smashradio

It's anti buyer, but also anti-professional. Great sellers who manage to avoid cancellations for late deliveries or for leaving their buyers in the lurch would have benefited from this change. Subpar sellers would have faced even stiffer competition from genuine professionals. It all comes down to us sharing space with amateurs. By reverting its decision, Fiverr is effectively fostering mediocrity. A solution would be to never show those sellers to potential buyers in the first place. Tank their gig quality rate and get them off the platform. Problem solved. Yes, but then again, you do work in the extreme value-end of Fiverr with 5 - 10USD-gigs. In my experience, both sellers and buyers in that section of the marketplace will be less professional (not to put your work into question, but that's just my experience, generally speaking). -- Displaying the cancellation rate on a user's profile seems reasonable at first glance. But if you think about it, Fiverr shouldn't highlight why their sellers are bad. Instead, Fiverr should focus on only promoting great sellers. Smashing (pardon the pun) up a badge screaming "This buyer cancels a lot of orders" makes no sense from a marketing standpoint. Hiding that seller entirely makes much more sense, if those cancellations came from being consistently late, trying to sanitize reviews, or leaving their buyers hanging, which was the original idea behind the review change, to begin with. Personally, I think a much better solution is a similar one to how the misuse of the delivery button or low gig quality is measured via the revision button, asking the buyer why they needed a revision.

The few people dumb enough to do that are already doing it. But I don't think there are many of them since it requires giving Fiverr money. It would still do that under the suggested changes since people get refunds as Fiverr credits. Given the number of sellers in the most popular categories where this might happen, it's not a feasible model for scammers/fraudsters to win the Fiverr game, especially not in the long term, given Fiverr's increased focus on quality.

That is exactly my thought as well. It will most likely be implemented quietly as a gig quality metric, just like they did with revisions for poor quality or partial deliveries. Do you remember all the frustrated sellers who came to the forum complaining that their gig was flagged for poor quality a while back? Keep an eye out for something like that, and we'll know.

First of all, sorry for the short response to your long and (as always) thoughtful post. But I think the solution to this problem can be simple: create a forum exclusively for Fiverr Business and Fiverr Select buyers. Invite them to join the forum. Then, get some of Fiverr's top sellers and contributors together. Talk to us about the option to join this forum to help buyers. Make it clear that it's not meant for sellers to post anything related to selling. If someone doesn't follow the rule: kick'em out.

You'd think so at first glance. But if a project called for another male VO besides me, it would also be unfair to refuse me the right to leave feedback on a product I spent real money on. I've considered this a risk myself, and sure, the risk is there, but so is the risk of competing businesses doing it in the real world. If there's a pattern of fraud involved over time, I'm pretty sure Fiverr could identify that. And let's not forget that a review from me to another male VO, could also be considered an expert opinion, potentially benefiting future buyers (and the seller themselves, if they do a good job). If there's something I might dislike, I can also provide constructive criticism that helps them improve in the future. My main argument still stands, though: As soon as I buy something, I'm a customer, regardless of whether I also happen to be a seller. Every paying customer should have the right to express their opinion about a service. Yep. ^ This. I don't think so, at least not in its current form. The backlash was too strong from people who were afraid of others expressing their opinion openly. If they return with a... less potent version of this, sellers will still be unhappy because they're always unhappy about something. This was the fad of the week. Personally, I think they just want us to forget this ever happened and silently introduce bigger changes over time. Perhaps they'll just introduce a feedback form asking the buyer privately about why they had to cancel the order, with certain alternatives counting towards your gig quality metrics, as they did with revision requests. Get too many "partial delivery" or "low-quality deliveries," and you're flagged by the system. It would still be way more expensive to pay for taking down your competition, both in terms of money and time, than it would be actually to do a good job. People with little to no talent can't afford it, and the truly talented sellers don't need to do it. I don't think this is or will be a huge concern.

Well... Yes. I'm a voice actor and translator. I often engage in projects that need other talents alongside my own. Let's say I commission a female voice-over for a client's commercial I'm producing. If the delivery is terrible, I should be able to voice my experience—after all, my money holds the same value as anyone else's. I commonly handle localization projects for clients in various languages in my translation projects. The same principle applies here. If I'm supervising a translation project from English into Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Spanish, working with three different translators, why shouldn't I have the right to leave feedback? What if the work is excellent and warrants positive feedback? I've previously elevated a seller's review count from 20 to over 50, all positive, because they consistently deliver top-notch work and are a pleasure to work with. So, shouldn't I have the same opportunity to do this, despite also being a translator? It's against the community guidelines and terms to leave feedback with the goal of manipulating ratings already. That rule promotes "fairness". Refusing to take my reviews just because I'm also a seller doesn't.

