Official feedback thread re: the new leveling system

[alexanderlapko]

18 hours ago, fahimeh22 said:

This is very sad that though I have 98-98% five-star ratings, the success score is only 4. Client satisfaction has a strong negative impact and order cancelation has a negative impact though all of the canceled orders were mutually cancelation and the CS recovered the OCR to 100% instantly. For these two things, I lost my level two and am now a level 0 seller. Though still I am getting 5-star ratings, the success score hasn't increased yet.
What about your opinion?

Similar situation! Only I have never had any cancellations, and always have positive reviews! But the system does not take this into account, as the comments of many here show.

[alexanderlapko]

8 hours ago, dereck_s said:

So my account is old and has like 1000ish orders so IDK if that means anything to how the rating are calculated. Since the new system went live I've completed about 15 orders (all 5 star super happy folks) and none of my metrics have changed. 

On a side note I had my SM look into my cancellations and I even had an excel sheet with every cancellation and how it was white listed (CS ID#'s for example). After 3 days they determined that Cancellations were not a negative impact on my account but the second they removed it (it was STRONG NEGATIVE IMPACT) a regular negative impact (Effective communication) item appeared and my Success Score stayed at 4.

Same problems. I have never had cancellations and only the best reviews from customers, but the system does not take this into account and sent me from the second level to the very beginning. Despite this, Success Score said that I have a problem with such things as Effective communication and Conflict-free orders
although, as I already said, I never had any problems with this. The support does not answer questions about why this happened, but only says what is written in the Success Score itself. I hope they solve this problem, because it turns out that many sellers simply do not have their entire success story taken into account due to the new level system.

[ch6k0r]

I think there should be a change in the success score where it's gradually applied, we didn't know nothing about these metrics even if they existed in the background, most of us thought we were doing fine since we worked on the old simple metrics (response time, delivery on time, order completion...) let alone the reviews and tips were our only indicator that we did great in an order.
Instead what we have now is a punishment for 2+ years of data that we didn't know about, we were given a month to fix it? and we are compared to others? double kill.

I really hope someone reads this thread.

[smashradio]

On 3/20/2024 at 8:50 PM, frank_d said:

Same here. Once I point them towards my paid consultation they stop needing a call.

I always bring up money as soon as possible to establish project fit but this latest wave of tire kickers think that them stating a budget is like being in a game show where they need to guess how much my service is.

Yup. I have paid consultations as well. If they're asking for an actual consultation, i.e. want real advice or ideas, I'd point them towards my paid consultations too, but it just feels a bit wrong to ask them to pay to inform me about their project.  Perhaps I'm too gentle? 🤣

[smashradio]

On 3/20/2024 at 9:56 PM, uk1000 said:

Could that send potentially confidential stuff from the buyer to those companies?

This is why I approach the use of AI with extreme caution. It's a significant issue, and I'd wager that AI firms receive vast amounts of confidential material daily because people don't want to do the legwork themselves.

I get it. AI is a cool tool. I use it for brainstorming or when I hit a roadblock myself.

But I steer clear of any automated processes. The stakes are too high, and I care too much about my clients' confidentiality, so I cannot justify feeding their info into an AI owned by a foreign company with a voracious appetite for data.

[williambryan392]

12 minutes ago, smashradio said:

but it just feels a bit wrong to ask them to pay to inform me about their project.  Perhaps I'm too gentle?

I think they can inform you in writing. I've had some decent clients recently (amongst the usual) that specifically went for a consultation just to meet me. They both said words to the effect of 'this is important, the cost is not the issue, me finding the right person is.'

This morning I had someone send me a diary link to schedule 30 minutes to interview to write his pitch deck. No thank you. My fiverr model for a number of gigs is that people pay for my time for consulting, so I have to be very careful about giving it away for free. For other niches the free call can make a lot more sense. My Fiverr model just doesn't work like that.

I suppose I just think that if someone isn't willing to pay X for a call, then it's unlikely they'll pay X*10 for the work. When the work is X*1 or 2 I understand them being less willing to pay for a call.

