer (now I’m switching to another direction because I got tired of it) has a score of 10/10. It looks very positive. But it has 431 completed orders and 59 (!) canceled - almost all cancellations were not my fault, but still. How is it possible it is positive in order cancellations? 🙈

 

[priyatomokumar]

Hello Kesha

I have worked with many clients since 2017.  a few orders have been cancelled. Some of which were duplicate orders. Placed 2 orders for the same job. The client informs me and cancels an order which affects my order completion ratio. Even 2 days ago I got a duplicate order from a client and the client cancelled one order.
Currently, there is still one order in incomplete status. I did not get any response even after informing the client. I do not dare to cancel as it may affect the order completion ratio. It's been more than 1 year and it's still hanging.

I have some questions which I have expressed below

Is there any update in the new Fiverr update about order incomplete, order cancellations, or spam clients?

What if the client makes an order by mistake and cancels it after some time?

How is the current calculation of negative impact?
How many orders are complete and how many clients work, negative impact will be removed from the profile?

I am attaching a few screenshots of My performance metrics and Score by Gig

[kingpirux]

Maybe i found the problem, they are using AI to calculate this random scores and they call it "Data Science Model", they read all the messages and let the AI interpret if you said something in a bad way or not :

 

maybe this also explains why they can't show, point or explain the scores in customer care

Edited February 21 by kingpirux
missing the important part that the ai is reading texts

[kingpirux]

6 minutes ago, kingpirux said:

Maybe i found the problem, they are using AI to calculate this random scores and they call it "Data Science Model", they read all the messages and let the AI interpret if you said something in a bad way or not :

 

maybe this also explains why they can't show, point or explain the scores in customer care

the more i think about it the more sense this has. They implemented an ai bot that can only readn in English and probably the only thing it can do is interpret as a British Collage level of writing and talking, also the AI may have absoloutly no idea about the gig, so if someone is asking me to create a board game about money laundry the AI will think that im a criminal... is the only thing i can think about my score after reviewing all the scores again.

[strategist_ceo]

This is for a gig that I have never requested for an extension before.

[ahunyady]

3 hours ago, visualstudios said:

We're also buyers on Fiverr so posting this here for those who are not familiar with the private feedback form. 

Same punitive language with 5 stars being "perfect" and "exceeded expectations". 

This is so deceptive that it feels like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Your feedback “helps us improve the experience on Fiverr”? Uh, no. This penalizes repeat sellers so buyers have to find new sellers. I’m assuming (the transparency is so blinding I can’t tell) that a 4-star private review negatively impacts our gigs. My clients who I’ve worked with 20, 30 times... none of them are going to say “exceeded expectations” because they’re highly advanced humans and can remember things. They know exactly what they’re getting and that’s why they use me.

Edited February 21 by ahunyady

[ahunyady]

Maybe TRS are supposed to use those 30 gigs to vet buyers. Unsure of a buyer? Create a brand new gig just for them. Were they one of those satisfied buyers who gives 4 stars publicly, and privately says the delivery was “as expected” (i.e., negative), or maybe they utilized one of your free revisions, or *gasp* asked to extend the delivery time? No problem! Gigs with only a few orders don’t count against your success score, and when you’ve used the gig a few times and it starts dragging down your success score, just delete it. No muss, no fuss.

[filipdevaere]

I had 4 gigs showing “---“.

Today I have 12 gigs showing “---“.

My overall score remains unchanged.

[filipdevaere]

More reading stuff.............. $1.4M Seller Levi Newman to Quit Fiverr Over Product Release | Defiant Phoenix

[strategist_ceo]

4 hours ago, katherinasim said:

How is it possible it is positive in order cancellations? 🙈

 

Confused too... I got a gig that doesn't have a single cancellation (qualifying ones that is) but it's "negative impact".

Edited February 21 by strategist_ceo

[tom_godbert]

I just got a notification about the webinar, did anyone here go to that? The second one is at 3am my time (Australia) and I wasn't notified about the one yesterday, but are they useful at all? Is there any chance to ask questions/give feedback on this new update?

[mandyzines]

9 hours ago, emmaki said:

I've been keeping an eye on Google News and there's not much

Maybe what's out there's tagged by Google and friends as misinformation, disinformation, or malinformation. 

Maybe Google and Fiverr share common definitions of transparency.

[imtiazgfx]

5 minutes ago, tom_godbert said:

I just got a notification about the webinar, did anyone here go to that? The second one is at 3am my time (Australia) and I wasn't notified about the one yesterday, but are they useful at all? Is there any chance to ask questions/give feedback on this new update?

Yes you can ask questions in Q&A section but they will decide, whether to answer it or not!

[signep_studio]

On 2/15/2024 at 4:10 PM, usamarehman99 said:

Unjust and unfair

I thought they were unfair to me until I saw your stats, I totally feel for you 😞.

