My Success Score Complaint

[misscrystal]

I'm not one to complain BUT:

My feel good gig for basically happy people is rated a 9 on the success score and my gig that gets some clients who are in a bad place emotionally is the low scoring one.  That gig that scores 9 is my worst seller of my gigs.

However the low scoring gig is converting better than 71% of others in the category and has a click through rate of 96%.   My gigs have a repeat client rate of 60% and it is the LOW SUCCESS SCORE GIG THAT HAS THE REPEAT CLIENTS.    All my gigs are high dollar.  So to have that gig that is low rated be the big earning gig for the past eleven years be the one that I could pause, to increase my success score, seems to be truly a serious mistake somewhere in the system.

I will keep that low success score gig that has for so many years produced the bulk of my earnings  It clearly should be rewarded, not thrown into the dustbin, nor moved out of sight of buyers.  

[misscrystal]

Here is a screenshot of the metrics for my low success score gig:

[coerdelion]

Yep.  I have come to the conclusion that the new AI algorithm is stuck.  No one seems to be going up or down.

Fiverr tells us the success scores are "stable".  One wonders if this is their version of "stuck" ...

It's almost as if the algorithm would run better if shut off for most of any given month and only run occasionally - say ... the 15th of every month ... ?

 

[smartdezigns]

Honestly, we should not focus on success scores anymore because we are never gonna find out that how is it actually being measured. Let Fiverr play with it because they know better. It's become a strong headache now! Just keep the flow of orders/earning stable.. that's all!

I'm doing the same these days. Zero focus on success scores, More focus on keeping the order/earning flow.

[misscrystal]

A gig with over 1,200 reviews and only 3 of them are one star shouldn't be low rated.  I have to wonder at the private reviews because they don't reflect the succuss of the gig, the messages I get from happy clients, nor the amount of repeat orders I get on that gig.

 

[emmaki]

Is that you MissCrystal? Where have you been? 

I was wondering how Fiverr's recent changes had affected you and your overall category, especially since Fiverr's basically pushed it out of sight, out of mind (along with Fiverr Learn, which has also been removed from the Fiverr Affiliate program...)

Here is my average "performance" 

My conversion rate is a nice 0% at the moment because you know, I have RTO turned on, a SS 10, and the leads are.... not SS10 material. 

Mind you, if the SS is stuck, maybe I should take on someone? Might as well get paid for writing on Fiverr for once... 

2 hours ago, coerdelion said:

It's almost as if the algorithm would run better if shut off for most of any given month and only run occasionally - say ... the 15th of every month ... ?

That's an interesting theory and I think we should all be observing our successes and failures come May 14. Which reminds me, I should probably do at least 1 gig before then so I don't disappear as a badly underperforming seller. Oops, sorry, I meant one of Fiverr's best writers with all the badges, gongs, and knowledge and a SS of 10. 

We shouldn't complain too much. Whatever Fiverr cooks up next will invariably be even more.... interesting. 

[misscrystal]

Hi emmaki and coedelion, good to see you both again!

I'm now earning less than I did when I started on fiverr eleven years ago.  I do have repeat clients showing up still at least.

I've been a total workaholic at fiverr for all this time, putting in seven days a week every month and even answering inquiries from my hospital bed at one time, and feel bad about this crumbling of a once successful business.  

While it seems reasonable that fiverr wants an automated system to weed out the bad sellers, my successful track record here is being treated like a dismal failure. 

There unfortunately is such a thing as bad buyers on fiverr and I had two in the past year.

Of course an automated system isn't interested in the times like this when bad buyers come along.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 28 by misscrystal

[balticoakmedia]

On 4/27/2024 at 8:10 PM, smartdezigns said:

Honestly, we should not focus on success scores anymore because we are never gonna find out that how is it actually being measured. Let Fiverr play with it because they know better. It's become a strong headache now! Just keep the flow of orders/earning stable.. that's all!

I'm doing the same these days. Zero focus on success scores, More focus on keeping the order/earning flow.

But when the success score is what is impacting visibility and new orders, it's not enough to just go with the flow. 

I have 5.0 rating, no cancellations, no conflicts, no complaints etc. April has been my best month on Fiverr order and revenue-wise, with repeat business from some customers. And yet my success score went from 8 to 6. 