Either way, I always remember 'free has no value', and people that don't respect that your time has a value probably aren't that great to work with.

Sometimes people ask for an introductory call, to decide if they want to purchase the gig for a call. I act confused... so you want a free call to see if you want to pay for a call...

[smashradio]

27 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

I think they can inform you in writing. I've had some decent clients recently (amongst the usual) that specifically went for a consultation just to meet me. They both said words to the effect of 'this is important, the cost is not the issue, me finding the right person is.'

I get where you're coming from — I much prefer having information in writing, too. It's just so much simpler to keep track of everything and refer back to whenever needed. I'm stuck feeding messed-up transcriptions into GPT just to make heads or tails of meetings. And with my goldfish memory, it's even worse. Plus, if we discussed anything confidential, I can't even use GPT. Ugh. Maybe it's about time I start charging for those "getting-to-know-you" consultation sessions as well.

27 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

I suppose I just think that if someone isn't willing to pay X for a call, then it's unlikely they'll pay X*10 for the work. When the work is X*1 or 2 I understand them being less willing to pay for a call.

Either way, I always remember 'free has no value', and people that don't respect that your time has a value probably aren't that great to work with.

I get your point and agree, for the most part. But it seems like a given these days that freelancers should attend meetings, particularly with corporate clients. To be fair, one of those unpaid meetings actually scored me a long-term project with Norway's largest telecom operator via Fiverr just last week. If I had simply sent a "Here's a link to purchase a consultation" message, I probably wouldn't have snagged the job, especially not if another freelancer was willing to meet for free. But it sure does feel like a waste of time when everything discussed in the meeting could have easily been communicated in writing.

27 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

Sometimes people ask for an introductory call, to decide if they want to purchase the gig for a call. I act confused... so you want a free call to see if you want to pay for a call...

Touché. 

Edited March 23 by smashradio

[williambryan392]

5 minutes ago, smashradio said:

But it seems like a given these days that freelancers should attend meetings, particularly with corporate clients. To be fair, one of those unpaid meetings actually scored me a long-term project with Norway's largest telecom operator via Fiverr just last week. If I had simply sent a "Here's a link to purchase a consultation" message, I probably wouldn't have snagged the job, especially not if another freelancer was willing to meet for free

Yeah it's a risk for sure to be missing out on work. I'm sure I've lost out to some that do the call for free. To be honest the no free call rule is one I follow 99% of the time. I've tried to be more accommodating of seemingly more professional clients, but even then sometimes they've ghosted. Not even a 'no thank you', just ghosted, and if they do that I feel like an idiot.

Funnily enough I also had someone come back to me a couple of weeks ago for LinkedIn. He's C-Level at a multi Bn company, so a very professional guy and I thought he'd gone with someone else but when he came back he said I was the only one that wouldn't do a call for free, and that separated me from everyone else. I must be good (in his words). I just feel sorry for all the others that did give him free calls 😆

 

[smashradio]

10 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

when he came back he said I was the only one that wouldn't do a call for free, and that separated me from everyone else.

 

Yeah I guess it can go both ways. 😄

[williambryan392]

Just now, smashradio said:

Yeah I guess it can go both ways. 😄

It only went that way once!

[greggidneyvo]

Why even bother creating new gigs if there's a risk if them burning down your account?
Makes no sense.

[Alex.M]

6 minutes ago, greggidneyvo said:

Why even bother creating new gigs if there's a risk if them burning down your account?

Well in theory most of the new gigs won't lower your success score because IN THEORY ( I repeat the in theory part because I don't know if we should trust what Fiverr says... giving the circumstances and the amount of issues that are currently happening here ... ) newer gigs with fewer reviews have a lower impact on the overall success score. 

 

I assume that it depends on the gigs and the category that they are in as well. For some reasons, I noticed that Fiverr is pushing AI gigs a lot in their algorithm. I am not a fan at all of anything that involves AI however I did a gig related to Midjourney and started to promote it.. In the first day, I got over 25 clicks on that gig... Of course 0 sales for now but For gigs that I have thousands of reviews I barely get any clicks these days.  Most likely the AI **** is playing a bigger part in this equation.  

