Official feedback thread re: the new leveling system

[cucinavivace]

4 minutes ago, zerlina84 said:

I'm sorry 😞

I'm a voiceover artist and I'm currently sick and hoarse; I should pause my gig, right? NOPE, NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN. I made my delivery dates longer (or begged my poor clients for extensions) and removed the same day delivery thing.

Now the orders are pilling up and I'm super stressed about it wondering if I will be 100% better by the time the deadlines end. Thanks Fiverr for looking up for us.

Yuck. You could try vacation mode instead of pausing them. Maybe that sends a different signal for their algorithm, though at this point probably not.

There were a couple posts earlier about the stress of Fiverr where I replied. Now you can't take any time off at all without losing your level? Ridiculous.

[zerlina84]

3 minutes ago, cucinavivace said:

You could try vacation mode instead of pausing them. Maybe that sends a different signal for their algorithm, though at this point probably not.

Yeah, I'm not going to risk it 😞 I'm already an 8 because of Effective Communication and I have no idea what to do about it... But thanks for your suggestion.

6 minutes ago, cucinavivace said:

Now you can't take any time off at all without losing your level? Ridiculous.

It really is...

[texvox]

3 hours ago, cucinavivace said:

Yuck. You could try vacation mode instead of pausing them. Maybe that sends a different signal for their algorithm, though at this point probably not.

There were a couple posts earlier about the stress of Fiverr where I replied. Now you can't take any time off at all without losing your level? Ridiculous.

Unfortunately the Vacation Mode feature is pure garbage if you're going to use it for more than a few days at a time. When I've used it in the past for 2 or 3 days it has had very little effect on my gig. You come back, turn it off and it's back to business. But if you use it for longer than that you're very much putting your gig/account's life on the line with the algorithm.

I took 10 days off back in November to go to eastern Ukraine and help rebuild some villages, bring some humanitarian aid and so forth. When I expressed my concerns about the Vacation Mode feature to my seller plus manager she assured me that it was the way to go. "It's there for your benefit! You shouldn't fear using it."

When I returned to the US my business outside of Fiverr bounced back immediately. On Fiverr...very different story. I went from averaging about $14k net per month for the prior 2 years on the platform and an average of about 2k daily impressions to just $2k earnings in November with under 1k daily impressions, $5.5k in December with under 1k impressions and about $6k in January with 1.1k in daily impressions. Only now in March - 4 months later - am I almost "back on track." Thank God my business is diversified enough to not have to rely solely on Fiverr.

The explanation is "Well, other people are doing business on the platform while you're out," but the reality is a little more robust than that. It's not just that you're out of the office, but because Vacation Mode takes you completely out of the system while you use it you're going to risk crashing and burning. I don't know why they don't just allow you to stay in the system while using Vacation Mode and give you a pass on the 24-hr response time instead. This would more accurately reflect the reality of running a business.

If you rely heavily on Fiverr for your business I'd advise against using it unless you absolutely have no other choice.

Edited March 6 by texvox

[cucinavivace]

4 minutes ago, texvox said:

The explanation is "Well, other people are doing business on the platform while you're out," but the way in which the feature impacts your gig would suggest it's not so simple. 

I have always assumed all Vacation Mode really does is pause your gigs and display a message. Now we see just how badly paused gigs will affect us in the algorithms, not just for marketplace availability, but also your score. So, as I said in a previous post, you can pretty much forget about being successful on Fiverr if you don't want to make it your full time life. I feel that's exactly what they're aiming for.

[nadiappp]

Raising the price to an absurd level might be a solution. But, of course, in this case, messages still need to be answered each day (unless automatic template replies count towards the response rate).

[dejanpetrovik]

 

I wrote here before, but wanted to update - (Level 2 seller with over 550 orders and so mostly 5-star reviews so far. My profile was changed to LOW PERFORMANCE/NO LEVEL, my gigs are no longer showing in search results.) I was unavailable in January and February to complete two projects. After finishing those projects, the new level system came into effect, and I haven't received any messages or orders for a while now. Today I noticed I can't even promote my gigs - all my eligible gigs are set to UNQUALIFIED. 

[Alex.M]

49 minutes ago, nadiappp said:

Raising the price to an absurd level might be a solution.

It's actually what I do when I am traveling... well I can't say that ' on an absurd level ' but at least on a level that makes it worth it to work on it while I am away

[williambryan392]

I just saw that my overall score just dropped to 4.9  (the one on the top left of the dashboard). All gigs and my overall public score are still 5 overall though. Anyone else just seen a change to this on their profiles?

[vickieito]

6 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

I just saw that my overall score just dropped to 4.9  (the one on the top left of the dashboard). All gigs and my overall public score are still 5 overall though. Anyone else just seen a change to this on their profiles?

Hi @williambryan392 - This is a technical glitch that affected some sellers (supposedly, based on the ticket I submitted to CS). Just put in a ticket with CS to see if yours was also affected.

