Official feedback thread re: the new leveling system

[donnovan86]

26 minutes ago, katakatica said:

I'm fine with 1-2 'bad' reviews, but I'm not sure I can stand behind 'very good' potentially bringing a penalty to sellers. Even if the public rating isn't everything, it still feels very dishonest to me because of that. As a buyer, if I rated someone as very good, I would be complimenting them in my mind. 

 

Well they are not bad, they are actually quite good, just not perfect how we want them to be. I had 2x that happen to me yesterday. Both happy, both tipped, and as you can see from the review messages, nothing was wrong.

At this point, I just accept the review scores are going to be way different in the future. I used to have tons of anxiety with the Fiverr levels and systems, but not anymore.  

[cucinavivace]

1 hour ago, katakatica said:

On a personal level, my anxiety levels with this update have only risen and risen. I'm bending over backwards for mistakes even if I'm not the one who made them! This can't be healthy.)

I'll support you in that and add it's one of the reasons I'm not totally heartbroken over pausing my whole Fiverr life over this mess. I had a one hour response time and delivered all my gigs in a few hours in most cases. I thought that would help my ratings (and now my score - it didn't), but the work stress to financial reward ratio isn't like anything else I do. The challenges are way out of whack with the rest of my professional life per dollar earned.

The competition is such that your prices have to be competitive, and the global client base with people thinking using a translator makes them clear enough often means more or longer work for those competitive fixed prices (I'm talking about while trying to get them to understand the US tax code in my case - it ain't simple, so sometimes one answer gets dragged out to hours of conversation answering over and over and over), and then there's making sure you maintain your Fiverr performance numbers while people on the other side of the world are writing to you when you're asleep.

I didn't really realize until I stopped for a few days just how stressful having to log in first and immediately every morning to keep my response rate threw off my day, or how frustrating it was to find an order where the customer ordered the small gig to ask one question, but then asked five so my choices were suck it up and do the extra work anyway for practically nothing, cancel and be penalized on my cancellation rate, or negotiate and maybe be penalized with a bad review. And sure, I realize that commitment to it isn't strictly necessary, but it sure felt strictly necessary while I was doing it. I mean, if you're going to do something, do it right - right?

When I say "I didn't really realize," I mean I really didn't realize. I was just powering through it every morning as the normal course of business, but now that it's gone I have consciously noticed just how much time and emotional energy was going in compared to dollars earned elsewhere.

Those are pretty high expectations to maintain while Fiverr's telling you they can bump you from a Level 2 pending TRS status to a Level 0 at any time with no recourse now. Doing it knowing what the results would be is one thing. Doing it to never know when you'll be smacked down is quite another. And no, I don't think it's going to be healthy for a lot of people.

Edited March 1 by cucinavivace

[katakatica]

2 hours ago, katakatica said:

So... for the success score being relatively stable, mine went up to 10 from 9 (which is great, like, I'm happy I'm quite safe for now), but I also noticed some movement on a gig of mine that has fallen from grace a while back (so I only had one order on it lately compared to the many more on my other gigs.) It went 8-7-8. 

Now, the tricky thing with this is that it means the score can shift in a relatively short time (which realistically is what we want, I think?) BUT what concerns me is that it's hard to guess why something happens.

I understand that's due to wanting to keep private reviews/etc. private, but I feel like that's making it.. trickier to manage/try to improve, I suppose? 

In the end, two weeks (I think) from the launch of the new system, while I feel safe, I'm still quite concerned. 

It doesn't help that I got the first review that complimented me on my professionalism, only to say that I could have improved (you know what I'm gonna say here: my professionalism.

I'm fine with 1-2 'bad' reviews, but I'm not sure I can stand behind 'very good' potentially bringing a penalty to sellers. Even if the public rating isn't everything, it still feels very dishonest to me because of that. As a buyer, if I rated someone as very good, I would be complimenting them in my mind. 

On a personal level, my anxiety levels with this update have only risen and risen. I'm bending over backwards for mistakes even if I'm not the one who made them! This can't be healthy in the long run...