 

[kingpirux]

fiverr is sinking guys, dont be here dreaming that they will change anything, they are moving to other platform and Fiverr became a zombie managed by AI, i have no idea how souch a big company fall in the bulsht of leaving the entire management and user qualification to AI, is incredible because OpenAi and all the real AI companies don't recommend to use it as Fiverr is doing because of the huge failures, analyzing long stories term users will return random errors and wrong results (like happened, is happening and will keep happening).

Why the front and clicks are over the AI related subjects ? or why there are so many fake agencies and fake accounts that only return automatic AI generated content? (there is an other post showing an account fullfilling more than 9 clients per minute) sorry for all the designers but fiverr is making their own AI generated fake accounts for that... at the end is a thing of money and fiverr management choose to go the easiest worst moral way.

 

hopefully someone from here will have the knowledge to do their own fiverr (upwork is already implementing the same old system and other platforms as well) so i feel next months we will have tons of fiverr inspired platforms to work with. Is hilarious how wrong and bad this went, is going to be for the books of history on how AI manipulative methods is just inspiring people to get away from places and make their own version, because at the end, anyone here with chatgpt can create something like fiverr actually xD have fun, dont try to fix the system, fight the system.

[dutchbydesign]

Something has to change. The current rating system is flawed and disproportionately favours buyers over sellers. One glaring example is when working with clients who make you work for peanuts (unrealistic expectations with and demands) leaving sellers with virtually no room to provide our honest review reflecting this reality as you risk facing backlash in the form of their  'What do you really think?' sneaky Fiverr review..  It's an unfair situation where sellers are set up to lose. 

[dutchbydesign]

10 hours ago, kingpirux said:

fiverr is sinking guys, dont be here dreaming that they will change anything, they are moving to other platform and Fiverr became a zombie managed by AI, i have no idea how souch a big company fall in the bulsht of leaving the entire management and user qualification to AI, is incredible because OpenAi and all the real AI companies don't recommend to use it as Fiverr is doing because of the huge failures, analyzing long stories term users will return random errors and wrong results (like happened, is happening and will keep happening).

Why the front and clicks are over the AI related subjects ? or why there are so many fake agencies and fake accounts that only return automatic AI generated content? (there is an other post showing an account fullfilling more than 9 clients per minute) sorry for all the designers but fiverr is making their own AI generated fake accounts for that... at the end is a thing of money and fiverr management choose to go the easiest worst moral way.

 

hopefully someone from here will have the knowledge to do their own fiverr (upwork is already implementing the same old system and other platforms as well) so i feel next months we will have tons of fiverr inspired platforms to work with. Is hilarious how wrong and bad this went, is going to be for the books of history on how AI manipulative methods is just inspiring people to get away from places and make their own version, because at the end, anyone here with chatgpt can create something like fiverr actually xD have fun, dont try to fix the system, fight the system.

YOU: AI generated content? (there is an other post showing an account fullfilling more than 9 clients per minute) sorry for all the designers but fiverr is making their own AI generated fake accounts for that... 

What is this? I don't get this. 🧐

[kingpirux]

21 minutes ago, dutchbydesign said:

YOU: AI generated content? (there is an other post showing an account fullfilling more than 9 clients per minute) sorry for all the designers but fiverr is making their own AI generated fake accounts for that... 

What is this? I don't get this. 🧐

there are accounts that make logos and illustrations are quite obvious ai generated, they even have like hundreds of clients in a window of delivery that is like one per minute. this would have triggered curiosity but in its place there are more and more, so Fiverr new ai is instant banning people randomly and lowering scores with rules they can't explain, but this type of fully automated accounts are safe.

