Unresponsive buyer. What do I do now?

[hinni_services]

I have my first buyer of an ESL gig.  The buyer agreed to a plan in which we would need to interact in the following manner:  I would send some exercises, the buyer would do them and let me know when they were done (either sending them back or requesting the answer key).  I would send more exercises, and the buyer again would respond when complete.  At any time, the buyer could request a meeting to discuss any confusion or questions.  The first thing I sent was a way to analyze the English abilities of the buyer.  I sent it via Fiverr messaging.  The buyer never responded, so I requested and received (by default) an extension before my time ran out.  I have messaged the buyer several times, but have still not heard from the buyer.

Question 1:  Did I do something wrong?  Should I use the "Deliver" button for such an interchange instead of Fiverr Message?

Question 2: If I am ok in the way I sent the first exercise, what else can I do?

Question 3: How much will requesting more time (once now, maybe a second time soon) affect my ranking?

[hinni_services]

I can answer my first and 2nd question.  The "Deliver Now" button could (and probably should) have been used to send the first part.  After sending all the exercises and an explanation, the button gave me the option to deliver another.  The buyer now has 3 days to respond.  We'll see what happens.

[creative_howl]

I'm sorry to hear that you had to go through this on your first order. Since you mentioned "exercises", I'm guessing they either ordered the special or premium tier. The good news is that you have selected 30 day delivery, which gives you plenty of time to resolve this. 

I faced an unresponsive client few weeks ago, and it turned out that she had Covid and couldn't get herself online. So I'm sure the lack of response has nothing to do with you or your conduct. And it's quite common for clients to be unresponsive from time to time since we collaborate online and they might forget that they have bought something on Fiverr.

I would contact Fiverr customer service and let them know about this situation (assuming the client had gone dark for more than a couple of days), and ask for advice on how to handle this without affecting your account stats ("rankings" as you mentioned above).

Additionally, I suggest that you offer your services exclusively via "meetings" and use your exercises as an extra where they can do it if they want and get back to you for feedback. At that point, the order would be completed and "delivered" so there's no pressure for you to go after them. 

As soon as the meeting is done, you can deliver the order with a customized document (like a PDF) highlighting what you and the client went through during the session.

I say this because I feel like it's gonna be difficult for you to handle multiple orders in the future if you go with this 30 day thing while communicating with your clients via text. 

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Tier 01: Single 1 hour session [3-7 Days Delivery] - You can even use this tier as an initiation tier where you can either send them your exercises to evaluate them without a "meeting".

Tier 02: Two 1 hour sessions [15 Day Delivery] - Once per week for 2 weeks

Tier 03: Four 1 hour sessions [30 Day Delivery] - Once per week for 4 weeks

Obviously, I have very limited knowledge of what you actually do, so feel free to come up with your own way of doing this. Try to optimize your service tiers actively as best as you can to avoid situations like this in the future.

Good luck!