donnovan86

A digital marketer that's meant to give you views and sales won't be appealing if he has no reviews/orders. That means you're not able to generate exposure for yourself and grow your own business. How can you help others? So yeah, as a buyer, a digital marketer without reviews is not very appealing, to be honest.

Well since this new review system came, most of my non 5 star reviews came from repeat buyers, that either left those reviews unknowingly or didn't understand the review system. A lot of people also rush when leaving reviews so.. they can easily click on the wrong stuff without knowing. Especially with private reviews. Because it's private. That's the whole point. They won't tell you because if you have just 1-2 orders a month, you can easily pinpoint who left you that review. They want to offer buyers privacy. That's where I think the new leveling system is good, because if you check the success score for each gig, it shows you what was wrong. For my main gig, it says Client satisfaction has a negative impact. So clearly there were some bad private reviews there. So there is more transparency, although you can only imagine there will never be complete transparency. I think it's better than it was, at least now you see what clearly affects the gig and what strong points you have. Fiverr tracks all kinds of things and it seems those factor in to the overall score. Response time, how quick you deliver revisions, how many extensions you have, etc. Who knows how many other things they track. I can only imagine that in order to compare sellers and rank them properly, every simple thing counts. If you deliver a second late, if you have tons of revisions or extensions for your gigs, all those things will definitely lower the score.

Extensions were confirmed to affect your score, so I assume revisions will affect your score as well. The main issue here might also be from private reviews. If people leave you private reviews that are bad, that might be a problem, because newer reviews tend to have a lot more impact. So if someone newer leaves you a bad private review, that has a lot more weight. Another problem is that many satisfied customers don't leave a private review, but most if not all unhappy clients do. And that is going to be an issue most of the time.

Go to customer support, let them know the order number and ask for a refund. As @leonormiserol said, sellers are not allowed to ask for a specific review, nor they can force you to close orders. You can still receive a refund from customer support, even if the order is closed. Depending on the payment method, you can get a refund even after 6 months, it's happened before. Go to customer support, explain the situation and let them know you want a refund. You should have it in no time.

Well they gave you that title based on your ratings, and they are also removing it based on your ratings. I don't really see the issue. The fact they are tracking way more things is what leads to your demotion, most likely. The lack of transparency is the issue, but then again that's why Fiverr relies on private reviews, because that's the only clear way a buyer can be very honest and not be judged or even harassed by a seller. I have been a seller plus subscriber since the first 200 people and got a very good deal, so I've stayed with the program ever since. That's why I said it's a good alternative. I hope they analyze every TRS demotion case manually, because I can tell you for a fact, getting that title back is very hard, if not impossible in most cases. However, if data shows you had bad performance... it's hard to argue with that. I hope they solve the CS cancellations being taken into account and other things like that, so they won't be as damaging.

Everyone should be allowed to contest reviews. Having bias towards any seller category isn't exactly fair. The idea of having a mediation service is great, but I doubt it will ever happen. More people need to be hired, and even then, you would have bias from the mediator. They might go with the wrong side, even if you are right, just because they consider the buyer to be right in that situation. Even if you present evidence. It is misleading, but if the buyer has all the power, I doubt anything changes. Since buyers are the ones paying for services, Fiverr wants them to come back and order more. I think that's why they made these rather agressive changes to the platform, so they can remove those bad weeds and meksells, as you call them. There are many great ideas/suggestions in this topic, but I am pretty sure this is the final form for the leveling and review system, at least for a while. They might end up making some changes, like extending the demotion period so people have more time to recover. Realistically though, I think this is the system we will be dealing with going forward, at least for a couple of years. U*work also tracks people's previous performance for the past few years too, so I was expecting them to do the same. I did not expect Fiverr to go for the lifetime approach, because long term sellers are the ones affected the most here.

Why wouldn't it be ethical though? They offer a service, I pay for it and reap the benefits. Seems fine to me. Maybe you refer to that feature being taken away. The problem is that they are doing things retroactively. So a bad review from a dude that liked my work yet went to bed at 1 AM and left me a 1 star review accidentally is all of a sudden damaging my reputation, same with extensions being a problem, or revisions.. Those were not an issue in the past. Yet all of a sudden they are. I also get it why they are doing it. I tried to buy things on the platform as well and most sellers are level 2, with 5 stars or 4.9 stars at least. Try to buy something without spending a LOT of time going through sellers, and you also run into the problem of hiring someone that curates their reviews, cancels orders and so on. There were a lot of buyers complaining on the platform, so I see why they did this, it started with reviews for canceled orders, a new review system and the level system. Obviously some people get hit more, others less so. That being said, we are not dealing with the monthly evaluation, and if our stats are lowered a little, we are getting enough time to get back on track. I was fortunate to see this leveling system in January and I remember saying to people that were unhappy with the review system that this new level system would bring even more outrage. And behold, 20+ pages of people raging and being unhappy. I had a post limit for some reason, so I couldn't write or interact that much, or as much as I usually do. I just took a step back these past few days. In my case, I will just focus on my work and share my ideas during a meeting with someone from Fiverr, if I can. I hope any issues like CS-canceled orders damaging the success score get fixed, I assume they will. At the end of the day, considering the work put into this, I would be shocked to see Fiverr removing this leveling system. In some ways, it's better because it shows the stuff damaging our account or gig in the background. Until now, we had no idea, but now we know which gigs receive a bad private review, or at least we have an idea. I think I was the first asking for a public success score/buyer satisfaction rate score, so we can at least see where we stand. Because last year I was in the back of search results, without knowing what was wrong. I only had very good reviews, yet clearly some buyers left random reviews, maybe without even knowing that damages me in any way. I