[aminul_design]

I think we should give this new leveling system some time to grow with us. As the market is competitive, this new rating system will be a plus point for the dedicated members. Just wait

[Alex.M]

13 minutes ago, aminul_design said:

I think we should give this new leveling system some time to grow with us. As the market is competitive, this new rating system will be a plus point for the dedicated members. Just wait

right, the theory is always good but let's take your case for instance... you have 8 5 star reviews .. Imagine getting a few 3-4 star reviews and your visibility on the marketplace is completely gone without knowing if you'll ever make any other sale because of that ... Sure, let's wait 🙂 I am curious to see your opinion after this happens

[whildebrand]

On 3/11/2024 at 7:29 AM, donnovan86 said:

I see you had a 3 star review recently and that might have come with a bad private review as well, in fact most likely. That certainly plummets sales especially for someone that has a low sales volume. So I don't think that in your case it has to do with the review system, it's more due to that customer most likely leaving a bad review privately. 

In fact, the review in question is for one of my relatively new gig offering of mine, not the best-selling one that has consistently received excellent feedback and which suddenly dropped in performance. I've been in contact with Fiverr for several months now, and the introduction of the new rating system hasn't helped but made things worse. I usually get a cut and paste answer from Fiverr support, not really anything I can work with. 

Concerning the one 3-star review among many hundred 5-star reviews: The client was initially pleased with the website I delivered. However, the client then continued to request additional features post-completion. I accommodated these requests for a while, adding services worth 800 Euros in total as a gesture of goodwill many days and weeks after completion, before informing the client that further work would necessitate a new order.

Subsequently, the client left a negative review out of spite, only to later express regret and a desire to revert their feedback. I told the client to contact support (which I also did), but unfortunately, Fiverr declined to alter the review, despite it being a clear case of retaliatory criticism unrelated to the quality of the work delivered.

It appears that clients from continental Europe, without referring to any specific country, may not fully grasp the gig-based model. They are more accustomed to traditional, contractually obligated web design and IT services, expecting ongoing revisions even after project completion. The review you mentioned was posted long after the order was marked as completed by the client (I believe a significant 20 days after finalizing the order), which was surprising as I was under the impression that the review period was limited to 10 days. It seems Fiverr frequently implements changes without notification, but I may be wrong and may have misunderstood the review process.

Many clients are attracted to Fiverr's competitive pricing but still anticipate comprehensive agency-level support, including continuous updates, long after a project is concluded. This expectation is particularly prevalent in web design and markets unfamiliar with the gig economy. I find myself dedicating hours each day to responding to support inquiries, with Fiverr offering little in the way of protection. This lack of support from Fiverr is remarkably unfair and inefficient for sellers.

I've noticed that clients from the US and the UK have a better understanding of the gig model and for this reason, I'm considering removing my second language proficiency from my profile in hopes of attracting my original US-based clientele.

The current situation is far from fair. Navigating these new markets for Fiverr feels like I am used as an icebreaker vessel cutting through hard and dense ice, especially as I educate customers from newly targeted EU regions about the platform's operations, personally absorbing the hits when they are in fact unhappy not with my service but with how the Fiverr system operates. Also, these clients often expect multiple Zoom calls even before placing an order. For those working with German-speaking clients, a more forgiving rating system would be beneficial, given the increased difficulty and time investment required. If I were given a choice, I would simply opt out of such regions all together. If there is a way to do that, please let me know!

 

Edited March 26 by whildebrand

[donnovan86]

11 minutes ago, whildebrand said:

Subsequently, the client left a negative review out of spite

Private reviews play a massive role. If you have no private review from other clients or just a few of them (A lot of people don't leave private reviews when they are happy), but also a negative private review, that negative one will have a lot more influence than you realize. I had this happen to me last year, before all these changes. And it took a LOT of time to recover, half a year or so. I have no idea how these changes affected that recovery time, if it's longer or shorter. Just do your best and try to keep people happy. There's nothing else to do at this point.

[whildebrand]

On 3/20/2024 at 9:14 PM, smashradio said:

I've seen the same thing happen. But now, it's like everyone's itching to drag me into endless Zoom calls before they decide to buy anything. And what gets me every time is that they end up expecting everything for nothing. One of my main reasons for loving FIverr, was that I didn't have to waste half my day speaking to clients. 

