Official feedback thread re: the new leveling system

[visualstudios]

4 minutes ago, Alex.M said:

How? Did support help or do they have an option to edit reviews again ?! 

One of the buyers sent us a message saying they went to CS to get it fixed. The other rating just changed on my end so I have no idea. Our Success Manager told us there was an increase of buyers contacting CS to get their ratings fixed with the new review system, so it's probably CS. 

[visualstudios]

1 hour ago, eclixo said:

In 2013, there was a buyer request feature where you could send 10 requests daily to buyers.

No, you couldn't, and that's probably why they removed it. Buyers made the requests, sellers applied to them. That a ton of sellers were using the system to request work was the problem.

Edited February 25 by visualstudios

[ahunyady]

In terms of vetting clients, the Seller Plus program allows you to see “buyer activity insights”, which includes the average star rating given by anyone who contacts you in chat, along with a few other of their buying stats (the average order amount is a complete fiction though so ignore that one). This in combination with turning on request to order, will be very helpful in filtering out low-raters. If I see a buyer gives 5-star reviews, I’ll work with them. If they give lower than 5-star reviews (especially with positively worded reviews), I’ll simply refuse to work with them. They can go destroy someone else’s gig. This info alone is not enough to make a final determination (e.g., for buyers with no history), but it’s crucial info for the vetting process. 

I don’t want to tell anyone to give Fiverr even more money but if you’re already planning to get Seller Plus, this is one big benefit.

[Alex.M]

12 minutes ago, ahunyady said:

In terms of vetting clients, the Seller Plus program allows you to see “buyer activity insights”, which includes the average star rating given by anyone who contacts you in chat, along with a few other of their buying stats

I think that the buyers have the option to hide those stats though.

[priyank_mod]

10 minutes ago, Alex.M said:

I think that the buyers have the option to hide those stats though.

Yesss..

And I'm glad so far very few have figured or bothered to hide them!! 👀

[mandyzines]

52 minutes ago, ahunyady said:

If I see a buyer gives 5-star reviews, I’ll work with them.

Do you know if that stat takes private reviews into account?

 

39 minutes ago, Alex.M said:

I think that the buyers have the option to hide those stats though.

How can you tell if they've opted to hide them?

Edited February 25 by mandyzines

[catwriter]

15 minutes ago, mandyzines said:

Do you know if that stat takes private reviews into account?

As far as I know, it's public reviews they give.

16 minutes ago, mandyzines said:

How can you tell if they've opted to hide them?

Probably because those stats are not showing.

[mandyzines]

4 minutes ago, catwriter said:

Probably because those stats are not showing.

I've come across some older accounts that don't have stats or reviews displayed on their profiles. How would we be able to distinguish someone whose never ordered anything from someone who has but opted to hide the stats?

4 minutes ago, catwriter said:

As far as I know, it's public reviews they give.

If that's the case then the stats aren't as helpful as I thought.

 

Edited February 25 by mandyzines

[priyank_mod]

29 minutes ago, mandyzines said:

Do you know if that stat takes private reviews into account?

 

No, it doesn't. Private reviews are meant to be private for our evaluation on most counts. 

29 minutes ago, mandyzines said:

How can you tell if they've opted to hide them?

Generally, it shows 7 metrics on a buyer's profile. And if they chose to hide any of them, it shows a bar/dash for that metric. 

Another thing I pay attention to is how many orders they rated, out of their total orders completed count. Let's say if someone has rated only half or two-thirds of their orders, I somehow proceed with caution.👀

Its not a precise red flag but a general observation is that pleasant to work with kinda buyers rate 80-100% of their orders, which is an encouraging stat from seller's POV!! 

 

[Alex.M]

43 minutes ago, mandyzines said:

How can you tell if they've opted to hide them?

well you don't see any stats , no info about anything 

[mandyzines]

15 minutes ago, priyank_mod said:

No, it doesn't. Private reviews are meant to be private for our evaluation on most counts. 

Transparency. :)

Fostering innovation to ensure collaborative, holistic sustainability that integrates inclusivity. Mwap, mwap, mwap--beep-boo-bop.