It says Communication and Customer Satisfaction are impacted negatively, but all of my customers are happy with me and I've not had any issues. I've contacted support twice and twice I got copy-paste replies from what's already on the website.I think that having this arbitrary system with no transparency is awful, especially since it does not reflect reality. 

I feel like Fiverr wants us to constantly bother customers with messages, but I get my tasks and requirements on day 1 and then deliver their order completed, the nature of my work is not one where I need to constantly send updates and follow up questions to clients and usually, I get the info I need from the documents and links they send me. 

I was also wondering if communicating with them in other languages affects this, but I'm multilingual and being able to communicate with my clients in their language should be a plus, not a minus. 

[smartdezigns]

5 minutes ago, balticoakmedia said:

But when the success score is what is impacting visibility and new orders, it's not enough to just go with the flow. 

I have 5.0 rating, no cancellations, no conflicts, no complaints etc. April has been my best month on Fiverr order and revenue-wise, with repeat business from some customers. And yet my success score went from 8 to 6. 

It says Communication and Customer Satisfaction are impacted negatively, but all of my customers are happy with me and I've not had any issues. I've contacted support twice and twice I got copy-paste replies from what's already on the website

Still you won't be able to figure everything out that how the success score is being measured. That's why I said no one should focus on it as we are never gonna find out the answer. Actually, it's the private reviews which is affecting everything even if you have 5* public reviews. 

My 2nd best selling has a 9 success score but Client Satisfaction: Negatively Impact. It does not make sense. Right? So I am not focusing on these things anymore. 

Why don't you discuss this issue with Fiverr Support (your success score dropped from 8 to 6). But they are gonna reply the same i.e. read the article on success score etc. 

[arafatcoco]

On 4/27/2024 at 11:56 PM, coerdelion said:

Yep.  I have come to the conclusion that the new AI algorithm is stuck.  No one seems to be going up or down.

Fiverr tells us the success scores are "stable".  One wonders if this is their version of "stuck" ...

It's almost as if the algorithm would run better if shut off for most of any given month and only run occasionally - say ... the 15th of every month ... ?

 

We want to know deeply about their algorithm.

[priyank_mod]

56 minutes ago, balticoakmedia said:

It says Communication and Customer Satisfaction are impacted negatively, but all of my customers are happy with me and I've not had any issues.

Answer to your puzzle is hidden in this single statement. 

Former part of the statement is the analytical score provided by the algorithm, on the basis of inputs it received from private review and tone/frequency of communication on your order page while latter part is just a hypothesis/assumption!! 

[damosull]

My success score recently dropped from 8 to 6 also.

Here are some thoughts I've had around some of the new ratings.

Effective Communication

If a Buyer is "ineffective" themselves at communication, I can see them viewing a conversation with a capable Seller as "ineffective".

I don't see how Fiverr can accurately & objectively rate a buyers 'communication'.

For example, someone with poor communication skills could see Seller A being poor at communicating, but a buyer with better communication skills themselves could see Seller B as more than capable. It's purely subjective.

The lack of transparency in terms of examples of these "bad behaviours" isn't great.

At the very least, we should be able to see objective examples of any "poor performance" in order to rectify it, rather than Fiverr hiding behind blog posts & "tips on how to improve", when we are seeing no hard evidence of such behaviour. 

If we were able to see these examples, we could quickly see that it is likely either a misunderstanding or an unhappy client with another agenda.

 

Client Satisfaction

What if a client is "unsatisfied" because they failed to clearly communicate their needs to me, & are therefore unhappy with the order.

1. The client fails to clearly communicate their requirement to me.

2. I deliver the order as described by the client.

3. As the client didn't describe the requirement clearly, they are 'unsatisfied' with the order.

In this example, I can easily see where a buyer would leave a negative review for the order. However, in this situation it is not an issue with the order. Instead, that is a communication issue on the clients side, not the buyers.

Usually, before working on an order, I list out the items that will be delivered to avoid any confusion & removing any chance of the client being unsatisfied. This helps as we can both easily see by looking at this list if what we have agreed has been delivered or not.

Similar to my first point, if I could see examples of where I have left clients "unsatisfied", I would easily be able to point back to the list that I agreed with the client & clearly show that I fully met their requirements. Instead, Fiverr hide behind these "tips".

 

I know friends who have left Fiverr for Upwork recently because of this change, & at this rate I can see myself & others following them.

