You will regret not acting on this--that I promise

[emmaki]

Buyer or seller, we all have our issues with the platform. Payment issues, delivery issues, CS issues, whatever issues. Maybe you’ve even shared them here only to be met with “we can’t help, maybe CS can” responses.

Well, the promised land of Q&A at that event tonight didn’t happen due to reasons, but there’s another promise that in the next few days, the CEO and other top people will fly down to answer your questions.

Ask your difficult questions. Ask what’s being done. When it will be done. Don’t squander this on “why aren’t I getting any orders” or your personal issues with Fiverr (“buyer/seller xyz sucks!”) REAL questions. The ones we’ve all been moaning about as buyers and/or sellers collectively that affect us all (and if they don’t today, they may tomorrow).

Do as you wish, but now’s a great time to strike while the iron is hot. Will we get answers? That will be the most interesting part of all. That’s my challenge to you, and to the top brass who are more interested in bad sweaters, movember and fragglesrocking NYC parties (event, whatever) paraded as a Q&A event that never materialized. So, go and make our collective voices speak as one and maybe get heard for once. Click the link below, or continue to moan to people who can’t do a damn thing.

It’s not rocket science. Just click below and do it. I’ve kicked off with a whole bunch myself, so you can cherry pick if you’re feeling lazy.

LINK:
Fiverr Forum http://forum.fiverr.com//images/default-apple-touch-icon.png

#FiverrNYC Community Event on Dec 3 2015 - How You Can Participate

We are live in #FiverrNYC! Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman along with Super Sellers: customdrumloops, ozzieuk & twistedweb123, will all be participating in a live Q&A. Send us your questions: If you'd like to ask them questions, you can drop them...

[misscrystal]

I can see why they didn’t get to it if the focus was fun and publicity. Thousands of sellers asking the ever popular “how can I get more sales” like they do in this forum might have put a damper on it.

[amitkaria]

@emmaki Great way of marketing !!! Now i know why you are the best copy person out here !!!

[magy1808]

Thanks Emmaki, I didn t even notice it till I saw your post here.

[emmaki]

Well, that’s why I’ve explicitly said “don’t do that”. I doubt the CEO is going to be interested in those questions, but he might listen (he should…) if a whole bunch of sellers and buyers say “your platform is great because it helps us to work, but these issues are really making it suck sometimes, plz fix”

Besides, it’s always cringeworthy when corporations do fun and publicity and then ill-advisedly try to awkwardly turn it into a Q&A session.

“Look at all the fun we’re having! Yes, Julie from Sydney, Australia, Fiverr is indeed a great freelancing network, and we’re proud that you’re so thrilled to be on here!” just…no.

My bias is showing 😛

[misscrystal]

I think it was a good decision not to do it.

[emmaki]

A better decision not to do it at all. Might as well plug the gap.

[mrproofreading]

I remember meeting Micha in London at the Fiverr event.

Since then, a lot of the issues brought to his attention have been resolved. For example:

• mutual cancellations damaging ratings (no longer the case)
• lack of communication regarding site changes (new Q&A blogs)
• inconsistent support (introduction of new support features)
• the ‘notification’ system, especially when receiving messages after delivering an order (the ‘order updates’ feature)
• the ability to sell above and beyond $5 (the implementation of “gigs and beyond”)

Therefore, I’m pretty confident that he’ll listen to and be open to suggestions that can genuinely benefit the site.

[emmaki]

That’s encouraging! I know CEOs have a lot on their plate to deal with, but it’s always good when they listen and implement changes.

The actual Q&A thread isn’t very encouraging right now–that video really could have benefited from having, oh, I don’t know, a professional come in, capture key moments and edit it into something people would want to watch, ethan a cellphone video that’s almost 1 hour long! They could have even hired a Fiverr seller to do it then maxed out the bragging rights with a blog post about it in Fiverr success stories or something.

As it is, my inner marketer is cringing at how badly this whole thing was handled.

[twistedweb123]

Hey Em

There was actually professional video recording throughout the day and at the event but such options are not easily as available when it comes to live streaming. I believe Periscope was used to live stream the event for the first time so everyone could have a chance to actually see/be there with the professionally shot video coming at a future date when it has had the chance to be cleaned up and edited.

[emmaki]

That makes sense re: pro video recording.

Periscope is mentioned in the YouTube link so I guess you’re right there, but the whole issue here isn’t so much the corporate xmas office party, but more the promotion of it as some kind of “valuable” event (as in, ask the CEO questions and get responses).

There’s no value, yet. Just a bad video which could be a placeholder (one that nobody asked for…) until the official video is ready, and a Q&A session that simply never materialized in the form that was trailed for weeks before.

I didn’t watch the whole video (20 seconds at a push with a quick click to somewhere in the middle to see if it was all really just like that) and there was someone giving a speech.

Why, WHY, did whoever was in charge of this, not think to make the end of the speech the Q&A session with some selected questions–even better, any improvements soon to be introduced? Find a question (or plant one!) where FiverUser123 says “I don’t like the blah thing, it would be better if it was more like xyz” and then the CEO unveils it like he’s Steve Jobs, kicks the ball to the back of the net and the crowd goes wild.

I mean, this whole thing has been a riddled mess from day 1. Look at the Movember thing. I’ll be honest, I voted 5 times. Once for each category of moustache, and twice for the lampshade because I have no idea what it is. The poll was flawed! I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to skew the data more beyond that. But–and this is the best thing–it relied on images being posted every Friday when the image function wasn’t working right.

