texvox

I'm also a top rated seller, and Fiverr has also given me clearance to ask for reviews. But customer service can be quite fickle, and I've heard of people being told something is OK to do or say and suddenly being dinged for doing exactly that one day because one or two words were on the naughty list. I see where you're coming from though, and offering some vague guidance on at least understanding the system is a good thing. It is quite disappointing that Fiverr has rolled out their current system and doesn't seem to have given buyers much in the way of guidance on how to understand these changes. As usual, they change something and put the onus on us as sellers to make it work.

Picked up a fun, large video-game project this week. The buyer came to me about 2 months ago asking for a quick audition which I gave to her. A week later she said she loved it but the casting director decided to go with someone else. Last week she came back and said the other voice actor fell through and she was able to pitch me to the CD again and this time he saw where she was coming from and decided to work with me. Always fun to take on a character role to punctuate the typical commercial and educational narration work I do. The price was right too - even after Fiverr fees the rate will exceed typical "indie" rates and fall somewhere between those and AAA game titles instead. Felt like a win all around.

I played around with Neo for a while too and finally managed to get it to say this as well, but that's still not actually filtering by 5-star ratings, just by TRS status which I personally wasn't asking it for (I was very specific with the 5-star language). Instead it kept sharing people with me that had 4.9X ratings. Or it shared sellers hat showed as "5 stars" in the Fiverr Neo chat window, but when I clicked on them their profiles showed "4.98" or "4.95" stars and so forth. That's about the closest I could get it. Neo did give me pages and pages of very corporate explanations about why 4.99 is just as good though. I have some interesting screenshots.

And just to check and see if Neo is able to filter other sellers by rating I then asked Neo to filter by sellers with 4.95 star ratings and it was able to immediately do so and provide me with a seller recommendation. So it looks like Neo has been programmed to not offer 5-star sellers. Self-fulfilling prophecy much? 🤔

You inspired me to press Neo for some answers to see what Fiverr programmed into it. I asked it why private reviews contain the rating of "perfect" and it gave me the below. I followed up by asking it to present Fiverr's best sellers to me. It gave me 4.95 after 4.95 or so. So for fun I continued to press it to show me 5-star rated sellers only. The response was interesting. After showing me several 4.97 rated sellers, 4.98 and a few 4.99 I told it I would not settle for anything less than a 5-star rated seller. Then it said this: Interesting.

Since I created this thread to grab the attention of Fiverr reps for the reason I am saying that is because this forum has been full of emotional responses to the entire review system recently which Fiverr reps could potentially write off as just "Well, you just don't like how it's impacting you." So I said what I said so that Fiverr could see that people who are not yet impacted still see what an absolutely terrible execution this is.

I don't know if it was a recent change or not since I've only made one Fiverr purchase and it was many years ago. Seems like based on @visualstudios reply above it may have been this way for a long time. Either way, perfection is an unreasonable burden to place on a seller. Not even Fiverr itself can ensure perfection.

I've seen your posts on this and I agree - it's a whacky system. Given how much destructive power a lackluster private review has over sellers accounts vs. a public review I'd prefer that Fiverr address this issue at the private review level first, but both need to be seriously looked at.

Fiverr is a bit too wishy-washy on what they feel is acceptable or not when it comes to engaging buyers regarding reviews. Rather than risk Fiverr suddenly deciding that I said something the wrong way and flagging me for it I instead use the "enhanced look" of the Seller Plus subscription to check out average review ratings they give sellers in tandem with the "Request to Order" function, also via Seller Plus enrollment, to ask lots of pre-order questions and heavily vet potential new buyers. By doing these two things I've dodged a lot of buyer bullets and have declined projects from a lot of clueless new buyers who have no understanding of the platform, as well as some tenured buyers who have a history of giving lackluster reviews, or who require teeth-pulling to give me any information about their project. This has enabled me to both protect myself from destructive buyers as well as build up a strong, quality client list over the past year.

I like this presentation as well:

DISCLAIMER TO FIVERR REPS: this is not an issue I am currently being negatively impacted by and is not being shared as an emotional response to something that has happened to me. I am sharing because this is an unreasonable situation for any seller, and should be of concern to sellers as a whole. A peer who is both buyer & seller here on Fiverr shared the below screenshot with me this morning from the private review system after she completed a purchase a few days ago. Notice in the current iteration of the system that under the question "How would you rate the overall quality of this delivery?" the five rating options are: 1 - Very Poor 2 - Below Average 3 - Average 4 - Above Average 5 - Perfect I am uncertain whether it has always been this way, or whether this is a "test rollout" for the private systems, but perfection is an unreasonable goal and should not be a term that is anywhere near a review system. It also does not mirror the public review system which does not use this rating term, which in itself is going to naturally drive different outcomes between public and private reviews. Please reconsider this decision. Fiverr is imperfect. Fiverr's own employees are imperfect. Perfection is a lofty philosophical concept and not a day-to-day reality for the vast majority of humans on this planet. That this term made it into the review system feels very poorly conceived. That, or it's part of a goal to artificially drive down review ratings, which works against Fiverr's own claims of "increased authenticity." SOLUTION: Please consider changing this term to something like "Excellent" or another super-enthusiastic term, but not perfection. You can't hold yourself to perfection, and should not hold your sellers to that expectation either. @Kesha @Lyndsey_Fiverr @ran_success can this please be forwarded to whatever development team is responsible for this system, and can additional context be shared around why "Perfect" is currently the 5-star rating option privately when it is not so publicly?