Given the significant backlash from sellers, this reaction wasn't a surprise. I found myself in the minority, probably one of just two, including @newsmike, who didn't see this as a negative move. But if I were at the helm of Fiverr, I'd certainly revisit this decision. What caught me off guard about this update was the lack of consultation with veteran sellers before its implementation. As far as I know (and I might be wrong), none of us were brought into the conversation before you chose to roll it out. Though my view wouldn't have been any different, I believe a lot of discontents could have been avoided by seeking feedback prior to its public release. Over the past few years, the staff has done a commendable job taking veteran sellers' insights into account before launching and during development of new projects. Perhaps you did and asked participants to keep quiet about it, but I'm skeptical. If you had, you would have a lot of this feedback prior to going live with the idea, avoiding pissing off so many sellers in one go. Just an idea... 😄

This goes hand in hand with not being honest about your skills...

Yes indeed. GPT was just the thing this forum needed to become worse. I didn't think it was possible. 🤖

Nothing has changed. The forum is still full of "rank my gig" and "going down day by day." Sorry to disappoint!

P.S. I highly recommend not lying about your English skills on your profile. Fluent English speakers will see right through it, and it doesn't make for a good first impression 😉

Hmm - how strange. I checked now and couldn't see your gigs when filtering for sellers in Algeria, either. Have you checked your statistics page to see if you've gotten any impressions lately? If you're still getting impressions, your gigs are rotating in search, and it could indicate a bug or delay when using that specific filter.

As long as your gigs are active, they may appear in search. Keep in mind that thousands of other gigs are competing for the space. Your placement and visibility on Fiverr depend on your performance (measured by your buyer satisfaction rate or BSR, public reviews, earnings, and other stats), plus how relevant Fiverr thinks your gig is to each buyer searching. Your buyer satisfaction rate is based on, amongst other things, the private feedback buyers give to Fiverr after completing an order. Remember that this feedback might differ considerably from the public reviews you get. To get positive feedback, it's crucial that you communicate with your buyers, keep them updated, make sure you understand their project entirely before getting started, and that you're always friendly and polite. Delivering on time is also essential, and it helps to under-promise and over-deliver. Contacting support won't change your placement in search: only your performance can do that. Remember that the performance of your competition also matters: if someone is performing better than you, they will gain more visibility than you. I hope this helps!

You can read on the forum and do some research of your own, before you post the same question thousands of other users have posted before you. Best of luck!

I see where you're coming from, and I agree that communicating with your buyer before delivery is important, especially if you're in doubt about what they want. But the seller might have really thought they'd done a great job. Perhaps your instructions could have been better. As @visualstudios said, it could be many different things leading up to it. Many sellers think too highly of their own skills, and frankly, those sellers probably shouldn't be allowed to stay on the platform, so I'm all in favor of using private reviews to weed the garden. But... As a buyer, it's up to us to let the seller know if something's not right before accepting the order. As a seller, I reach out to my client and ask for their feedback if I'm in doubt. I'd like to think that my buyers would do me the same honor. But honestly, I'm not going to run every single thing by them before delivering. That would make my job too dependent on getting their feedback in time. The order clock is always ticking, and I can't waste hours waiting for a response before delivering. If they want changes, there's a button for that. Leaving a bad review should be the last option, only if you feel like the whole thing's been a flop. It's not cool to deliver something half-done, but again, maybe the seller got a little too confident. Maybe they needed that feedback and didn't get it, because you decided to go with an immediate negative review. If it was me, I'd request a cancellation if I felt like the order didn't go in the direction I needed. If the seller refused, I'd leave that feedback and a public review explaining why.

Unfortunately not. I've had the same problem. When it happens, all you can do is report them for spam. We're all hoping that Fiverr will do something about this spam. It's very annoying.

Sure, there are a bunch of scammers hailing from specific countries, but slamming the Fiverr door shut on them—or anyone else, for that matter—isn't gonna solve a thing. First off, these scammers know how to use VPNs. I keep getting the same old scams from users supposedly in France, the Netherlands, the US, you name it, but their messages scream repeat offender. Geo-blocking isn't gonna fix that for us. Then there's the ethical can of worms. Are we really going to judge people based on their nationality or ethnicity because of a few rotten apples? If we go down that road, we'd end up restricting sellers from all over the place, since a lot of folks from certain countries aren't exactly upholding the gold standard of quality, yet they might also have some of the best-selling top people in the industry from that same country. Where would it end? It's a slippery slope. Which was due to international sanctions because of the war. A very different type of situation. Does Fiverr require a user to verify their cell number when making a buyer account? If not, they should do that. It might stop some of the scammers and spammers from making multiple accounts, or at the very least, make it more difficult for them. By the way @mohsin222507 - I receive humongous amounts of spam from new sellers who want me to give them work. Most of them come from another certain country. Should we close the door on that country as well? It begins with B. (Answer: Of course not.)