This is consistent. Don’t get me wrong, I like working with Fiverr for the most part, but they really, really need to start focusing on making the platform work better, and try not to drop so many goofballs–it makes Fiver look amateur, and at “$5 per job” being the perception of people who aren’t that familiar with it AND Fiverr’s desire to grow beyond that, this is something that needs to be treated seriously.

Take the CS issue–it’s understaffed, leading to dissatisfaction about response rates (while ironically many here feel chained to theirs) and in some cases, bitching on social media about it–that’s damaging, and an issue that needn’t be. How much did this shindig cost, and why weren’t those funds–as well as the pro video people–re-invested back into the platform? I’m all up for a corporate freebie bash if I’m attending, but not if it’s at the cost of neglecting platform improvements.

The training cost of new staff in CS isn’t that much–and nor should it take that long, especially when a common complaint is about cookie-cutter responses. A trained monkey could click the right check box. How many months and years have people complaiend about this to get some guff about training–only to discover its the same core and overworked team?

Another point–if that team is in Florida, I seem to think it is, were they at the party? They deserve a party in my book…I’m not calling them monkeys, by the way–their sheer workload indicates that cookie-cutter’s the most efficient way to fulfill their duty, which brings me back to the whole point of fixing the platform where it needs it.

I mean, who really wants to virtually watch a 1-hour video of people they don’t know having a party with a botched Q&A session? As magy said, the only videos of parties I watch are on my Facebook, and usually to see someone make a prat of themselves (not me though, guv…ahem)

It’s just bad management.

[emmaki]

I guess what I’m saying–and this is me reducing down the waffle above into a paragraph–is that Fiverr holds it sellers to meet lots of often pointless metrics, such as response rates, while not apparently holding itself to those same standards. That is annoying, not to mention hypocritical, when they skim 30% off each sale, with the 10% “value added” processing fee for buyers. Along with the recent injection of $60M, and the revamp of the analytics page (seriously, has anyone ever complained about that page or asked for an upgrade?), it’s time to focus on improving the user experience by listening to users and fixing the top complaints. And then unveiling them like a messianic technocrat. It’s ust common sense. I’ve I’m to give 20% of all my work here to Fiverr, fine–but make that 20% work for me and everyone else!

[twistedweb123]

To be honest there are a lot of assumptions in your issues which aren’t correct. As an example, yes there were staff members from florida at the party. But that ‘issue’ doesn’t make sense. You say the event shouldn’t be held at a cost to the platform but insisting every single employee should attend (such as the whole support office) would be at a cost as you would effectively shut down CS for that time period.

Live streaming isn’t generally about watching the whole event from start to finish. Its about checking in and having a look. The actual valuable content is captured by the pro recorders and edited into a piece I imagine which is released asap for the benefit of all

Take the Felix Baumgartner live stream of his space jump. Even in HD quality viewers didn’t sit and watch for the hours it was broadcast for, rather just jumping in and out at different times

As for the live Q&A, I do not know the details of that but I can say from my presentation standpoint everyone in the crowd was very eager to talk and socialise with each other, that convention may have made the live Q&A difficult if the audience were not fully engaged or desiring of it. In that scenario, it makes more sense to me to take the time to work on the sole Q&A aspect for future release to be enjoyed by everyone in the best possible way.

[twistedweb123]

Again, there are a lot of assumptions here and it seems if something is not your viewpoint then you believe everyone feels the same. Take the analytics page as an example. I have personally spoken and know of hundreds of sellers who ask for more and more detailed information regarding the orders they process and sales they make

[emmaki]

I didn’t insist that everybody from Florida should be at the party–that’s your assumption from your reading of what I said.

The live stream was a part of the whole participation thing, something that implies that people will be there for a period of time. The live Q&A was directly mentioned in the original post–ask questions and the CEO will answer them live appeared to be the whole point of that thread–something that never happened.

People being eager to talk and socialize a party means it was a good party, nothing more or nothing less.

EDIT: if the Q&A session was meant to be at a later date, why not just state that at the beginning instead of making it a “live session” with a promise of a live Q&A? It’s a minor point, perhaps, but if a business–or seller–says I will do x at y by z, you generally expect that to be fulfilled. If it’s not, then credibility is damaged. You can defend it up to a point, but that doesn’t change what’s actually happened–and a poor cellphone video as standby until the really nice, professional video is ready doesn’t change that. Sellers are expected to deliver on what they state in their gig description–Fiverr has failed that most basic task here.

“Order cancelled because seller failed to deliver on time!”

[emmaki]

I speak for myself only, not others. My point re: the analytics page is that there have been plenty of complaints about many aspects of Fiverr that need work–the analytics page, to the best of my knowledge, has not ever been a huge issue. It gives you some data and graphs. If it’s an improvement for sellers who need the detailed info, great–but “need more data” is a bit different to “can’t see my messages” or whatever.

The revenue page needs more work in my opinion–have you ever tried to check a specific gig through that? Nightmare. The CSV download is much easier, though, so I just use that and don’t complain–but imagine how much better the revenue page would be if it was easy to use as the file! Again–this is not urgent compared to some of the other issues. Fiverr needs to fix issues that need fixing, rather than tinkering with non-urgent issues that aren’t all that broken.

[emmaki]

I know this isn’t “your fault”, so please don’t take my responses as such! At the end of the day, this is just my opinion.

[misscrystal]

I liked being able to see the event and am looking forward to seeing the pro version.