Official feedback thread re: the new leveling system

[emmaki]

None of this particularly solves the "5 star issue" though. If everyone is 4.9X or 4.8X does that really help buyers to quickly differentiate between e.g. a world class seller and a bumbling opportunist?

 

[carineb]

1 hour ago, donnovan86 said:

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. 

As I mentioned in another post, I love ratings with two decimal because that's what I have in my competition tracking table, and I have noticed that the second decimal accurately reflects the different types of translators (native/human, Google Translate, etc.).
Ratings with decimals really make sense to me, but I'm uncertain whether a lot of buyers will pay attention to the second decimal.

I've heard that providing more details can capture people's attention, but some individuals are highly interested in numbers and even the smallest details, while others don't even know how to do calculations with decimals!

Fiverr is currently conducting tests. I have no doubt they will implement the best solution, as they always do😁

Edited March 7 by carineb

[donnovan86]

3 minutes ago, carineb said:

Fiverr is currently conducting tests. I have no doubt they will implement the best solution, as they always do😁

From what tests I saw, I think this one with decimals is by far the better one. It's not perfect, but at least it solves Fiverr's obsession with everyone having 5 stars. Not sure if it makes choosing people easier but hey.. it might. It definitely offers a better perspective over your competitors as a seller, in my experience. So I hope they add it.

[cucinavivace]

I really could not give two figs about the stars and how many decimals follow that number. We're all in the same boat on that and it'll work itself out. The bigger issue is people being stripped of their levels based on alleged, invisible data. If you go down a level or in your success score, you fall out of rank in marketplace placement, and your income tanks no matter how many stars you have. 

I don't think being a 4.99 vs a 4.9 is going to be any consolation to someone who was a Level 2 making $5K a month and is suddenly a Level 1 with no visibility and getting no orders. 

I'm not saying don't talk about it, but let's acknowledge Fiverr suddenly considering making people 4.99 instead of 4.9 seems like a tossed bone and a well timed distraction in response to all the complaints, and it doesn't really change anything if nobody ever finds you to see it.

Edited March 7 by cucinavivace

[donnovan86]

31 minutes ago, cucinavivace said:

If you go down a level or in your success score, you fall out of rank in marketplace placement, and your income tanks no matter how many stars you have. 

It's due to private feedback and I am sure no seller likes that. But it is what it is, at this point I just got used to it, and generally you have a good idea when an order goes wrong and a buyer leaves a bad private review. Then again, I had only 5 star reviews for months and my success manager that private reviews were not that great. That's because few people leave private reviews. And many of those that do.. let's say they tend to not leave great ones. So at least in my case, and I am sure for other people too, negative private reviews tend to be very problematic. And if your happy customers don't leave private reviews, yet unhappy customers do.. then those negative private reviews will have a larger impact. 

Why did you stop your gigs though? You can't have visibility without active gigs...

[emmaki]

2 hours ago, carineb said:

I have noticed that the second decimal accurately reflects the different types of translators (native/human, Google Translate, etc.).

So are you saying that Fiverr effectively has a 10-star system, transparently hidden away in the second decimal point where 4.91 is a huge scam and 4.9 is rockstar ninja? 

I have a lot of words to describe this system, many of which are sadly not printable or the word "intuitive". 

And guys, there's really not much point complaining about your individual lost X due to their awful design choices. They'll make money from the people that benefit and are "the best sellers" according to stuff that nobody other than Fiverr really understands. Whether that's a good idea or not, only time will tell.

The best thing for anyone to do is just start building (or focusing more on building) business outside of Fiverr. It's not Fiverr requires you to actually do any work to nab clients once you set everything up, so that side of Fiverr runs itself. And if it's not working, well, you won't be constantly distracted by a zombie popping in to say "hi" before disappearing forever. 

I swear the amount of hi's is too damn high! It's 95% of my inbox messages at the moment! I HATE THEM. 