While I certainly agree that maintaining a good response rate is essential, and with your conclusion to grab that teddy bear and get some shuteye, I don't think you need to wake up at night to respond to buyers. But before I go into why I think you can enjoy uninterrupted sleep while being successful on Fiverr (I've done it for nine years), you don't need to bother with your phone's clipboard to make the above tip work if you're insistent on being woken up every time a buyer wants something from you at 3 a.m in the morning. Fiverr has a great feature called Quick Responses. It's premade message templates you can send with a click. Just wanted to mention that because they're truly a powerful and time-saving feature, even if you're like me and refuse to get up in the middle of the night because a client feels entitled to a response 24/7. Back to why I think you can enjoy your deep and dreamless slumber. Your response rate (not time, but rate) is based on how many messages you've responded to within 24 hours of receiving them for the past 60 days. So unless you're asleep for more than 24 hours in one go (and if so, how?!), you should be able to maintain a 100% response rate without waking up at night. Your response time stat is based on your average response time for the past 60 days. Mine is consistently at 1 - 2 hours (mostly 1-hour average), even though I don't respond to buyer messages after work hours. That's because I'm always very fast at responding during work hours. When a buyer tries to contact you at night (your night), they will get a notification about it being nighttime where you're at, informing the buyer that getting a response might take some time. Now, I've seen arguments about being affected because of time zones before (i.e., it's night where you are when it's day where your buyers are), and yes, that can certainly affect your response time. If that's the case, you can consider just using an autoreply (an automatic one) to let the buyer know you'll be back during local business hours. It doesn't do anything to your rate or time, as the OP mentions, but it can help retain a buyer. If the buyer expects you to wake up in the middle of the night to get to them, they have no respect for your time, and I would avoid working with them. But hey - if you don't mind being interrupted at night, go for it. There are studies (like this one, published in the scientific journal Sleep) that show interrupted sleep to be even worse than too little sleep. According to the study, people whose sleep was frequently interrupted for three consecutive nights reported significantly worse moods than those with less sleep due to later bedtimes. Interrupted or fragmented sleep can also contribute to insomnia, sleep deprivation, daytime sleepiness, and other potential consequences. Interrupted sleep can also change the composition of our natural microbiota, decreasing beneficial bacteria and increasing bacteria associated with disease, according to Sleepdoctor.com. Personally, I prefer to be well-rested, alert, and at my best while working. I approach running my business a bit like Jeff Bezos (I only wish I was as rich as him, too!), and here's what he had to say about sleep: If you ask me, the man makes sense.

I'm guessing you didn't think you could just make an account, slap together a gig, and then sit back as customers stampede toward your order button. In light of that, could you tell us more about what you have been doing to achieve success? What's your business plan? Do you offer a unique value proposition? There are 16,242 other SEO sellers on Fiverr. What've you done to separate yourself from the crowd? Is your offering unique or better than the best sellers in your category? If not, how do you expect to succeed?

I totally get it. Getting a scripted response can make you feel undervalued and ignored, and I certainly don't condone the practice. That said, I understand why it happens, and that getting worked up over it (at least visibly so) won't help much. Letting support know in a friendly manner that you don't appreciate a canned auto-response is totally ok, though. The person on the other end has probably dealt with bad support themselves at some point and they should understand your frustration over this. I've found that being humble often works better. After all, I'm looking for a solution. If I wanted to vent, I'd have booked an appointment with a therapist. But it's only a couple of weeks ago that I took the snarky approach myself. This is as much a note to self as it is a tip for others. I apologized for it and made sure to let the individual know they were undeserving of my sour tone, and that my anger was misdirected. Being on the other end of a support pipeline can be really tough. You're constantly dealing with negativity. If I can make their day just a bit better, I think that kindness is repaid more often than not.