Regarding private reviews - a peer sent me this screenshot of the private review options buyers are given after she completed a purchase. This is my first time seeing this, but I noticed that for the question "How would you rate the overall quality of this delivery?" the options are: 1 - Very poor 2 - Below Average 3 - Average 4 - Above Average 5 - Perfect For those familiar with the private review system has it always taken a rating of "perfect" to net a 5/5 on Quality of Delivery? Or is this part of the new system rollout? When I think back to every product or service I've ever purchased in my life there may be one or two I would call perfect, and even then after some time even those perfect products/services left something to be desired. Seems like an unreasonable bar to set.

She gave me some "approved language" to send to buyers reminding them to complete their private surveys. But to be honest I won't be doing this. The last thing I'd want to do is joyfully request a private review from a buyer who appears extremely happy with the project but is going to nuke my account by sharing a feisty private review with concerns they never voiced to me publicly.

I agree. I'm not going to go out of my way to increase my private feedback knowing the absolutely monumental negative impact it could have if a buyer communicated complete satisfaction publicly but then railed on me privately.

Somewhat related - my Seller Plus SM also told me via email that not having enough positive private reviews can cause you to fall out of favor with the algo even if you don't have negative private reviews. Or if you don't fall out of favor for that reason, it can hold you back from bouncing back up in certain situations. When I went on vacation mode for 10 days (worst mistake I've made on the platform) it caused my extremely visible and healthy account to nose-dive for a few months. I asked her how to climb out of that hole and she said "When you see a slow down in traffic, it can sometimes snowball. To avoid this, keeping a steady influx of positive internal stats is important. One of those is the Buyer Satisfaction score which is based on the private surveys. Yours is very good, but if you haven't gotten many (or any) since you've returned from vacation that could be playing a part." She then said "I highly suggest" asking my buyers to leave private reviews. Because even though I didn't personally have any harsh private reviews, according to her I also didn't have enough positive private reviews. Exciting.

Kudos on your continued success! I listened to the first few minutes of the podcast just to check it out since this doesn't necessarily apply to me and it sounds like you're offering up some good insights. As a fellow voice actor who has cleared 6-figures net each of the last 2 years on Fiverr, one of my biggest tips for other voice actors looking to level up their VO business in general but especially here on this platform in particular is to pay close attention to the vocal style that nets you the most orders and front-load your demo with that. The tastes of Fiverr buyers do overlap somewhat with VO clients outside of the platform, but there is one huge difference I have found: outside of Fiverr most of the clients I've worked with have really been looking for great acting chops, with the vocal tone as a secondary concern. Here on Fiverr most of the buyers are big fans of a good voice, with acting chops as a secondary concern. That goes for small orders all the way up to big, national commercials. You still do need to be able to perform well, but the vocal tone seems to have a much bigger impact on attracting Fiverr buyers than non-Fiverr clients. Of course continue to improve on both since that's where the real money is. If you offer several different performance styles and tones do a quick review of your orders over the last year and see what style or tone was most frequently requested. It might be your natural speaking voice, but it also may be a voice that you "put on." Once you identify that shuffle your demo around to present that particular style first and adjust your keywords to really highlight that type of performance. Doing this my own earnings went from $65k net in 2021 to over $100k net in 2022 and a further 23% increased net earnings again in 2023, while increasing my rates and completing far fewer projects overall (a great exchange in my mind). The only major change was reordering my demo to attract my most frequent buyer type. Best of luck to you. You have a very marketable voice and natural persona - 6-figures is easily doable for you 🙂

In the name of transparency I expect to display with a 4.998 rating any moment now. Maybe by next week it'll be 4.9998 or even...4.99998 🤣

I feel you and I'm sorry you're experiencing that. Not to detract from your experience by sharing mine (I hate when folks do that) but for the sake of Fiverr seeing how many sellers are on the receiving end of their mess - I'm experiencing the same thing. Last week I completed a project for my longest-running and highest-paying Fiverr client. We've completed 57 projects together over the last 2 years and she's left about 35-40 reviews in that window, all 5-star, until last week when she left a 4/5 for "Value for Money" and then proceeded to tip me $168. I have yet to encounter a single person in my life who thought they didn't get an excellent deal and then threw that much extra money at it voluntarily, especially considering I've told this client multiple times that I appreciate her tips but they are in no way expected. Make it make sense Fiverr. Or make it go away instead of further muddying your system and calling it progress. EDIT: the buyer told me the review she gave was left in error and that she intended to give another 5-Star review - yet another victim of confusion about the new system. Hopefully she decides to reach out to customer service to fix it.