I was TRS for years, lost it and that 7 day clearance was great. However, you can get that if you have a Seller Plus Premium subscription. In fact, many of the TRS benefits are there, aside from the badge and having 30 active gigs. Which unless you are an agency or outsource like crazy, you won't have anyway. So in my case, even if I've been a level 2 seller for years now once I lost my TRS badge, the Seller Plus thing really made me feel like a TRS. And the fact I have less sales has nothing to do with badges or my knowledge, it's AI hitting my category very hard..

In Fiverr's eyes, frequent extensions lower the client's experience and satisfaction. The idea is, don't use extensions 🙂

I mean, it's an option when necessary. But when the seller abuses extensions, obviously that comes with penalties. I guess that's the issue here. And this new system takes into account the buyer satisfaction via extensions, it was not an issue until then. And of course, the idea is to differentiate people that deliver on time and have no extensions of revisions from those that do. In general, this update with the levels and review changes have a single thing in common: they want to differentiate sellers more. Because right now, a lot of sellers have 5 stars and they are level 2, the majority of the active freelancers are like that. How on earth can I, as a buyer, to differentiate people that have pretty much the same ratings. Some of them are indeed very good and always deliver on time, there's little friction, others don't, but their buyers still leave 5 stars out of pity. However, those buyers leave a bad private review when asked, even if the public review was very positive. So just because publicly you see some things, that's not the whole picture. So I understand why they changed the system, my problem is that they cover orders since you created the account, so in my case if a person randomly left a bad review 10 years ago, that affects me. Not a ton, but it does.

You can't have transparency when private metrics are involved. And it's obviously not random. Something happened in the backend, private reviews, extensions as I said also play a role. Even if you talk with customer support, I doubt they will say what is the main reason.

Maybe that's why they canceled. If they expected thousands of followers and close to the delivery time you just offered 34...

Out of those orders, 4 of them had an extension. And extensions seem to be problematic for the buyer satisfaction, as far as Fiverr's team said. Most likely there was no communication between you and the buyer, just a delivery. That might be an issue.

Again a great point my friend. I guess it depends on the person, but in my case I have 4 gigs now, and it looks like this. So, with a bit of math, I assume my score is 9.25, right? It would be great if we could see those decimals though.

If you see the order number, you can easily pinpoint the buyer. And that's the whole point of private reviews, to allow buyers to be honest and not feel pressure from being highlighted. Of course some buyers use this to manipulate sellers or blatantly cause them harm. I also know that until private reviews will be removed, this info will never be shared. Your idea is great, but realistically, Fiverr will never share private review data unless they change the system, and they won't ask for that anymore. I will say this, I saw a lot of sellers with more 3, 4 star reviews or less. So if the focus was on lowering review scores, it's working...

I agree with you, we should know what orders caused the issue. Then again, that's the premise behind private reviews. They are meant to offer people protection. So I know for a fact they will never show that data. Unfortunately, I don't think they will show private reviews, unless they fully revamp the system. But they will alway try to acquire data privately, so people can be honest. What that means is that few happy buyers will leave a good private review, and only those that were unhappy or want to harm a seller for no reason will go and leave private reviews. I can say for a fact, despite having only 5 stars for 6 months, my buyer satisfaction rate was quite low, certainly lower than normal, according to my success manager. She told me that while people can leave a great public review, they also tend to leave a bad review privately, so these scores vary wildly. That's why I am not shocked at all to see newer people with only 5 star ratings and a few 4 stars that have a very low success score. At least now we see what buyers are doing to us privately, and in some cases it's not pretty.