As for whether there's been any change in traffic with an improving Success Score, I don't think so? If anything, things feel slower than they did a while back, though things still seem to be coming in waves. 

 

I'd edit the original post but I think it's too late.

My overall Success Score just went back down to 9.

I did have a cancelation yesterday (waited two months for the requirements but they might not be done for 3-4 more months but still...)

At least we know the score moves?

[donnovan86]

2 minutes ago, katakatica said:

I did have a cancelation yesterday (waited two months for the requirements but they might not be done for 3-4 more months but still...)

 

They still haven't fixed that problem with cancellations, have they? If the order doesn't have any requirements and it's inactive, canceling it still affects your score? WHY? I have 15 of those in queue right now, and they will most likely be canceled by Fiverr in a year or two. Hopefully they solve this by then.. if it's canceled due to not sharing guidelines or being inactive, it shouldn't affect the seller's success score. That's unjust and completely unfair.

 

[katakatica]

Just now, donnovan86 said:

They still haven't fixed that problem with cancellations, have they? If the order doesn't have any requirements and it's inactive, canceling it still affects your score? WHY? I have 15 of those in queue right now, and they will most likely be canceled by Fiverr in a year or two. Hopefully they solve this by then.. if it's canceled due to not sharing guidelines or being inactive, it shouldn't affect the seller's success score. That's unjust and completely unfair.

 

So according to CS (whom I asked for help), they are 'aware of the issue and working on it'. This order was a bit different - the client started the order, sent me what they wanted but asked me to wait a bit for a bit more for a bit more info. Their project changed (for a couple of reasons, not really their fault) and now they just don't need me for the next, who knows 3-5 months? It was a tiny order, so waiting for a total of 5-7 months (the two I already waited plus more) and constantly extending (...which also goes against us.) just didn't really seem feasible. If the client were to come back in, say, a few months, I'd love to work with them again, of course, but... 

I agree with you, some things should NOT affect us whatsoever. I did see that many articles (about changing requirements/etc. seem even more biased towards buyers now as well.) It used to be OK to just say they changed their mind to CS, but it seems like that's changed, too. 

Eh, oh well.. I'm just a bit confused at the score jumping around, I guess. 

[donnovan86]

4 minutes ago, katakatica said:

Eh, oh well.. I'm just a bit confused at the score jumping around, I guess. 

If the order was initiated and it was canceled after that, I get the reason why your score dropped. Still, I really hope they solve this problem because it's very annoying to be told by CS that your score is not affected, yet all of a sudden the score drops. Hopefully a fix is coming with the rollout in 2 weeks.

[cucinavivace]

9 minutes ago, katakatica said:

At least we know the score moves?

Their original FAQ on this said it was meant to be "relatively stable" and shouldn't "fluctuate too often." But, I've had three different support reps tell me the Success Score evaluations are daily. My Success Score fell two points without even having any additional input after I paused my gigs. So, yes, expect more to it than was originally presented. Also they're still working in various areas of the algorithms themselves, for scoring and for your resulting gig visibility. They're tweaking it while it's live, so anything could change at any time.

[katakatica]

9 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

If the order was initiated and it was canceled after that, I get the reason why your score dropped. Still, I really hope they solve this problem because it's very annoying to be told by CS that your score is not affected, yet all of a sudden the score drops. Hopefully a fix is coming with the rollout in 2 weeks.

CS basically said that it doesn't affect our 'completion' rate, but affects the score still based on, well... I guess just like how revisions/etc. effect us as well? So basically, the score has more to it than just 'don't cancel orders'/etc.

I can sort of see why it could affect me, but... I can't magically make the buyer need me again. I think in some cases, a cancellation is the best choice for everyone. 

9 minutes ago, cucinavivace said:

Their original FAQ on this said it was meant to be "relatively stable" and shouldn't "fluctuate too often." But, I've had three different support reps tell me the Success Score evaluations are daily. My Success Score fell two points without even having any additional input after I paused my gigs. So, yes, expect more to it than was originally presented. Also they're still working in various areas of the algorithms themselves, for scoring and for your resulting gig visibility. They're tweaking it while it's live, so anything could change at any time.

