Effective Communication: Success Score lowering after implementing Fiverr recommended best practices.

[voicingthings]

I'm becoming increasingly concerned that as I implement more of Fiverr's best practices, mainly relating to Effective Communication, this particular metric or element is appearing as "room for growth" or "negative impact" on more and more of my gigs. 

Is anybody else finding that "Effective Communication" is having a growing  negative impact on your gigs as you continue to implement Fiverr's tips and recommendations? 

I feel the excuse will be that it is comparative to others within your category. But if that's the case: "What is my category?" and "Can I see an example of exceptional communication, please?" 

There are so many other issues and questions I have relating to this, but wanted to keep this concise...for effective communication and all that 😉 Hoping to hear other people's thoughts and experiences.

Cheers,

VT

Edited June 30 by voicingthings
Typo

[rawque_gulia]

16 minutes ago, voicingthings said:

Effective Communication, this particular metric or element is appearing as "room for growth" or "negative impact" on more and more of my gigs. 

Be communicative and professional with buyers and write lengthy messages explaining every aspect of the order. I am not really sure in what way you communicate and write your messages -- but most sellers just say "thanks for the order" (after order placement) and "here's your delivery" (at the time of delivery). Instead of these small phrases, write some lengthy paragraphs explaining every aspect and educating buyers at every stage.

For example:

1. After order placement: Let your buyers know when you will start working on the order and when they can expect the first update. Also, let them know to ask questions or contact you if they have any queries.

2. During the order stage: Make sure to be communicative and send regular updates. If not daily, at least an update or follow-up every 3 or 4 days. Even if you have not started the work, let buyers know that the work has not been started yet due to "x" reasons and when they can expect the next update.

3. At the time of delivery: Write lengthy paragraphs explaining the work that you have done and what files are included in the zip file. Also, educate them about revision policies and inform them that they have "x" revisions and can ask for changes.

"Effective communication" is not just about writing with correct grammar -- instead, it's "how" you're communicating with your buyers.

[voicingthings]

Thanks for responding and sharing that! Those are awesome suggestions. And I have very similar templates based on this too. 

I thought it was starting to make a dent on one of my gigs as "room for growth" disappeared for a while on "Effective Communication" but after a few really positive orders, and really going to town with the sort of communication you gave an example of there, "room for growth" reappeared. 

For me, I feel almost stupid doing the extensive communication on a small $10 where somebody has clearly just punted it in, wanting it done quickly and not wanting to have to reply "Thanks for the update" every time I essentially annoy them with a sample, or an option, or a tiny little update, etc. 

But I agree with you in that the examples you gave there are probably sellers' best shot at trying to improve the "Effective Communication" element. 

And I think you've nailed it with the "how" too! 

Edited June 29 by voicingthings

[melissaharlowvo]

@voicingthings as I was reading the suggested ways to communicate, it  also seemed like a Chatbot wrote the responses. They felt canned and fake to me. It’s the kind of responses you get when you try to chat with a cell phone company lol!
 

One of my buyers just described me in her review as sweet and quirky. My husband said, “yes that’s exactly you!” So if all of a sudden I start changing my communication style, my repeat customers would know something is up and maybe I am becoming lazy with a cut and paste method of communicating. 
 

I was under the impression that your personal style was learned by the new AI tool so you had nothing to worry about unless you were a negative person and your communication style was snarky and insulting!  
 

@voicingthings Could this be what’s happening? Maybe you are changing your natural wonderful style and trying to be something your not and thats why your communication score is being negativity affected? 
 

One of my gigs literally has 100% 5 stars and 90% are from one buyer who buys from me every week since 2018!! So why is my Communication negatively affected?? Who knows!? Maybe a few times I expressed some personal issues or connected back and forth about family or troubles. But we have formed a bond over the years and it’s very appropriate to communicate on a deeper level while still being professional and respecting boundaries. 
 

I personally would love to know how to fix those issues. If it was something I said or didn’t say, I would surely never do that again! But you just don’t know so it makes it  VERY challenging to fix a problem. 
 

So, perhaps Fiverr will sort this all out. I do believe it weeds out the snarky and negative people but you don’t want us all to be robots right? 
 

I want to stay sweet and quirky! That was a great compliment to me. 

[voicingthings]

You could be on to something here! And yeah, I couldn't agree more about the suggested way to communicate. I said to my success manager at our last meeting, we're all going to end up talking to each other's AIs. I get my AI to generate a response and then the other person generates their own AI's response. It all feels so robotic.

I totally agree that a lot of my buyers too liked the sort of personal touch. And yeah I would sometimes chat about myself or everyday life if the buyer brought that into the conversation too. 

I think you nailed it when you said "you just don't know how to fix it". We're being asked to play within rules and they just don't make any sense at all. 

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. And I agree! I'd rather speak to somebody sweet and quirky, than somebody who is "customer servicey" and "robotic". 

[collinsconsult]

I'm currently facing this issue as my Success Score has dropped by 2 points because of "Effective Communication" showing "Negative Impact". 

I thoroughly read this section on the success score guide. 

Can it be "conversion rate" is a factor? Like your communication isn't effective if it's not leading to new orders. Because I haven't converted a lot this week. 

Or maybe communication is only effective when it goes to solve the client's worries. But sometimes, there are contacts you are not able to handle their requests. Maybe because it's not part of your services or not in line with Fiverr's TOS. So do you get punished for turning them down since your communication couldn't lead to sales, indirectly not being effective?

Or does numerous revisions indicate your communication isn't effective since the information you're sending isn't helping the client?

Is effective communication all about writing lengthy texts as someone mentioned above?

 

 

[voicingthings]

Thanks for joining the chat! Sorry to hear your success score is dropping. 

I think you make some great points and they are all possibilities. From what I can tell from speaking to my Success Manager about it and from her research into it all is....nobody seems to know. There is basically some entity that is controlling it all and anybody that I've spoken to at Fiverr doesn't seem to know what is happening. 

Agreed that this "Fiverr God" could be looking at how efficient the communication is as opposed to the "amount" of communication. I think you're totally right with that one!

One interesting thing that happened through my Success Manager having a direct look at two of my latest orders was she said my communication was "absolutely on point". She made one small suggestion about maybe sending one more message to chase up an unresponsive buyer but she admitted that even that might have been a bit nit-picky. Either way, does something that somebody from Fiverr deems as being "absolutely on point" warrant a score of 4 and a "negative impact" rating? Surely it should be a "positive impact" or at worst just neutral. 

It's all just a bit bizarre.

I hope you manage to find out more and get your score back up. It's scary that an update can come in like this and destroy so many people and for their to be no answer to the issues. 

[collinsconsult]

Thanks so much. It's so sad! 

[Kesha]

Hi there!

In addition to the insights from your peers, I wanted to share this great resource that may help you improve in that area.

It is our communication hub, which contains lots of detailed information and templates to help you level up your communication. You can check it out here.

[alessio90]

Templates? Really? Please.

[Kesha]

13 hours ago, alessio90 said:

Templates? Really? Please.

Yes, you can find a whole bunch of them here.