It says why under the rating. The problem here is not the rating system, is how people use them. All the non 5 star reviews I got since this system was in beta came with apologies from buyers because they were confused by the system. So.. I think the problem stems from buyers, since many of them either don't understand the review system, or they just randomly leave reviews. I was a TRS and lost it, and most likely won't have it back again. And that's fine, most if not all TRS features are in Seller Plus, which most serious sellers have it anyway. So aside from the badge and having 30 active gigs, you're not getting anything extra. Based on what Fiverr said, the score is not meant to fluctuate that much, unless you have very few orders. For me, someone with tons of orders over the years, I am pretty sure I can't even make a dent in the success score and change it, since there are way too many older orders. I like that people asked for more transparency, I specifically asked for the success score/buyer satisfaction rate to be public. Until now, this score was only seen by success managers. And now when they offer a bit more info, people outrage. I saw this leveling system in a meeting last month, and I knew right away people would be upset. But it is what it is. I am not explaining for anyone. But realistically, you think people outraging here will do anything? Aside from figuring out a few minor issues to change, like customer support canceled orders damaging the success rate and stuff like that, few to no things will change. It's always been like this. I said in one of my last messages where I replied to you that I am just focused on adapting to and understanding the new system. Because I know I am just a freelancer here, regardless of how many years I worked on the platform. It's not my platform and while they are willing to hear us out, chances are that most of the feedback will not be implemented. Unless, of course, you own a lot of stock and you arae on their board. But freelancers on a forum.. we can make only minor changes happen. As I said, my problem is with buyers not understanding the system or worse, not caring about the seller they are working with and randomly leaving reviews. It's happened to me even before this level change, a year ago I got a 1 star review from a buyer that was satisfied, the review text was obviously positive and he was happy, but randomly left only 1 star for each category. Obviously that affects my current success score, since it's all about lifetime reviews.. I just left the review there and moved on..

From what I read here, seems that conflict can be even an extension or multiple extensions, since that's also characterized as a dispute. My problem is that it's lifetime, and for someone with a lot of orders over the years, there are few chances to increase the current score, you're pretty much stuck there for a while.

They are pretty good at identifying manipulative words. A lot of people were complaining on the forum that they received a warning due to feedback manipulation so.. they have the tools to find you. There can be false positives, of course.. Kesha confirmed it will stay private. The new review system has some elements from the previous PF system, like value for money. But they still ask for a private review, aside from the regular one.

Yeah, we just have a score and a few tips on what was wrong.. I was sure that people will be upset once this goes live, since I saw it in early January and I was not ok with it either. That being said, they do offer more info than we had until now. At least we know how bad our private reviews are based on that score. Also, they do show what points are the best/worst for the gig. I think that's what Fiverr's staff means by more transparency. Don't expect them to show info from private reviews anytime soon, if it will ever happen. Those are private for a reason. It would be great to see more info, but I know it's not going to happen so.. 🙂 I'll work with the stuff they share, since it is something, at least.

What I mean by it's clear is this: https://www.fiverr.com/cp/success-score-explained They explain it very well, and they do show the info for each gig. Obviously since this info is from private ratings, it won't show what order influenced that negative review. Which renders the information useless for sellers, because you know an order affected your gig or maybe more orders, but you don't know which ones and why. So yeah, it's clear how you can improve, they have guidelines in that link and I think Kesha sent another one. But the reality is that you don't really have any specific feedback when it comes to what was wrong. Not to mention some buyers leave reviews randomly. In my case, I understand what needs to be improved, so it's clear to me. I do understand some people don't have any clue what went wrong since they only had great public reviews, and for them the answer is... private reviews. A lot of buyers leave random or even bad private reviews. We never knew them (how bad they were), and now they come to light in a devastating way.

I mean, they are quite clear, they show you exactly what's wrong and also a link to a page where it shows how to improve. And obviously a lot of those people with scores like 4 or 5 had bad private reviews. Sure, people left them a great review publicly, but the actual private review was negative. And a lot of people wonder why this is happening. Some buyers randomly leave reviews, even private reviews. Even my success manager told me last year that despite having only great reviews publicly, I had some negative private reviews. And that's despite me asking people if I can help with anything else after delivery, etc. So in my case, I was expecting to see random reviews and low scores, even in my case I do have to deal with a lower score. Since the ratings are all-time, older sellers have the most to lose here, but as I always say.. it's not our platform, Fiverr will make some changes like removing support-canceled orders from the success score, however the bulk of this change will remain. It's always been like this when a new system was implemented. That's why I am adapting to this and understanding how it works, because I know the chances of changing anything are minimal.

So it seems that Level 2 sellers can only have 10 active gigs with this new update. It was 20 before this, but now it doesn't matter if we are level 1 or 2, we can have the same maximum number of gigs. While Top Rated Sellers can have 30 active gigs. That's a very odd decision. Attaching confirmation from Fiverr staff, so everyone can see this was confirmed. Very odd, strange decision that certainly doesn't benefit sellers. Wanted to share this here, maybe people interested can see it.

Fiverr has hidden/private data that sellers can't see and manipulate. They keep it private for obvious reasons. But it's clear that according to the data they have, your customers might be unhappy with some stuff. Even my success manager said that despite having only 5 star reviews, I still had negative private reviews. Either people are randomly leaving reviews, they are actually unhappy, who knows.

As visualstudios said, you have a lot of hidden factors that Fiverr doesn't show, and those are bringing your success score down. It seems that disputes, cancellations, stuff like that will definitely have an impact on your success score. Plus, there are still private reviews as well, even if some of the private stuff is now a part of the public reviews.