Edited March 6 by vickieito

[ralphwie]

12 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

I just saw that my overall score just dropped to 4.9  (the one on the top left of the dashboard). All gigs and my overall public score are still 5 overall though. Anyone else just seen a change to this on their profiles?

I have the same. No reason why and no explanation as to how it works. One thing is for sure it's designed to demoralise and to make all your past and current hard work look like a joke. 

Edited March 6 by ralphwie

[williambryan392]

8 minutes ago, vickieito said:

Hi @williambryan392 - This is a technical glitch that affected some sellers (supposedly, based on the ticket I submitted to CS). Just put in a ticket with CS.

Thanks @vickieito! I did wonder if it was due to private reviews being included, or something like that. If I'd dropped to 0.7 like @breals did I would think it's a bug for sure. I'll put in a ticket. 

Editing my post to say this is covered in the below thread, and maybe isn't a bug but rather because private feedback is now being included...

 

[vincentsv]

5 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

I just saw that my overall score just dropped to 4.9  (the one on the top left of the dashboard). All gigs and my overall public score are still 5 overall though. Anyone else just seen a change to this on their profiles?

Same here. It does not even make sense from a mathematical perspective, as the score displayed to buyers includes a second decimal number and mine is 4,98 - I assume yours is similar. Mathematics was never my strongest skill but it would make much more sense to round it up than down.

[fixxapp]

this platform is becoming a s*hithole, for them a performance like this is a level 0, it means the previous level was just useless.

It seems all crazy honestly, I'm improving my gigs on upwork already...

[cucinavivace]

10 minutes ago, fixxapp said:

this platform is becoming a s*hithole, for them a performance like this is a level 0, it means the previous level was just useless.

 

Your board looks like mine except I'm still 5.0 on the rating, and I am also a Level 0 now. Hello, fellow zero-bro.

You know, the screwed up part is I talked to support for a few days about this, very lengthy back and forth with multiple people including a couple supervisors, and the bottom line in the end was they thought, despite all my arguments about performance, that I was somehow looking for a personal favor and an exception to the new rules. They do not acknowledge at all that they are screwing over people who their own stats say are performing perfectly with this invisible input stuff. They still think this is fair and reasonable in absolutely all cases and anyone who doesn't is just grousing no matter what the ratings are. You are another perfect example of unfair here.

Which is why I say again, I'm done. Can't trust Fiverr anymore.

Edited March 6 by cucinavivace

[fixxapp]

being a UX designer, the crazy thing for me, is they are valuing the success score a lot but we don't have any specific information about what we did wrong to be at level 0, they provide just generic advices...

[ralphwie]

1 hour ago, williambryan392 said:

I just saw that my overall score just dropped to 4.9  (the one on the top left of the dashboard). All gigs and my overall public score are still 5 overall though. Anyone else just seen a change to this on their profiles?

I just messaged support. It's not a glitch! It`s a test! and we are all invited to be guinea pigs.🤪

[cucinavivace]

7 minutes ago, ralphwie said:

I just messaged support. It's not a glitch! It`s a test! and we are all invited to be guinea pigs.🤪

"I hope us arbitrarily adjusting your score down with no reasonable explanation resolves your issue." LOL!

Edited March 6 by cucinavivace

[trovatori]

1 hour ago, williambryan392 said:

I just saw that my overall score just dropped to 4.9  (the one on the top left of the dashboard). All gigs and my overall public score are still 5 overall though. Anyone else just seen a change to this on their profiles?

Yes, exactly the same for us

[jefftuts]

In the same boat here. My rating was previously 4.9 in the new Seller Dashboard. As of this morning, it dropped to 4.8

Concerning. 

[donnovan86]

I've seen 4.98, 4.85 profile and gig scores for a week or so. Fiverr has been experimenting with a multitude of tests this past week. I am sure they are trying to see what works and what doesn't, before they fully launch the level system on the 15th.

[Alex.M]

1 hour ago, jefftuts said:

In the same boat here. My rating was previously 4.9 in the new Seller Dashboard. As of this morning, it dropped to 4.8

Concerning.

same here...even though I only received 5 stars ratings in the past 2 weeks

[filipdevaere]

7 hours ago, Alex.M said:

same here...even though I only received 5 stars ratings in the past 2 weeks

I got the same. I always got the maximum score (5) and yet I dropped to 4.9.

[emmaki]

Still waiting for a transparent announcement from Fiverr about this. 

[donnovan86]

5 hours ago, filipdevaere said:

I got the same. I always got the maximum score (5) and yet I dropped to 4.9.

I think there are different experiments running around on the platform right now. For example, I see scores in decimals for every gig and profile. And few to no people have 5 stars, unless they have under 100 reviews. Most people have 4.88, 4.90, 4.94 scores and stuff like that. And honestly, it does make the platform free of only 5 star gigs. 

Here's how it looks for me when I search something in the SEO section, for example. I do like this change, I think it does eliminate the stigma of gigs only having 5 stars. The downside: every decimal matters 😄 So yeah, lots of different experiments it seems. 

[filipdevaere]

@donnovan86 Thanks. Now I know I have 4.99.