Updating Fiverr's Inbox Messages - Share Your Thoughts

[adam_aviv]

Hi all,

We are working on some updates to the message inbox and would love to get your feedback on them.

To share your thoughts, please fill-in this short survey: http://■■■■■■/forms/3sko2fTMgb

Thanks,
Adam

Admin Note: Although shortened links are not usually allowed on the forums for security reasons, this survey has been posted by Fiverr staff and the link is guaranteed safe and allowed.

[misscrystal]

Hi Adam, I took a look at the survey.

I have a question about the survey so I will put the questions on it here:

To improve communication between buyers and sellers we are considering to display inbox messages as read, when:

• A conversation or order page was visited.
• An email about a message was opened.
• A conversation was actively marked as “read” from Inbox/conversation page.

This is true already for me. When I visit a conversation in my inbox, it turns a darker grey showing it has been read. It’s been working well for me this way.

I don’t think that displaying a message as read when we visit an order page would be a good idea as the order page is separate from the inbox messages.

When you say “an email about a message was opened” do you mean when we get an email and read it in our personal email, such as when fiverr sends us an email saying we have a new message? At this point we don’t get emails about messages.

So I didn’t answer the survey since I was confused by the choices.

[adam_a]

Hi,

To answer your questions, our intention was to display a “message read” status to the sender of the message. For example, when a buyer sends you a message, and you open it, the buyer will see an indication that you read the message. The same would be true for orders, so when you view a message within an existing order, the buyer will receive an indication that you have viewed the message.

The idea behind this is to encourage sellers to reply to buyers’ inquiries as soon as they receive a message. This can increase sales on your end.

Regarding email notifications, you may have disabled them in your subscription settings. You can find them under “Account Settings”. You can also try checking your Spam folder, or other filters you may have. If you still don’t get email notifications, please contact our Customer Support at: http://support.fiverr.com/

Best,
Adam

[misscrystal]

Speaking for myself I reply to a message as soon as I get it and the rare occasion when I don’t there is a good reason, such as I am busy working on an order, or need to do
something else first before answering and I can imagine a buyer becoming upset if they

see I read a message without responding. I don’t want upset buyers! I think the result would be a lot of hurt feelings or even anger when people see the message was read but no response came. I would also stop and think before reading messages to decide if I had enough time to respond to them immediately.

Often a buyer is asking about a sale in the past so I have to first go and find that sale and
see what they are asking about before I respond, and they may not like it if I said,
" I don’t remember that order so let me check on it and get back to you." They feel they have a personal connection to me and I should immediately know what they are talking about, which is not possible but they probably don’t realize that.

I get so many messages a day, and check in so many times a day, constantly, that the messages would overwhelm my email if I got one each time I got a message. So I do best without getting emails about them.

Thank you for clarifying what the survey is about.

I agree that replying immediately increases sales and also I find that sending a custom order immediately is often accepted. I try to stay online a lot at all hours of the day and night.

I would like a way to respond with a message automatically when one comes in with a time limit as to how long I can wait before I send a real answer.— 24 hours hopefully, and that automatic message can be one that includes an offer the inquirer can answer by clicking on a “BUY NOW” button to complete a sale as he waits on his answer. An automated chance to BUY a gig whenever someone asks a question 😃

I would like them to see my message:
“I am taking a short break right now but I can assure you a complete response as soon as I come back. In the meantime I can offer you a 20% discount on all extras if you place your order now. I will complete your order this evening and deliver it to you.”

Or, automatically show them all of my gigs in postage stamp thumbnails that are clickable whenever they send a message.

I really like hearing about
the ideas you are working on!

[eoinfinnegan]

I hate this idea, as I said in my survey response, I would check messages LESS often as I would want to avoid getting stuck with a chatty buyer while I am trying to complete something for a deadline. I check and respond to messages within an hour but if someone sees I have read their message and don’t respond for an hour they will not be happy.

[Anna]

I completely agree ;). This would just leave a bad first impression on a seller if he/she doesn’t have the time to reply right away.

[emmaki]

I am not going to bother with the survey, and I also don’t like this idea. What I would like Fiverr to look into is fixing this, which has been broken for ages.

http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z443/Emma_Rawson/well_zpsfpaskokj.png

The message system as it is right now is fine. I don’t need people seeing whether I’ve read their messages or not. Sometimes I don’t want to answer immediately for whatever reason and I don’t need 1001 “why don’t you answer?” queries spamming up my box.

Not all innovations are useful, and fixing broken innovations that people actively used and liked is a better use of dev time imo.