I'm almost sure it's just the tweaking/etc. but it's still pretty strange that we don't exactly know what's going on. Stable and changes daily just around things you can use for the same thing in my book. Of course, if it's like the other scores used to be in the past (e.g. only, say, 100 days count or whatever) I can see that causing the number to fluctuate, but... even then the jumping up and down (that many people are seeing) before it's even fully out is a little concerning. Maybe it'll get better though! 

[ebturner]

Did you know that Fiverr has anonymous reviews which we CANNOT view?
We are being rated on something we cannot view or have any idea on how to improve if there is a problem.

I'm a level 2 seller for years, (1,971) 5-Star reviews and (8) 4-star reviews. NOTHING lower than that!  However they claim there are anonymous reviews which is keeping me at a lower level.   I find this very hard to believe.

[allstral]

4 hours ago, ebturner said:

Did you know that Fiverr has anonymous reviews which we CANNOT view?
We are being rated on something we cannot view or have any idea on how to improve if there is a problem.

I'm a level 2 seller for years, (1,971) 5-Star reviews and (8) 4-star reviews. NOTHING lower than that!  However they claim there are anonymous reviews which is keeping me at a lower level.   I find this very hard to believe.

It's been around for a while

[sagor_expart]

Can anyone tell me if anyone attended today's webinar what questions did they ask today?

[zerlina84]

I don’t know if this has been talked about, but yesterday I searched my subcategory in incognito mode and all my competitors had dropped from 5.

I clicked on some of them and there were a lot of visible new metrics like the value of delivery, etc.

Today I did it again and it’s back to normal, but I’m sure what I saw was a glimpse of what’s coming on the 15th…

[cucinavivace]

3 hours ago, zerlina84 said:

I don’t know if this has been talked about, but yesterday I searched my subcategory in incognito mode and all my competitors had dropped from 5.

I clicked on some of them and there were a lot of visible new metrics like the value of delivery, etc.

Today I did it again and it’s back to normal, but I’m sure what I saw was a glimpse of what’s coming on the 15th…

My biggest competitor dropped from 5 to 4.9. His best selling gig had 443 5 star ratings and most of them have been knocked down to 4.7. This is my newer gig that competes with his. They added "Quality of delivery" and "Value of delivery." I guess I do a little better than him on those two things, but somehow still have a SS of 4. Anyway, yes, this is what the new breakdown looks like. Someone posted something similar yesterday. There was an announcement from Fiverr before that and these are supposed to permanently be the new rating categories. This is what I've seen for a few days now, although it seems to only shows on gigs where you've gotten ratings under the new system. Maybe that's why you're seeing it some places and not others.
 

Edited March 2 by cucinavivace

[mandyzines]

On 2/22/2024 at 6:39 AM, smartdezigns said:

Thank you for this!

@priyank_mod Here you go. Another statement on Pausing/Deleting Poor Selling Gigs. 

I deleted my oldest gig with a success score of 4 on the 16th of last month and it didn't impact anything. I'm contemplating another that I haven't had an order through since my only cancelation in May of last year.

[smartdezigns]

40 minutes ago, mandyzines said:

I deleted my oldest gig with a success score of 4 on the 16th of last month and it didn't impact anything. I'm contemplating another that I haven't had an order through since my only cancelation in May of last year.

I have a gig with 6 success score and thought to delete that one but decided not to.

Also, I have noticed that after the launching of new level system, I am getting the less new inquiries. I am fine with the repeat buyers but it looks like that this new system has affected a lot of other things too 

Don't know about others that are they having the same case like me (less new inquiries)?

[cucinavivace]

1 hour ago, smartdezigns said:

Also, I have noticed that after the launching of new level system, I am getting the less new inquiries.

Your score affects where you show up in searches too, even if it doesn't change your level.