[virgoca]

and so it begins for me. I was sitting at a 5 just yesterday. I haven't had a delivery in like a week since my turnaround times are a bit long due to my work's nature. Why am I 0,1 lower? no idea. I don't even get any message saying what is having an impact on my rating, or anything. 

[cucinavivace]

36 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

It's due to private feedback and I am sure no seller likes that. 

Why did you stop your gigs though? You can't have visibility without active gigs...

Sure. That's the "alleged, invisible data" I was referring to. My problem with those private ratings is that Fiverr has assured us for years they would not affect our public scores or levels, and they never have. Then they suddenly injected years worth of feedback we can't see and can't respond to, and are not allowed to review per case to show support why an order may have gone sideways like we can with public ratings. I don't think we should penalized for something we're not allowed to fix or nobody can say is really our fault, which is why they never counted before, but that's another conversation. As you say, it is what it is, but what it is is something that takes away the rewards Fiverr promised us for years of work. *poof* all gone in many cases.

I paused my gigs because I don't think I'm staying. I understand a lot of people want to power through this and see what happens, but I have an active practice outside Fiverr. I found Fiverr kind of fun and the short assignments a nice change of pace, but if I spend two years providing affordable service to get to a highly visible level where I'm getting regular orders and Fiverr takes it all away, I just do not have another year or two to climb a new ladder just for them to do it to me again. Not at these prices. I did what I was supposed to do to get to that place. They are not doing what they promised me in return. It's too big a time investment from my other business to try to climb from Level 0 all over again.

I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but you asked so I'm answering.

Edited March 7 by cucinavivace

[priyank_mod]

16 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

And if your happy customers don't leave private reviews, yet unhappy customers do.. then those negative private reviews will have a larger impact. 

The ironic accuracy of this... 💯

[carrotymusic]

Is promotion of gigs no longer available for someone whose account is flagged ?? Or do you still have this feature available?

[vhskid]

16 hours ago, Alex.M said:

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

I didn't receive any reviews in the past 2 months (hadn't any orders through Fiverr for that matter), all the past ones are 5 stars, and yet my score dropped. 

 

The customer support mentioned the tests to me as well, but also the past private ratings being included in the public rating score: 

 

They promised this in the news post about the pre-launch:

 

...and now they delivering.

 

 

[clemenskieks]

1 hour ago, virgoca said:

and so it begins for me. I was sitting at a 5 just yesterday. I haven't had a delivery in like a week since my turnaround times are a bit long due to my work's nature. Why am I 0,1 lower? no idea. I don't even get any message saying what is having an impact on my rating, or anything. 

It is showing 5 starts on you profile currently, if that helps

[carineb]

1 hour ago, emmaki said:

So are you saying that Fiverr effectively has a 10-star system, transparently hidden away in the second decimal point where 4.91 is a huge scam and 4.9 is rockstar ninja? 

I don't know what Fiverr has or doesn't have. I'm only talking about the analysis I do myself on my gigs and those of my competitors with visible data.
Attached is an excerpt of my table. (Dissatisfied = 1, 2, 3 stars)

It's difficult to choose among all these 5.0 great sellers! As soon as we add a decimal and the rate of dissatisfied clients, we see things differently... and it reduces the number of great sellers!

With these data, Fiverr has everything needed to facilitate client decision-making. Fiverr only needs to find how to present it in an understandable manner.
And the big advantage: it's 100% TRANSPARENT! ✅
No need to invent ratings by using invisible data that no seller understands and that doesn't even help us identify what the problems are.
 

[leonormiserol]

37 minutes ago, carineb said:

I don't know what Fiverr has or doesn't have. I'm only talking about the analysis I do myself on my gigs and those of my competitors with visible data.
Attached is an excerpt of my table. (Dissatisfied = 1, 2, 3 stars)

It's difficult to choose among all these 5.0 great sellers! As soon as we add a decimal and the rate of dissatisfied clients, we see things differently... and it reduces the number of great sellers!