[donnovan86]

1 hour ago, damosull said:

I know friends who have left Fiverr for Upwork recently because of this change, & at this rate I can see myself & others following them.

Well UWork is very different, you have to apply for projects and good luck getting one fast as a newcomer. Also, if you don't have enough connects, you have to pay for more, which does make Fiverr more appealing. I don't get why people want to close their Fiverr account or move from here, you can have an account on a multitude of platforms, and it's actually recommended for any freelancer.

[misscrystal]

Where do we see what is impacting our success score?  I've looked all over and see nothing that shows that. 

[emmaki]

You click on "go to level overview" on your dashboard, then click on the "success score" box, then click on the gig you want to know more about.

That is all the information you get. The rest is up for you to divine. Although tbf, you may be in a better place than the rest of us to do so!

[misscrystal]

Thank you emmaki my humorous friend!

I see one factor that hurt my gig was a buyer who swore that every one of my thousands of 5 star reviews were written by me, and told me that she reported that to CS. 

I found out by accident that they do have a very clever way to check for fake reviews.  I thought it was a new feature, until it disappeared, along with her account suddenly.  

 

 

[balticoakmedia]

On 4/29/2024 at 8:42 PM, priyank_mod said:

Answer to your puzzle is hidden in this single statement. 

Former part of the statement is the analytical score provided by the algorithm, on the basis of inputs it received from private review and tone/frequency of communication on your order page while latter part is just a hypothesis/assumption!! 

The thing is, the assumptions/hypothesis are also made by AI from a set of rules that are arbitrary, artificial and incomplete. It's as much a hypothesis/assumption as my own evaluation of my performance. I don't aim to write like AI and speak like AI. I have a personal communication style that my customers enjoy as I get many repeat orders. In fact 100% of my new clients in the last 2 months submitted repeat orders, some as many as 7 over the period. 

I've since also discovered that Fiverr's AI is discriminating towards people speaking in any language other than English. So not speaking to my customers in their native language lowers their satisfaction and makes their communication experience worse, but the AI-perceived quality of communication is better.

Getting judged by anonymous reviews would be bad enough if we could see them, but the fact that we can't even see anonymous information like ratings or comments is very inefficient - we're judged and executed without having an opportunity to face our charges or accusers, or improve ourselves. 

To be honest, I'd rather not see the success scores, because they're so frustrating and just let the algorithm do its work in the background like Instagram. 

A part of why I became a freelancer was to offer clients my insights, perspectives and a tone of professional communication that is different from script-driven, filler-padded and jargon-heavy corporate communication. So getting Fiverr to dictate what words I should use and how frequently I should message someone feels reductive when my own customer service and sales scripts work for me and my customers who are happy to give me more money and 5* reviews. 

[rabihumakhan]

On 4/30/2024 at 2:53 AM, donnovan86 said:

Well UWork is very different, you have to apply for projects and good luck getting one fast as a newcomer. Also, if you don't have enough connects, you have to pay for more, which does make Fiverr more appealing. I don't get why people want to close their Fiverr account or move from here, you can have an account on a multitude of platforms, and it's actually recommended for any freelancer.

True. I do have my accounts on both platforms. Using and buying connects is an issue but after when you're established, you don't need them. I rarely (read almost never) apply to any job being posted on upwork yet clients reach out to me through my project catalogs or using direct message option (inbox). In addition, most of my clients on upwork are large companies and pay me almost 5x on a project of what I could've earned on Fiverr. 

 

[donnovan86]

1 hour ago, rabihumakhan said:

In addition, most of my clients on upwork are large companies and pay me almost 5x on a project of what I could've earned on Fiverr. 

I mean, you set the prices, but I assume companies with larger projects tend to choose UW sometimes. I say sometimes because there are times when they go with Fiverr.

[filipdevaere]

9 hours ago, balticoakmedia said:

I've since also discovered that Fiverr's AI is discriminating towards people speaking in any language other than English.

90% (or more) of my communication is done in Dutch. Can you prove this?

[donnovan86]

2 hours ago, filipdevaere said:

90% (or more) of my communication is done in Dutch. Can you prove this?

I am pretty sure that's not the case. There's a lot of business done in other languages here, so it would be counter-intuitive (if not stupid) to penalize people that write in other languages. I wrote in Romanian and Spanish sometimes, I don't really see any penalties coming from that, so I am pretty sure that is not the case.