[Buyer blocks me but my response rate dropped!!!!]

Hi guys, some days ago a buyer contacted me regarding one of my gig, I have an automatic message welcoming the buyer but I'm well aware you should still reply. Indeed 29min later I wanted to reply but buyer already blocked me by then (without any reason). 

At the bottom of the chat Fiverr message says " xxxxxxxx can no longer be contacted. This will not affect your response rate"

OK Fine!

Today I casually see my response rate dropped to 96% (huh?) That was the only message I didn't reply to and when I checked the conversation the buyer did unblocked me. 

This is so damn unfair and Fiverr should not allow this, this is not the first time happening to my account that someone contacted me and blocked me right away and I have a feeling that these "buyers" operate on purpose to drop sellers response rates. 

Did anyone else have this experience? Did you solve with CS?

 

[Important Update: Some canceled orders now qualify for buyer reviews]

Just now, nunulka said:

I agree it does not worth the stress. Do you know how to refuse polite a client without giving much info why I refuse to accept the order 

Yes of course, there are several ways to do that: 

- "I would love to work on your project but at the moment I have very limited time and I can't take other orders, but thank you for your interest"  

- "I checked your project but I'm not sure if I have the capabilities to deliver a satisfactory result, therefore I prefer to not take this order" 

- "I'm sorry but unfortunately I do not provide this type of service..........." (here you must find something specific that you won't do, each case a different story) 

- Or if you find a very impolite person just leave the conversation at some point. 

No I don't have "request to order", but that happens very rarely in my case, 90% of my clients always contact me first, so with automatic orders you just have to deal with and ask as much as you can in this case. 

[Important Update: Some canceled orders now qualify for buyer reviews]

3 hours ago, nicks_voice said:

 

3) Picky sellers - some paranoid folk will definitely start turning their gig to request-only mode / question buyers a lot more and accept less briefs- drop in sales for them (and in turn, Fiverr).

 

I'm the picky seller. 👋 

Due to past experiences with very confused, unresponsive or arrogant buyers I made sure to become the one who choses the buyers to work with and not vice versa (thankfully happens very rarely to have clients who place orders without discussing before, maybe 2-3 times per year).  

After this update I will surely increase my selection even more.

If the client:

- is not 100% clear about what he/she wants, and very detailed about the requirements

- doesn't display 100% politeness and education in communication

- keeps me chatting for days and days before placing an order

- doesn't seem to know the field and how things work

- doesn't have experience 

- is unresponsive and doesn't reply fast or to all my questions  

-doesn't know how the platform works

then I definitely want to have nothing to deal with them.

These might seem basic requirements to start an order but sometimes I'm still patient and tolerate buyers who are a bit impolite or buyers who are nice but unexperienced, well... from now on all these buyers won't be accepted anymore, just as extra caution.

I'm more than happy to end up with half of the orders I have now. My peace of mind comes first! 🤗

 

[REVIEW PERIOD FOR BUYERS EXTENDED (???)]

Hi guys, I delivered an order and after 1 day I received a notification that the buyer extended his review period by 1 day, and he did this by himself. 

I have never seen this notification before and didn't know the buyers are able to do that, is this a new feature for buyers that they can extend the review period as they wish? 

 

[Gig removed and account during review]

On 3/18/2023 at 3:20 PM, peterregouc said:

Sure:

https://imgur.com/o2IRoyp

The problem is also i wasnt even noticed that there is some issue with my gig beforehand.  If i was noticed i would easily replace the images with something else, if the problem is the images i used that are in online shop already. Now I cant even use my other gig that didnt have any issues and i have to wait for 60 days for them to review my issue 😶 Not very pleasant experience for somebody who just started selling on Fiverr tbh.

I tried to explain to customer service that the images i used represent the products of my design and development and that there is no misleeading of buyers involved. I represented my designing skills with those images. If the problem is that i used the images from my previous company online shop it would be easy for me to replace them with some other image, but i cant believe that this is the issue? Or is there some kind of copyright infringement with that?
 