With these data, Fiverr has everything needed to facilitate client decision-making. Fiverr only needs to find how to present it in an understandable manner.
And the big advantage: it's 100% TRANSPARENT! ✅
No need to invent ratings by using invisible data that no seller understands and that doesn't even help us identify what the problems are.
 

Although other metrics could be added to this, such as:
How much was paid for each order and number of completed orders from the seller.

[leonormiserol]

I don't see transparency here anyway, since buyers' private ratings will affect public metrics.
And fiverr doesn't even give us a weekly summary anonymous, of the private reviews received. If they "want us to improve" they have to show us "where we are failing."

[donnovan86]

9 minutes ago, leonormiserol said:

And fiverr doesn't even give us a weekly summary anonymous, of the private reviews received

And most likely won't. Those private reviews come with a disclaimer that all the stuff buyers say in there is not shared with sellers. So.. it's just used internally by Fiverr. If we got a weekly summary of private reviews, and you had a single order that week, you would know exactly who left a bad private review. I don't see them doing that, unfortunately. As long as those private reviews exist, pretty sure they will remain private. And people will complete them randomly, not at all, or unhappy buyers will complete them arduously because they want to prove a point. 

[filipdevaere]

I just got this. Even gigs that I have never sold are now suddenly OK.

[charlsmcfarlane]

16 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

As long as those private reviews exist

This is fundamentally the problem. They should not.

Edited March 7 by charlsmcfarlane

[vhskid]

5 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

Those private reviews come with a disclaimer that all the stuff buyers say in there is not shared with sellers. So.. it's just used internally by Fiverr.

I wonder if they change that disclaimer since for new sellers and lower-volume ones the low rating in private reviews can be noticeable, with the new system including private feedback in the public reviews score.

There can be scenarios with a big rating disproportion between the public and private review for the specific order, and the public rating drop will be instant with the obvious cause.

 

[voicedbyken]

29 minutes ago, filipdevaere said:

I just got this. Even gigs that I have never sold are now suddenly OK.

I just got that too. Smells like desperation on their part. I received the email and notification about 5 minutes after I turned promotions off on 7 of my 9 gigs.

 

[filipdevaere]

2 minutes ago, voicedbyken said:

I just got that too. Smells like desperation on their part. I received the email and notification about 5 minutes after I turned promotions off on 7 of my 9 gigs.

I am not using the promotion feature.

[fixxapp]

this is the reply from fiverr customer service after I complained about the new levelling system

 

Quote

For example, you mentioned several times your positive public ratings and that is certainly something to hold on to and work on to maintain. However, as the data model takes into account private ratings as well, which may differ from the public ones, the Gig's score will not necessarily be as high as you would expect it.

so according to them among 250 5 stars reviews, most people gave different scores in private reviews...so or most people are bipolar or the old level system was a joke...

[vhskid]

40 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

55 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

As long as those private reviews exist

This is fundamentally the problem. They should not.

 

And while they exist, sellers don't have the same option to privately rate buyers and see some indicators of buyer performance (related to that).

 

 

Edited March 7 by vhskid

[fixxapp]

2 minutes ago, vhskid said:

 

And while they exist, sellers don't have the same option to privately rate buyers and see some indicators of buyer performance (related to that).

 

 

this! as a UX/UI designer for me it's crazy they are not transparent about the metrics, they just give general advices but we don't have a clue about how to improve...probably because not even the customer service is aware about how the new levelling system works...

[mandyzines]

Well, this morning I've seen my rating flip flop twice, again, within a half an hour. 

I'm not completely against having private reviews integrated into ratings, it's just that what can be done about it and when/if it takes effect is still very unclear.

Also, I'm nearly unrecognizable in terms of the skill that I have developed even over the past year, so it seems a bit ridiculous to have the rating take into account two years. 

(Compare what I am now as a person to what I was 4 years ago, and I've changed entirely.)

I also received the notification that I can promote a gig that doesn't even have any activity on it yet. 

 

Edited March 7 by mandyzines