Gig ratings and percentages

[jkeith]

So I have a moderately successful gig on Fiverr, with 325 reviews received. Two of those are negative, which has knocked down my rating from 100% to 99%.



I wanted to bring this to the attention of Fiverr, so I wrote an email to customer support. To save me rewriting the whole story, here is the (abridged) version:



Me:



Hi Fiverr boys and girls. I have a problems that I’d like to bring to your attention. So, I have 324 positive reviews on my gig, and 2 negative reviews. By my maths, I should have a 100% rating - one negative review per 100 reviews = 99%, right?

But I don’t , I have a 99% rating. I understand that all this is no doubt automated, but I suggest that someone looks at your rating calculations and makes some modifications.

Thanks!

Fiverr CS:



Hi Jonathan,

Thank you for your message. If you calculate those ratings you have 324 (positive) /326 (total) = 99.39% Hope this helps.

Regards,

Me:



Many thanks for your reply.

I’ve been thinking about this, and I think that there’s a problem here where suppliers with a lot of completed jobs are penalised unfairly.

Here comes a bit of maths, so bear with me.

From your reply, it appears that ratings are calculated to two decimal places. So in my case, my rating is 323/325 x 100 = 99.38%. I assume that I would get my 100% rating back if the percentage goes over 99.51 and this then gets rounded up.

Now, let’s try a little thought experiment. Multiply those figures by 10, to get 3230 positive reviews out of 3250 reviewed jobs. The percentage is the same (99.38%) and so my rating stays at 99%.

However, (and here’s the problem), if my assumptions above are correct, then in my current situation, I need to get 80 positive reviews, and no negative reviews to get back to my 100% rating. If I was at the 3230 positive reviews out of 3250 situation, I’d need to get eight HUNDRED positive reviews with not a single negative review to get back to my 100% rating.

If that’s correct, it’s enormously unbalanced and makes it incredibly hard for busy sellers to get back to a 100% rating if you receive even a single negative review .

I’d love to know what you think about this.

FCS:



I understand, unfortunately, we cannot give out the details on how the system works. May I recommend try communicating with the buyer’s you received those negative feedbacks on to see if they would be okay to remove them.





So basically, as far as I can see, there’s a problem with the system. Yes, the method Fiverr uses is ONE way of calculating percentages, but because it’s not weighted in any way, sellers with a large number of reviews will - as I’ve hopefully illustrated - be unfairly penalised.



I’m not sure how I should proceed with taking this further, so I thought I’d throw this out here and see what you all thought.

Looking forward to reading your responses,



Jonathan

[bitbyteworld]

I am also on 99% rating



Got total reviews = 215

Negative = 3

Positive 212



So i guess i would need almost 392 more POSITIVE REVIEWS without getting any negative to achieve back to 100% rating.



THIS IS JUST INSANE!!!

[masterphotofixr]

If you have every done customer service in your life then you know that some people cannot be appeased no matter what you do… These people give negative reviews even if it was completely the their fault.



Maybe fiverr should implement some sort of “pardon” system. IE: a system where for every 100 to 150 positive reviews it will completely ignore 1 bad review in the percentage ratings. That way great sellers who do a great job are not penalized for that 1 out of a 100 bad buyer who gives them a negative review even though they went above and beyond.

[tarotkatya]

Reply to @masterphotofixr: Awesome idea!

[deannabalestra]

I stopped being so worried about the 100% reviews - it’s almost impossible to keep at 100% as people will leave negative now and then for no reason, by accident or to try to scam you into a refund. I am now below 100% and still getting orders every day, people can look and see why you have less than 100% and if you’re still above 95% I see no reason for a rational person not to still order from you since after using Fiverr for a bit they can easily see how people could get below 100% with no actual fault or due to a few late orders that could happen to anyone.

I guess my point it - don’t worry to much over a 99% rating. You can still get orders 🙂

[radesign]

As a buyer, I wouldn’t worry about 99%, no matter how Fiverr is doing the calculation. Take a look at Amazon reviews of products. Seldom do a large number of reviewers give 5 stars. What is important is the overall quality of work you do and how you handle the negative reviews. As others have said, you can’t satisfy everyone, but you can reply to those negative reviews in a very constructive and no-blame manner. Just keep up the good work.

[freelancemm]

I had 100% positive feedback for two years, recently someone gave me a bad feedback because of a typo that was in fact, not a typo but rather the word in general is used differently in another country so the spelling was slightly different. So for one word, I got a bad feedback. People are picky, so I wouldn’t try too hard to maintain 100%. I am surprised I did for as long as I did. Although I feel this is kind of an unjustified feedback considering it was just one word and it wasn’t even a typo, I just have to make due. I am hoping that due to the fact that the user reported me for stating my opinion honestly, that they start to realize that me as the seller are not in the wrong for this.



@deannabalestra From my experience and I believe most others, I don’t think people really look at the feedback very often. I think they see that you have had orders, and that your description is clear on what you offer. They look to see that you have what they want to buy, and go from there. I am just disappointed as I feel as though not having 100% feedback can effect your eligibility for TRS. TRS would be nice as then you can set higher pricing plans and get more on-page exposure. Ah well. I guess like you said, you can’t keep everyone happy. Even if you did nothing wrong.