Unfortunately the Vacation Mode feature is pure garbage if you're going to use it for more than a few days at a time. When I've used it in the past for 2 or 3 days it has had very little effect on my gig. You come back, turn it off and it's back to business. But if you use it for longer than that you're very much putting your gig/account's life on the line with the algorithm. I took 10 days off back in November to go to eastern Ukraine and help rebuild some villages, bring some humanitarian aid and so forth. When I expressed my concerns about the Vacation Mode feature to my seller plus manager she assured me that it was the way to go. "It's there for your benefit! You shouldn't fear using it." When I returned to the US my business outside of Fiverr bounced back immediately. On Fiverr...very different story. I went from averaging about $14k net per month for the prior 2 years on the platform and an average of about 2k daily impressions to just $2k earnings in November with under 1k daily impressions, $5.5k in December with under 1k impressions and about $6k in January with 1.1k in daily impressions. Only now in March - 4 months later - am I almost "back on track." Thank God my business is diversified enough to not have to rely solely on Fiverr. The explanation is "Well, other people are doing business on the platform while you're out," but the reality is a little more robust than that. It's not just that you're out of the office, but because Vacation Mode takes you completely out of the system while you use it you're going to risk crashing and burning. I don't know why they don't just allow you to stay in the system while using Vacation Mode and give you a pass on the 24-hr response time instead. This would more accurately reflect the reality of running a business. If you rely heavily on Fiverr for your business I'd advise against using it unless you absolutely have no other choice.

I’ve definitely busted my tail to offer the best service I can, and under Fiverr’s previous ruleset I was rewarded for that effort. But they have unfortunately moved the goalposts now, not only for our future but also for our pasts on the platform. It’s about the least fair thing I’ve seen them do, but unfortunately someone over there seems to be mighty satisfied with themselves so there’s not much of a chance of them changing things I think.

This is an exceptional review. Kudos! I appreciate that you are breaking down the flaws of the system and proposing changes in a research-based fashion rather than bringing only an emotional reaction to the table. While I may have some small nitpicks here and there based on personal preference, I do think that your proposal does a good job of presenting a potential change that could benefit both buyers and sellers equally here, rather than the typical more one-sided approach that elevates one group over the other. I am not necessarily convinced that Fiverr would take an honest look at this based on the silence and vague responses I've seen to public threads since the debut of the system, but if they did I would feel very encouraged for how it might be digested by their development team who, presumably, understands the format of your presentation. Still, I try to focus on the positive side and look at the potential. My hope is that @Kesha @Lyndsey_Fiverr and @ran_success do see and forward this particular post to those responsible for this rollout.

I don't know if Fiverr is purposely trying to push sellers in the lower pricing bracket out, but as someone who is a pretty good earner in my section of Fiverr I don't feel like Fiverr is necessarily "on my side" either. Fiverr in general is sending very mixed signals to me - encouraging Pro/TRS sellers like myself to increase rates, while simultaneously making decisions that seem to favor price decreases. Fiverr's whole public advertisement campaign revolves around "easy and cheap," so who knows. Right now I don't think that Fiverr knows what Fiverr wants, truth be told. I believe that many of their recent changes are flowing out of a short-sighted reaction to shareholder dissatisfaction and the need to look like a company focused on progress. I worked in the retirement planning & finance sector of the US economy for about 5 years before transitioning to voice-over. During that time I spent a lot of hours watching companies transition from private to publicly traded. My experience has been that once the shareholder becomes the driving force bottom lines change dramatically, and many companies dip in user-satisfaction out of desperation to stay relevant to investors. We'll see though. Keep up the good work you've been doing! I hope that someone at Fiverr cares enough to give the community a response that doesn't feature "We hear you" as a magic pill.

I'd agree with Dereck_s here. I've had the RTO function turned on 24/7 for a long time now (I was part of the beta) and it's made a world of difference for me. I've seen no slow-down in the number of projects that come my way, and my average selling price has gone up as a result of sending custom quotes with all necessary rights factored in and not having to chase down sellers who have no intention of doing the right thing and paying for what they need. It's also helped me to pre-screen sellers to see if their expectations and my offer line up. Generally the buyers who are only interested in using and abusing you, or who have no interest in learning if you actually offer what they expect, will out themselves pretty early in the conversation once you know what to look for.

Agreed - AI is probably not going to be the best route to determine what constitutes a reasonable revision. I'm also completely on board with not factoring revisions into the equation. I just had a buyer hit the "request revision" button because he couldn't figure out how to extend the delivery review window on his end. Will this now ding me for "Conflict free orders"? Unfortunately I'd be willing to put a few bucks down that it will, and this sort of thing happens all the time.

I believe it is a Seller Plus Premium feature only. So if you're a Seller Plus member enrolled at the "lower" tier it's not included. If you do have it you will see the feature when you edit your gig. Go to My Business > Gigs > Edit (whatever gig you want to turn it on for) > Advanced Settings and you should see all of the options there. If the Advanced Settings tab is not available on the edit page it means you don't have access to it.