I couldn't agree more. My main reason for choosing Fiverr as a seller was efficiency. I won't get into the value for sellers in terms of monetary gain, because for many that was never the real reason to be on the platform. But without efficiency, what are we left with? Some weird algorithms no one understands (including Fiverr support) that keep increasing the burden on sellers?

Edited March 26 by whildebrand

[whildebrand]

2 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

Private reviews play a massive role. If you have no private review from other clients or just a few of them (A lot of people don't leave private reviews when they are happy), but also a negative private review, that negative one will have a lot more influence than you realize. I had this happen to me last year, before all these changes. And it took a LOT of time to recover, half a year or so. I have no idea how these changes affected that recovery time, if it's longer or shorter. Just do your best and try to keep people happy. There's nothing else to do at this point.

"Just do your best and try to keep people happy. There's nothing else to do at this point."

Interesting point you make and Fiverr support keeps making exactly that same point. 

But keep in mind that any economic transaction is based on a system of give and take. We are not in the business of philanthropy. It is not a one-sided transaction as you seem to imply. We are not in the business of making people happy. We are selling a service. We provide services, for which we expect to get paid by the buyer. We don't work for free. We never signed up to work for free.

If you want to make people happy (which is an honorably thing to do if you can afford it), the salvation army is the place to be.

We pay Fiverr 20% of every transaction in return for a fair and balanced work environment. That is a service that Fiverr owes to us. Sellers pay Fiverr a lot more than buyers do btw, yet we get treated a lot harder by the algorithm. Judging from the many comments in this thread, sellers are feeling overly burdened by the system.

I appreciate that you want to explain how the system works, but the concern on this thread does not seem to be how the system works but why it works the way it does. Why is there such a bias towards buyers at the expense of sellers?

The algorithm and system is aligned by Fiverr's management team. It can be changed and many of us believe it should be.  

I, as I am sure many of you, have worked extremely hard for Fiverr in the past years (at 120% performance) and I have always been loyal to the company. I have always paid my fees to Fiverr and in return expect that I and you as sellers and freelancers on the platform are treated on equal terms with buyers.

But that does not seem to be the case. 

If the system only values freelancers that give away free services to make buyers happy, then the system is seriously flawed, unbalanced and biased in a very big way. To expect newcomers on the platform to offer more for less is one thing, but to make that into the prevalent business model for all, is a whole different ball game. It is the path that ultimately leads to workforce extortion and I really hope that this is not the goal of the leadership at Fiverr.

Edited March 26 by whildebrand

[cucinavivace]

2 hours ago, whildebrand said:

It appears that clients from continental Europe, without referring to any specific country, may not fully grasp the gig-based model. ... Many clients are attracted to Fiverr's competitive pricing but still anticipate comprehensive agency-level support, including continuous updates, long after a project is concluded.

 

Oh they understand perfectly, whatever country they're from and whatever industry or service it is. I've had to draw the line on endless continuances a few times by pointing out they've received two or three times the amount of time they paid for, and in return some of them are ok with it and some of them argue and specifically say: "When I come to Fiverr, I'm looking for a deal." My favorite actual buyer quote - from someone who took a three hour delivery and extended it by nearly three weeks with revisions that were all clearly new work.

Sometimes people's expectations progress and they don't really think about the consequences to anybody else, but more often they understand how gigs work perfectly. They don't come to Fiverr because it's got a reputation as having the most qualified freelancers, or even because their purchase is protected by Fiverr. There are plenty of other options for that. They come to Fiverr because it's the bargain basement on pricing - initially because everything really was $5 and that still lingers in the reputation, and now because there are so many of us that you can't post a gig without someone else lowering their price to beat you within a few hours. "I don't want to pay by the hour for the best work. I want to pay $85." (and sometimes because they only have $85) is exactly why most of them are here.