After nine years on Fiverr, I've had my share of support tickets. And while the experience hasn't always been good (more on that later), most of them have solved my problems quickly. This was true when I was a new seller, a level 1, a level 2, and a TRS/Pro seller, so it's not just a tip for those with prioritized support. Here are some tips to get more and better support from Fiverr when you need it: Be polite and friendly You'd be surprised by what a "Thank you for looking into this" and "I hope you're doing well" can do to the outcome of any case. Just think about how you, as a seller, are more likely to be extra helpful to a buyer if they're polite, friendly, and professional in their communication. Then think about how you feel when a buyer does the opposite and treats you to a snarky tone. You're more likely to want a quick solution and get them off your dashboard. Even though the support representatives are trained professionals, they're still human. I'm a trained professional and admit I've felt like this more than once. I always stop myself at that moment and remind myself of the three Ps: Professionalism, patience, and a people-first attitude, but you can't expect someone to want to help you if you mistreat them. Explain your problem thoroughly If you've ever had a buyer giving you vague requirements, you know how the support representative feels when they have to solve a problem without having all the necessary details. It's annoying and completely unnecessary. Take your time to write a support ticket. Ensure you include all relevant information in your initial ticket, including any relevant order numbers, usernames, screenshots of conversations, etc. If you're contacting them about something not working correctly, including where it happened, when, and what you did. It will help support to replicate the problem and understand your situation better. It also helps to include things like which browser you used, operating system/device, and if you're using any browser addons like adblockers, etc. Make sure they can understand you Use simple and straightforward language. You might think you're the next Agatha Christie trying to tell the story of "The Affair of the Vanished Order: A Fiverr Mystery", but you want to keep it simple and to the point. There's no need to use fancy language or make what you're trying to say unclear by including your whole life's story. Make sure your ticket is clearly laid out: Introduction > Explain the issue > Clearly state the outcome you're hoping for > Thank them for their time and effort. Easy. Now comes the hard part: not getting all worked up when the first response you get makes no sense. This is normal, unfortunately, and happens because support often responds with the most likely copy/paste response to help you faster. It's hit or miss (often miss, in my opinion). When this happens, maintain your polite and friendly tone, and respond: "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure if you read my question right. Could you please have another look at my ticket? The response I received doesn't seem to be relevant to my problem. Thanks" (or something like that). No need to get snarky at this point. I know I've been tempted to, but it doesn't help, since the first actual person who will read your ticket is the one you're now reaching out to. The first one was most likely automated. Remember: Support representatives are humans. Treat them nicely, and they can be a truly valuable resource.

I'm sorry to hear about your demotion. There could be multiple explanations for what happened, but here are some potential factors that immediately come to mind: It could be related to private buyer feedback, which might have caused your buyer satisfaction rate to fall beneath the threshold needed to maintain Top Rated Seller (TRS) status. As far as I understand, Fiverr determines your score based on overall buyer satisfaction over the past 60 days, heavily relying on the private feedback provided by buyers after completing an order. For instance, I experienced a slight drop in my BSR around the time my son was born (understandably, I couldn't devote as much energy to my work). My success manager warned me that this could cause my rating to drop below "a threshold," resulting in a demotion. Since Fiverr's editorial team and support aren't allowed to disclose details about your BSR, you're left with vague explanations like this. However, they're giving you a pretty big clue: "We constantly measure the satisfaction of the businesses that leverage Top Rated Sellers. This threshold is calculated through internal measurements that follow buyers’ satisfaction." I always assumed that the editorial team doesn't just look at candidates for TRS but also existing TRS accounts. It has always kept me on my toes. I've assumed that they check my ability to communicate well with buyers, deliver to their satisfaction, keep my promises, and always be honest, transparent, professional, and polite. While I'm not implying that you're not providing a professional service to your buyers, reflecting on this might help you pinpoint any potential areas of improvement. Have there been any distractions in the past 60 days? Did you have a new buyer who didn't leave a public review? Did those buyers raise any red flags at all? These are just a few points to ponder. Then there is your pricing strategy... Your base rate stands at five dollars. Fiverr wants to attract high-budget buyers and constantly strives to move upmarket (you only need to read their shareholder letters to understand this). Your five-dollar price tag doesn't help achieve that. Instead, it's conveying the message that top-rated services are available for a mere five dollars. It undermines Fiverr's goal to position itself as a business platform, not just a place for cheap microservices. Just as one wouldn't expect a five-dollar wine to be a Decanter World Wine Awards-winning Premier Cru Classé, your price point might have contributed to your demotion. This is only a hypothesis, but Fiverr has urged numerous Top Rated Sellers to increase their prices, introduced minimum rates in certain categories, and modified its algorithm to give higher ranking to more expensive gigs - all signs pointing towards its shift in direction. I hope this helps, and that you get your golden badge back!

Hey! I'm sorry you're experiencing this. So this was your first mistake. By lowering your price you're attracting bad buyers. In my experience, the cheaper the buyer, the more demanding they are. A revision is a small change to the work within the agreed-upon scope. Just say no. If you've delivered as described, the buyer cannot ask you to do additional work for free. They can ask you to change what you have already done. When these buyers come along, I simply say, "I'd be happy to do that, but it's outside the scope of the original order. It will be another 25$". (In a more business-like manner, of course). Don't let a buyer take advantage of you like this. And yes, a good lesson learned! Remember that if I ask for one song, you deliver one song, and I come demanding a whole album for free, that's not a revision.

The point is only to show potential buyer's that you have confirmed to Fiverr that you have a Facebook account. It can help verify identities and create trust. It's just a small "I'm a real human being"-sign. Nothing more, nothing less. Hope this helps 🙂

Yeah, according to this, they can change their reviews. Topic should be merged. We already discussed this (and many other things) at length in an identical post from the same OP. (Linked above in my initial response to this one)