[emmaki]

4 hours ago, kingpirux said:

They implemented an ai bot that can only readn in English and probably the only thing it can do is interpret as a British Collage level of writing and talking, also the AI may have absoloutly no idea about the gig, so if someone is asking me to create a board game about money laundry the AI will think that im a criminal... is the only thing i can think about my score after reviewing all the scores again.

<soapbox>

The AI is definitely reading inbox messages. From what I can see in my inbox, it looks like certain keywords trigger it to temporarily hide a message as it analyzes it. Seems to be the usual words like money, payment, email. I have always "passed" those tests, but....

...It's still not very smart, nor has Fiverr really thought its keyword list through (apparently). If you look at the Telespammers and their more advanced pretend Fiverr cousins, they tend to use spelling variations of Fiverr and other spammy keywords. This shouldn't be a problem, since regex can easily be deployed to hunt these down. I suspect it is in a limited capacity since the Telespam messages come in fancy fonts which may be unreadable to AI. But this should also be detectable to the AI, since it's not possible to send an empty message, and any message that was sent that appeared empty (and didn't have a file with it) could be flagged for human investigation. 

I suspect that the keyword list has deliberately been left incomplete due to the inability of large swathes of the community's inability to spell "Fiverr", either because they transliterated from their native alphabet without correction or are simply unable to mekspell to meksell. 

As it is, they happen to be the prime target market for the Telespam and fake Fiverr site scams too, so ... I will conclude my analysis there, as some analyses are sinful in the modern world. The real problem, of course, is a lack of education and opportunities elsewhere, but that is a problem that is beyond Fiverr's control - and the obvious solution is unpalatable for a variety of reasons. 

1 hour ago, mandyzines said:

Maybe what's out there's tagged by Google and friends as misinformation, disinformation, or malinformation. 

Maybe Google and Fiverr share common definitions of transparency.

Generally Fiverr only crops up in financial newspapers while the vast majority of "Fiverr blogs" are little more than affiliate spam. Since Google News has requirements of "must update multiple times a day" and be a "news site" (presumably a news sitemap), you'd really need actually be a news org OR run a more sophisticated generative AI "news" blog that relied on programmatic SEO and web scraping along with some automation to LLM/tools. None of this is particularly difficult with a little research and coding - quite a few of the Fiverr  (GNews) results are clearly barely-edited scrapefests using AI to spin the text (and probably using regex to evade plagiarism charges!). 

Most people who "blog" about Fiverr are, again, affiliate sites that bizarrely target sellers when the payout is for buyers. The other segment is people with blogs for other stuff who have had a bad experience ranting about their bad experience. 

On the whole, Google isn't censoring any bad news about Fiverr (there just isn't any - in fact, sentiment seems to be positive that Fiverr is "undervalued" as a stock). It reserves that for more political subjects. We should see some really good examples of big tech closing ranks in the coming months as US election season kicks off. I, for one, cannot wait for the return of the Google "fact checkers". And, by the way, it's very easy to get Google's little fact checker badge with JSON schema (Google provides useful guidance on this). It's all nonsense - and they know it. In the end, all we can trust is our own judgement - and in this era, far too many people are having their judgement cast them aside as crazed radical right-wingers, which only goes to destroy their trust in the establishment further. The Overton window is all over the place.

But back to Fiverr: top management at Fiverr - if not their employees - are well aware of what this update is actually meant to achieve, but also understand that the truth will not be palatable to many. So, rather than be honest, we're stuck with nice words, ineffectual systems, and contradictory staff response. It doesn't matter to Fiverr; it is a billion dollar corporation in a barely regulated industry (we are not employees) with a steady supply of fresh meat to replace anyone who leaves. You can hear this contempt for the people who essentially built Fiverr in the CEO in navel-gazing speeches at tech events. 

Levi will be meeting with staff today. Let's hope it goes.... OK. Fiverr is probably more interested in Thursday, though. Q4 results come out on Thursday. If sellers want to make a big impact that gets noticed by the media, that's really the chance to do it. Or maybe not, since all the stock news that I read seems to be largely AI generated or respun with new numbers added in. Computers don't care about interesting side stories like this, humans do. 

</soapbox>

[topseykrats]

Just 2 clients who will pay 5K a month each. That's all I ask, Fiverr! Then you can meter everything you want, I won't give a... Thanks!

[graphicsplayer]

On 2/15/2024 at 8:14 PM, dianeofmusgrave said:

I have cancellations affecting my gigs that had no effect previously because I went through customer service or the customer bought erroneously and canceled two minutes later.

same concern here. This new so-called transparent system is showing that cancellations are strongly negatively impacting the score on one of my gigs while there are only 4 cancellations out of 100 orders in the past 3 months. 
Furthermore, of the 4 cancellations, three resulted from the buyer's carelessness (requesting a service that wasn't part of my gig or making a mistaken order). I even contacted customer service during this time to remove the impact of these three cancellations and CS made sure the impact was erased.