[misscrystal]

I agree that this one is needed greatly. When I get a sale I personalize the intro message and now have no idea if they are previous buyers or not. Thank you for your attention to this. Sorry to go off topic.

Adam it’s good to see you here. Sorry to bombard you with all this.

[rocks_design]

I also agree with emmaki… This system very helpful contacting with buyers. I think this issue needs to fix as soon as…

[catwriter]

Agreed! Sometimes I can’t respond to a message as soon as I read it, for whatever reason, and a lot of buyers would be upset if they saw that I’ve read their message but haven’t responded yet.

It would be the same as with the online status, when buyers complain that the seller was/is online but isn’t answering their question.

Perhaps displaying “message read” status could be optional?

[martami]

I also agree with emmaki and rocks_design.
It´s very necessary to be fixed ASAP

[dfortin1978]

I am quite new on Fiverr, but I agree that we should keep it simple and give us a chance to respond wheneven we can… I think the negative effects would quickly counter-balance the positive intentions of getting the “read” notification.

[dayne1234]

BAD idea. Sometimes as I seller, I can’t reply right away simply because I’m too busy. People (buyers) need to be patient. Showing the message as “read” does not help in this situation.

[caroldianne1409]

do not add this feature. it is going to upset buyers, turn off sellers – who will go elsewhere especially if they have a strong business and clientelle. while you use politically correct terms such as “encourage sellers”, it is a control mechanism to get us to act. Let the community run organically. fiverr isn’t doing the work…adding this feature is too much pressure on buyers and sellers. its going to backfire.

[maartenvs]

Yes that would be great if they could fix the history with buyers/sellers.

[maartenvs]

Survey taken, expected more questions.

Good luck with the inbox, curious to see what the outcome will be.

Regards,

Maarten

[destill]

The whole message system is too separate. You can reach someone one of three ways, send files three ways, and none of them seem to be aware of the other. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve missed business because someone sent me an inbox message instead of initiating contact through a gig. Top that off with a total gestapo text/type filter, and it’s a bit tedious, to say the very least. Would welcome any improvement. Thanks.

[martin_carignan]

Very bad idea. As a seller, I can easily receive 50+ messages a day, ranging from emergencies (people needing something in the next hour) to very long briefs for new long-term projects.

In order to maximize my time’s worth, I do scan all messages often, but not reply to them immediately, especially not in first-to-last order. Instead, I answer the ones with higher priority first, while leaving the rest for later.

You have to understand that work messages are not like whatsapp messages, where you can just reply with a smiley face and everybody is happy. Often times, a message requires us to download lots of attachments, understand large briefs, plan the project, estimate a cost, visit previous orders, browse through files, and much more.

I have a 100% response rate with a 4-5 hour average time and I still get nudgy buyers asking “hey, did you get my message?”, “any news?”, and so on. I imagine something like this would be 10 times worse, turning those messages into"hey, why did you ignore my message?"

If anything, this implementation will cause me to check my inbox LESS often and not be able to help those buyers in emergencies who are willing to pay for faster turnaround times or need their work revised in the next hour, with other buyers thinking I ignored them because I didn’t have the time to check their 30-page brief immediately.

TL;DR: Very bad idea.

M.

[martin_carignan]

Do you want to add this for new messages only (the ones to reply within 24 hours) or to ALL messages (even from previous buyers).

Either way, it’s a very bad idea (read my post below), but I just wanted to make sure what the intention was.

[ltm43055]

I’m with emmaki on this one. Fiverr it seems is alway rushing to innovate but failing to make what’s in use work right. Instead of listing to what people want, Fiverr seems hell bent on doing as it pleases which is why I can understand this “survey”. It’s nothing more than a misguided opinion hunt the results of which will most likely never be seriously considered. If Fiverr wants to make this feature a reality, they are going to do it regardless of what the members think. This is one reason I never respond to Fiverr’s followups about any support issues. I figure it’s my opportunity to ignore them the way they ignore me in nearly all communication channels. Lastly, It really pisses me off when I try to communicate with a seller and Fiverr is more worried about if I’m trying to make some “secret outside contact” with them rather than making sure I can upload mission critical attachments. I suppose all this is the price of free and I should not complain which is what I think is Fiverr’s base philosophy anyway

[palabara]

I Agree with all the replies. I don’t think, it’s a good idea either. Sometimes my messages are more elaborate and can’t write them right away, adding unneeded pressure only will cause unhappy buyers, and stress on sellers.

[steixeira]

Does this also work for buyers? If we send a buyer a message, can we see that they have read it?

[abhiraichura]

Agree with @misscrystal…

[kullupatel]

it would be great if we could get the search history option available 🙂

[mark74]

I completely agree!