Ok but in all this have you provided evidence to the CS that the design and project was indeed done by you? I don't know, original files, work in progress ecc.. Have you?

[Response rate continues to drop despite getting back to every client]

4 hours ago, dylanb_vo said:

I don't want to lose my level 1 status over something that isn't my fault.

I dont think you understood how response rate is calculated. Is not based on the amount of chats you replied from the total you have in your inbox, but instead is based on your responses over the past 60days. 

This means if you had 100people contacting you till today and to one you didn't reply in the allowed time frame (I think 24h) your rate will drop by 1% so will be 99%, but in the following weeks if your're not contacted by the same amount of people (100 buyers) but let's say only 80 buyers, your % is not anymore calculated on 100 buyers, but on 80 instead.

So to make it simple: 

you have 100chats over the last 60days, didn't reply to 1 = 99% response rate

you have 2chats over the last 60days, didn't reply to 1 = 50% response rate

 

[https://www.fiverr.com/md_hasan_mahedi SCAMMER!]

On 12/30/2022 at 4:05 PM, fikocan23 said:

He took my article and blocked me.

Sorry but how exactly he took your article and blocked you??? Is not possible to block a buyer or seller while  you have an ongoing order. Or were you delivering material without having an active order?  😮

 

On 12/30/2022 at 4:05 PM, fikocan23 said:

My websites are compromised. 

My websites are under threat, for no reason the user blocked me by taking my site information and articles. 

Here again, your websites are compromised, how are they compromised? you been sharing credentials and sensitive infos with some random person who didn't even place an order?? 

[What are your weaknesses as a freelancer?]

14 hours ago, shalock said:

 I've had to learn to slow down myself with some buyers and ask questions one by one to avoid this kind of answers.

You're right! I've tried that too, especially when they are online...I thought I knew the trick 🤨, I would ask one by one so they stick with me until I get from them what I need but NO, as I get to the second question they magically disappear and I end up staring at my pc for hours till they check again the chat...and I feel defeated again 😭

[What are your weaknesses as a freelancer?]

3 minutes ago, sunboatrecords said:

One time I was hired by a videographer who had messed up the audio of a wedding ceremony.

He sent me a revision request to boost the dialogue by 12 decibels at 30hz.

This is the sub-bass region where you can feel the rumble of an earthquake as it begins.

I tried to explain. It didn't work out. 🙂

You're lucky if happens once in a while then, I feel like I'm dealing with this on a daily basis. And yes the worse is when you deal with clients that have no idea about the technical aspects of the job but they're also being arrogant about.

Not long ago I made a technical sheet for a garment and explained the client wasn't possible to be done the way she wanted because simply was wrong and the factory will have issues with it, she didn't even read or wanted to understand what I was saying, she said "just do it like that I like it that way, we'll figure it out with the factory " so I delivered the work as she wanted.

1 week later she wrote back " there is a mistake on the sheet can please correct?" I told her we already discussed that issue and I've already pointed out the problem and she replied " Yes ok, but can you just correct and send back?". 

The most obvious reply would be "No, of course I CAN'T...you just fu*ked it up by yourself and now u want me to pay with my time and work for your arrogance. If you want it correct now, you have to pay for a new order."  But of course you can't say that, you just swallow things up and correct the work and send back with a smile! 

[What are your weaknesses as a freelancer?]

My BIIIIIGGEST weakness is intolerance and lack of patience. 

I'm a very efficient person and with very strong communication skills,  when I deal with people unable to keep up I tend to become very frustrated and a bit rude! 

I'm very aware clients only deal with you and sometimes they don't see lack of communication or misunderstandings as a big issue , but when you deal with hundreds of clients those miscommunications become part of your job routine and for someone with my type of personality might become very stressful. 

example: I send client a revision with 3questions: 

1-Is it red or black?

2-is it square or round? 