15 minutes ago, priyank_mod said:

Another thing I pay attention to is how many orders they rated, out of their total orders completed count. Let's say if someone has rated only half or two-thirds of their orders, I somehow proceed with caution.👀

I can only imagine it being even more of the case now that we know comparison to other sellers is a part of our social credit score. 

Edited February 25 by mandyzines

[larrydrums]

10 hours ago, ralphwie said:

I too echo the various comments here that the new review system is a mess. I understand that Fiverr wants to improve the platform with fresh new ideas but strangely it typically hits serious sellers hard and to the extent that sellers are getting punished.  

To start with we have cancellations that are impacting the ratings. This issue we had for a long time and it has never actually been resolved adequately. Examples are orders placed in error, orders placed without reading the requirements, orders placed without reading the gig at all, and of course out of scope and no response. Those all have negative impacts and even if you spend an hour supporting that buyer and the cancelation still goes ahead, your rating goes down. Yet the actual reason being not your fault is totally ignored. So how can that be fair?

The second is the changeover from the rating system. The questionnaire is far too difficult and the star chart doesn't relate to said questions. Which in turn causes a lot of 4/4.x reviews whereas in the old system, those would have been 5. carineb in her posts on Thursday and Friday has actually hit the nail on the head with her explanation. Yet while Fiver is (from experience likely not) experimenting with formulating the questions, serious long-time sellers and the few who actually care about their public ratings are getting bombarded with 4.x reviews where the customer wants to leave a 5 * but is too confused with the questionnaire. Again this has an obvious negative impact on the sellers. To that end, one may look at eBay, Yelp, Etsy, google, amazon, or even Upwork and PPL to admire a functional and well-thought-out rating system only to appreciate their simplicity and user-friendliness. Yet, one who prefers to remain in a fictional realm may continues to explore, reinvent, and disregard a certain uniformity that has evolved between other platforms. But, must then not wonder why he/she has alienated serious sellers and created a realm of misguided buyers.  

I`m all for quality and being serious and to turn Fiverr's reputation among the other platforms, around but with the recent changes, I don't feel that Fiverr is aiming this way.  So my question is why are we punishing and deliberately disadvantaging serious sellers with something that is hastily rolled out, not thoroughly thought through, or implemented properly? 

Spot on. I just got my first 4.7 review. thanks to this disaster of an update. The buyer had previously left four five star reviews. Other sellers in my category are also now (for the first time) getting 4.3 and 4.7 type reviews. Additionally my seller rating dropped overnight thanks to that 4.7 review. 

 

Overall this does not surprise me one bit, considering that fact that most of these updates are shoot from the hip and cross your fingers type methods. 

[harperjohn]

What I find particularly frustrating is a lot of my revision requests are due to buyers not really knowing what they want until they get the first delivery. I do all I can to ask for specific details, but sometimes revisions are just part of the process. I mean they exist so we can make buyers happy. So I struggle to understand why they are viewed as a bad thing. It just isn't fair that Buyers seemingly have all the leverage. I mean aren't we supposed to be the professionals? Not the other way around? 

I understand the whole "revisions are only part of the determination and will not solely influence your score" but come on that is still having an impact on the overall score. 

I spent 18 months working as hard as I could to get to Top Seller. But ever since private reviews became a thing, my monthly income from this platform has continued to dwindle. Now I'm a Level 1 Seller and have seen my score go from 6 to 5 in just a week. I have no idea how. I'm still getting good feedback on orders. 

Not to mention people who are making more money on the platform can actually afford to cough up some extra money to promote their gigs over mine. So with all that I just feel hopeless. 

Another sad sign that this platform is far from a meritocracy. I was even starting to consider quitting my day job and going full time free lance, bc last Fall the money was flowing in and I saw no reasons to not believe my gig would continue to grow. Thanks goodness I didn't. 

Now I have to hope some algorithm I don't understand will help me out in ways I don't know how to achieve. Truly bummed out by all of this. I thought I had finally found a way to making a living doing what I love. Now I feel that slowly slipping away.  

[maitasun]

18 minutes ago, harperjohn said:

What I find particularly frustrating is a lot of my revision requests are due to buyers not really knowing what they want until they get the first delivery. I do all I can to ask for specific details, but sometimes revisions are just part of the process.