I have over 30 years of tax consulting experience. My nearest competitor is a tax attorney. We both mostly deal with tax compliance and planning issues, domestically and internationally. Under the new system, there are tax preparers from all over the world who are not US tax code experts, but just fill in the blanks in free software for as little as $25 per tax return, who bury us in the search results. We don't even do the same thing. I paused my gigs, but he hasn't had an order in almost two weeks either and used to have a couple per day. And this is in the middle of tax season. We were both 5.0 Level 2s previously.

This is what people have been complaining about. It's not just the levels. If your score goes down, it doesn't matter how good or specialized you are. You might just disappear. There was one person earlier in this thread who disappeared from search results and he showed us support's response telling him to bring business in from outside Fiverr if he wanted to increase his score. They're giving him nothing now and this was most of how he made his living.

Edited March 3 by cucinavivace

[smartdezigns]

3 hours ago, cucinavivace said:

If your score goes down, it doesn't matter how good or specialized you are. You might just disappear. There was one 

What if the success score is 10? Does not make sense to me. Hopefully things will be fine soon.

[cucinavivace]

2 minutes ago, smartdezigns said:

What if the success score is 10? Does not make sense to me. Hopefully things will be fine soon.

Well if your score is 10 then it hasn't gone down. 🙂 

But I'm not guessing about the score affecting placement. It's in Fiverr's announcements.

Edited March 3 by cucinavivace

[kingpirux]

GAME OVER cynicism has a new synonymous: FIVERR transparency

not only they are not going to do absoloutly nothing, they are ready to launch this crrrrap machine. They didnt even care about the big freelancers private meetings, they didnt even care about the complete failure of their previous webinars... 

 

 

Edited March 4 by kingpirux
misspeled

[katherinasim]

Fiverr continues ATTACKING me and KICKING me out the platform. They just deactivated my bestselling gig with 400 completed orders and 5 star rating for using not original image to showcase my work. WTF, I have no other words... I have sent a CS request but I am hopeless at this point

[phanduy]

seem everyone are too tired with this amazing level system, and dont want to say anything more about it =((

[Alex.M]

On 3/2/2024 at 12:41 PM, cucinavivace said:

My biggest competitor dropped from 5 to 4.9. His best selling gig had 443 5 star ratings and most of them have been knocked down to 4.7. This is my newer gig that competes with his. They added "Quality of delivery" and "Value of delivery." I guess I do a little better than him on those two things, but somehow still have a SS of 4. Anyway, yes, this is what the new breakdown looks like. Someone posted something similar yesterday. There was an announcement from Fiverr before that and these are supposed to permanently be the new rating categories. This is what I've seen for a few days now, although it seems to only shows on gigs where you've gotten ratings under the new system. Maybe that's why you're seeing it some places and not others.
 

there are too many things here ... the quality of delivery, the value of delivery .. might as well add,  ''the buyer's mood for today'' as a metric, not sure who has the time to rate all that 

[cucinavivace]

9 minutes ago, Alex.M said:

there are too many things here ... the quality of delivery, the value of delivery .. might as well add, the buyer's mood for today, not sure who has the time to rate all that 

Not to mention Fiverr still has input into the Value part based on your competitors' performance, so that's always up for grabs no matter how much extra time you put in for the same money compared to them, and there are still private ratings that can tank you while you maintain 100% in all categories publicly.

It's all BS to make it look like Fiverr isn't handing out 5s across the board (even if you earned them). Remember, no matter how much of our side they take in a transaction, the money comes from the buyers. That's all they care about, buyer impression. We're just inventory to them.



 

Edited March 5 by cucinavivace

[cucinavivace]

Just an update. My success score has now been lowered from 6, to 5, to 4, to 3 since this started because my gigs are paused. So, I've gone from a 5.0 star rating with 5.0 stars on all subcategory ratings and 100% on all performance metrics at Level 2 pending TRS under the old system ... to a Level 0, with no hope of reversal.

Level 0. Because I didn't make Fiverr my top priority for a couple weeks.

I am definitely out. No sense throwing in more good time after years of time and low rates put in to build this up for nothing.

 

Edited March 6 by cucinavivace

[zerlina84]

14 minutes ago, cucinavivace said:

My success score has now been lowered from 6, to 5, to 4, to 3 since this started because my gigs are paused.

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.