3-is it 1cm or 10cm

 

CLIENT REPLY: 

"Yes, correct"   

This is usually where I lose my patience! 

In time I learned to wait and count till 3h before replying but I'm still practicing. 😄 Sometimes I wish I had an assistant to deal with the communication part, so I only execute the work without reading a word! 

 

[The Importance of (Free) Sketches (And Why You Should Always Request/Offer Some)]

1 hour ago, captain_warlord said:

I don't get your point. 

The point is that you sound pretty selfish to come in the forum to address sellers statements as "the importance of (FREE) sketches" ... important for who???? for you only.

This whole thread sounds to me like: "it's important for you to offer free work because sometimes me as a buyer I might incur in sellers that don't get my idea straight away, therefor is good for you to make the concept beforehand for free so I can choose the best one without spending any extra money!" paragraphs and paragraphs on how could we make things easier FOR YOU by adding some extra free work ON US, basically!

Like seriously? you yourself admitted that you are picky and indeed you chose just a couple of them to test, really you could't spend 5/10$ each for that test? You are so picky and expect so much but so short handed?

And to be fair I don't even think there are many experienced artists that agree to do free sketches and "tests", most of them know their value and won't feel the need to try to "convince" you by doing free work in advance (there are so called REVISIONS for that). They'll have so many clients waiting to work with them that your requests would most likely just be ignored. 

  

[The Importance of (Free) Sketches (And Why You Should Always Request/Offer Some)]

On 7/29/2022 at 7:23 AM, mariashtelle1 said:

What takes 5 min for a sketch might take hours even just thinking in my head of a concept. Did I draw for 5 min? Yes I did a 5 min sketch, but in reality it took let’s say 3 hours because it still took time to come up with an idea 

EXACTLY! The OP seems to ignore completely this aspect! Non mentioning that to arrive at the point of making a sketch in 5min, a seller has been through years and years of practice and studies. And most buyers choose to ignore that for some reason.   

[Disallow Download Feature on Source File before Accepting Order]

On 4/21/2022 at 2:03 AM, dereck_s said:

I haven't had an issue with this, is this something that happens quite regularly? I'm sure if you messaged the buyer and told him once it's marked as delivered I'll provide the source file. I can't imagine a legit buyer having an issue with it.

This is absolutely against TOS and you might even get a warning plus the buyer entitled to cancel the job for incomplete delivery!!!! It's the worst you could do! 

If your gig has the option "source file" you are required to deliver it, indeed in the delivery page there are 2 boxes one to upload work and one for source file. 

The solution is to remove completely "source file" as an option from your gigs and make a note in your gig description that you can provide it with an additional cost. If the client wants it, then you make an additional custom offer just for the source file after the delivery is accepted and completed! 🤷🏼‍♀️

[Gig Multiples for Packages - option to turn off/limit multiples needed]

8 minutes ago, miiila said:

but others sell extras that would need an increase in both price and delivery time, proportional to ordered Gig multiples.

If I read that right back then, this has already been done for the VO category quite a while ago, so it doesn't seem to be technically impossible, and I'm at a loss as to why something so obviously crucial still hasn't been fixed in Writing & Translation.

Exactly!!!! Is such an easy and simple math: If the system is able to recognize that multiple items increases the price why not able to recognize that also the time and extra fast cost should be increased accordingly? 🤦🏼‍♀️

[Gig Multiples for Packages - option to turn off/limit multiples needed]

I have a similar issue, indeed I wrote here in the forum about. I see for most of you the issue is the time but in my case the client ordered a multiple of 6 (illustrations) with extra fast delivery, but the extra fast delivery cost which is supposed to be 10$ per 1item now is the fix 10$ for 6items, and rationally it should be increase based on the multiples. And that's very faulty system in my opinion, now I have 24h to deliver a big amount of work for barely 10$. 

I want to sign this petition too! Please let's do some serious request because this doesn't benefit Fiverr either!