And it's only going to worse. I have turned down three briefs in the last three days because they were ongoing Startup Consulting to get some, shall we say less than well-thought out, business ideas off the ground, including initial structure and licensing, marketing help, bookkeeping setup, and in one case a website.  All three of them were $100. And the shame of it is, someone's going to take those briefs, maybe thinking once they're in it'll be different. The buyers understand, believe it. 😉 
 

Edited March 26 by cucinavivace

[cucinavivace]

WELL! Here's a development of note that happened literally two minutes ago. With no additional work or ratings, my SS just went from a 4 to a 5, which means I will not be demoted to a Level 0 starting March 28 (the date Fiverr gave me as a deadline to get my s*** together) as predicted based on no new business to change anything, but will maintain my current glorious demotion to Level 1 (unless the number magically changes again).

I hope for all of you that the unpredictable Fiverr Wizard mysteriously swings his wand your way by your deadline too (duck if you're in the front row).

 

[donnovan86]

1 hour ago, whildebrand said:

Interesting point you make and Fiverr support keeps making exactly that same point. 

What I meant is that Fiverr encourages customers to leave a review. You can't force someone to review you a certain way. The only thing that you can do is to try and do the best possible work. That's the only thing under your control as a seller. And of course, offer great customer support, etc. If a person has a great experience, they will most likely leave a great review. Or they just leave a private review, maybe no review at all. These things are outside of our control. 

1 hour ago, whildebrand said:

I appreciate that you want to explain how the system works, but the concern on this thread does not seem to be how the system works but why it works the way it does. Why is there such a bias towards buyers at the expense of sellers?

If buyers don't spend a cent on Fiverr, the platform and its seller would become useless. The problem is that the overall buyer experience on Fiverr was very bad, and I can concur myself... when I tried to buy something, everyone that has been here for at least half a year or a year has 5 stars and a level 2 badge. Or 4.9 stars at the latest. So as a buyer, you have to spend a LOT more time, trying to manually select people and read through most bad reviews to make a decision. I am not a fan of this new system either, but eventually I will get used to it, I've been here for over a decade at this point and they switched from Thumbs Up/Down to 5 stars, this is a simpler change when compared to that. 

1 hour ago, whildebrand said:

If the system only values freelancers that give away free services to make buyers happy, then the system is seriously flawed, unbalanced and biased in a very big way.

Realistically, that's a bad business practice and it will just lead to buyers always expecting way way more than what was paid. I don't offer any freebies and always stand my ground when it comes to pricing. I don't offer bulk deals or anything like that. I already offer affordable prices, if the buyer is not ok with that, then there are other options.

1 hour ago, whildebrand said:

It is the path that ultimately leads to workforce extortion and I really hope that this is not the goal of the leadership at Fiverr.

Well, we are not hired by Fiverr. We can easily sell on a wide range of platforms, we have no employer. That's the beauty of freelancing. I always encouraged people to try and create a presence on a multitude of freelancing sites, along with their own website. Because you never know what might pop off.

Freelancing sites are unstable, sometimes you have tons of work, other times not at all. So.. it never hurts to have a good presence on multiple sites. 

1 hour ago, whildebrand said:

"Just do your best and try to keep people happy. There's nothing else to do at this point."

Interesting point you make and Fiverr support keeps making exactly that same point. 

Overall, I think you misunderstood my point. As sellers, we don't have the power to force a buyer and ensure he leaves the review they want. We can however choose who we work with and limit any potential bad situations. There's Request to Order from Seller Plus that will stop people from ordering without contacting you first. Basically, what I meant is that there are always things out of control.

You don't know how a person will review you, or if they review you at all. I just stop thinking about stuff that I can't control. I just deliver the best work that I can for the price I promised. If someone is unhappy, I offer 3 revisions which are almost never used anyway. I rarely have people asking for more than a single revision, if any. Sure, there are bad trees in any forest and you can't always please everyone. But in general, if you deliver the best work you can and according to what was promised in the gig description, chances are very low that you will have a bad review. Unless of course, you are dealing with a punitive buyer. Which can happen, because we are working with people worldwide.