Do something about sellers soliciting buyers to give 5-star ratings only

[jurriaanroelofs]

In the logo design category I noticed a lot of sellers are begging to get 5 star ratings and even warning about not giving less than 5 stars in more than 2 sub-ratings.

I tried 5 gigs in this category and a few of them produced very disappointing results. Obviously it is a problem when sellers use their persuasion skills to inflate their average ratings. It seems to me like sellers in some competitive categories are unfairly managing to get high average ratings based on their persuasion skills, not the quality of their work.



I had one seller even trying to bribe me with free gig extras after giving him an honest review of 5/4/3 stars.

A lot of this solicitation is happening on gig descriptions, meaning that fiverr can easily do something about this, I think this is an important issues to buyers and honest sellers.



I also understand that fiverr is very strict with their seller levers and ratings management but the right way to handle this as a seller is to sell in the niche that best suits you. Logo creators are already doing this by specialising in 2/3/retro/negative space etc. niche logos.

[misscrystal]

It is about being totally unprofessional. I also like you have noticed gig descriptions that say “free gig in exchange for 5 star rating”. If they need to bribe people to leave a 5 star review I don’t want a free gig anyway, it is likely to be bad.

[belengarcia]

kjblynx said: • Seller delivers horrible or stolen work and/or fails to communicate, and begs for top rating.

1. Request a cancellation to get a refund, delete their work from my computer, and move on to someone else.

OR

2. Request modification in hopes for better work. If they improve greatly I'd leave at least a 3 star rating and a review detailing the experience. If they don't improve I'd leave less than 3 stars and write out the experience in the review.

For me that would be a clear 1-star rating (when not refunded). I may be indulgent when somebody has good intentions. But bribing or stealing other’s work clearly shows bad intentions and I wouldn’t accept any kind of modification. In my opinion, a seller that does that, should be immediately banned from Fiverr.

[jurriaanroelofs]

It is very simple:
bad work: give 1-3 stars
Ok work: giver 4 stars
good/great work: 5 stars

if people use the stars differently, the stars will loose their meaning and the fiverr system will be less valuable to everyone.

The practice of sellers influencing buyers’ star ratings in their ads, private messages, and with bribes should all be banned to keep fiverr in good shape.

[startselect]

One thing is to bribe buyers and another is to learn to protect yourself as a Fiverr seller.
When I deliver a job, I tell my clients to never hesitate to ask for revisions because I will make sure that I deserve a 5 star rating from them. If they feel I do not deserve a good rating, then I feel I have not earned their purchase and I refund them. I can use this method because I deliver quality, but obviously sellers with poor quality in their deliveries would go broke if they offered refunds for people who are not satisfied.

I’ve only had a few situations when people have not been satisfied. I have delivered thousands of orders with plenty of great reviews on all my gigs and I deliver quality work, but some people give you 4 stars for delivering what they even claim is an “excellent job” and enough 4 stars will eventually lower your rating to a 99, 98, etc.

I have actually let some 4.0 stars simply be part of my reviews and even a couple of 3.0 star ratings. When the customer believes the work has not been good enough and I acknowledge not having done a job that I find optimal, I won’t even press on the matter. One time for example I gave a person an article that had nothing to do with what they requested because I misunderstood their instructions. Then when I noticed that it was my mistake, I tried to provide a revision which was not accepted because the order was express and the guy needed it fast. In that case I had no choice but to take the hit.

One guy once told me “I never give more than 4 stars even if the work is superb”. This reminds me of how meaningless the rating system can be to some buyers and how little they seem to know the impact it has on our business. If someone delivers crap and they don’t even bother with a revision and a refund, you would have every right to feel cheated, so in your case I do believe this is correct.

I would also like to note that Customer Service at Fiverr as always been very helpful and fair when I get a customer who tries to bribe me by giving me a 3 or 2 star review, even when the work has been delivered in time and it has been done properly and as advertised. Abuse and bribery go both ways. Fortunately CS has always been quiet fair with that.

I guess I just wanted to clarify that because there is a huge difference between bribing for 5 stars and making sure the client will understand the importance of the rating system here.

[misscrystal]

When you have years of nothing but 5 star reviews and then suddenly a 4.5 or 4 star one, you know it’s not you, it’s them.

[startselect]

Yeah, it’s quite obvious that people who provide bad quality and try to bribe for 5 stars are never going to survive in this market, mainly because they will spend 80% of their time trying to talk most of their customers into giving them a decent score.