You haven't yet been introduced to the best that feature has for you: buyers pressing the lovely revision button just to ask a question instead of using the order chat. 😊

You'll fall in love the day it happens and will praise Fiverr with all your soul, especially now that revisions count against us! 🥰

[harperjohn]

Fiverr should determine gig value by simple metrics. 

- reply time

- public rating

- conversion rate 

- delivery time 

- gig profile 

It's unfortunate that this model was not deemed sufficient by Fiverr. The negative side to a company going public is investors suddenly become the main focus. So the people at Fiverr have to establish continued growth in order to establish their value. And that means if the growth metrics aren't being hit, then the people at Fiverr have to establish to investors that they are making substantial changes to account for this. I think this is the root of the sudden level system change. It sounds fancy to investors and makes them feel like Fiverr is working hard to meet their goals. Too bad it is having the exact opposite effect. 

If it ain't broke don't fix it

[larrydrums]

8 minutes ago, harperjohn said:

Fiverr should determine gig value by simple metrics. 

- reply time

- public rating

- conversion rate 

- delivery time 

- gig profile 

It's unfortunate that this model was not deemed sufficient by Fiverr. The negative side to a company going public is investors suddenly become the main focus. So the people at Fiverr have to establish continued growth in order to establish their value. And that means if the growth metrics aren't being hit, then the people at Fiverr have to establish to investors that they are making substantial changes to account for this. I think this is the root of the sudden level system change. It sounds fancy to investors and makes them feel like Fiverr is working hard to meet their goals. Too bad it is having the exact opposite effect. 

If it ain't broke don't fix it

I'd agree here. A solution for a non problem. 

[mati_serafini]

I just can't see how this new level system is to "help the sellers".

All my public reviews were 5 stars, many returning clients. Always ask if they need anything else even when an order is completed, just to make sure they are happy. Never got a complaint. Mostly no revisions at all were asked, occasionally just 1 revision.

Success Score is 6, dropped from level 2 to 1.

Turns out private reviews exists, and they were bad. I didn't know that, ok. Let's continue working.

New order comes in, deliver within a few hours, buyer leaves a public 5 star review and thanks me on my DMs. I say thank you and that I'm here if she needs anything else, happy to help.

Success Score drops to 5!

I don't know. I just don't know what more I can do to improve nor what I'm doing wrong.

Edited February 25 by mati_serafini
typo

[larrydrums]

What's that acronym again ? Ah yes, SMH. 

Edited February 25 by larrydrums

[danno1950]

30 minutes ago, mati_serafini said:

I don't know. I just don't know what more I can do to improve nor what I'm doing wrong.

I would suggest that you not accept the premise that the uneven results of this new Fiverr level system are somehow your fault.

[arianelaurent]

2 hours ago, larrydrums said:

What's that acronym again ? Ah yes, SMH. 

This happened twice this evening and both buyers left tips.... 

[larrydrums]

12 minutes ago, arianelaurent said:

This happened twice this evening and both buyers left tips.... 

Does not surprise me. The buyer (in my screen capture) agreed to the custom order and then said "That's fine, thanks again !!!" He's ordered several times. 

[arianelaurent]

10 minutes ago, larrydrums said:

Does not surprise me. The buyer (in my screen capture) agreed to the custom order and then said "That's fine, thanks again !!!" He's ordered several times. 

I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually a bug...

[danno1950]

7 minutes ago, arianelaurent said:

I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually a bug...

This is a theme that has been discussed before with Fiverr. They deploy new initiatives without sufficient testing up front, which leads to unintended consequences in the form of bugs and functions that don't work properly.

[kingpirux]

25 minutes ago, arianelaurent said:

I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually a bug...

it is a bug. the surprise is that there still people that thinks that fiverr gives a sht about you. they want your money, or other guy money, they don't care about your face or success, if you go out of fiverr, some one else will come, they are 100% sure about how to take money from people, they don't care about the humans behind, that's why now customer support is an AI and why the score system is an AI and why the little amount of real humans here in the forum DOESN'T KNOW HOW IT WORKS, DOESN'T KNOW HOW THE SCORE IS CALCULATED AND THEY HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO MAKE IT BETTER.

[kingpirux]

okey sorry i wake up and my score went down. you know why?  of course not, because i didn't have absolutely nothing in the last two weeks, it went down because AI don't want me to exist.