charlsmcfarlane

I offer online training through Fiverr. I ask that clients buy a gig to secure the session time and then, about 30 minutes before, I open the order chat and create the fiverr zoom call ready for the session. Then sometimes, the scheduled time comes around and I'm there, waiting for the client, and they don't show up. So I message them to remind them about it, in both the order chat and the regular inbox. Often, at this point I get a message from them like, "hey, sorry I got held up. Be there in 5" – that kind of thing. This is fine. People get stuck in traffic. People have to change a diaper at the worst moment. People forget. It happens. Often, if they're on 5 minutes after the scheduled time, I'll even go over by 5 minutes so they still get the full time they paid for. My issue is with the others – sometimes someone just doesn't show up at all, doesn't message back and, in rare cases, never talks to me again. In this situation, should I mark the order as complete? After all, I have allocated that time and spent at least some of it waiting for them (normally about 15 minutes before I abandon the whole thing). The issue is, they haven't had a session, which they could argue, is what they paid for. However, I see it as they're paying for my time, which I made available at the agreed hour. In any other situation if one pays for a lesson and doesn't show up, the time is still chargeable. Is this the same? What would you do?

It also doesn’t make much sense to measure this too, as sellers can just reply “hi” and then take ages to respond, this gives the appearance of a 1-hour response rate when it isn’t really.

A couple of days ago I made a tiny change to my gig video. I literally just changed a single image, which I was planning to make my new thumbnail. I made the change before going to bed and woke up to messages telling me that I had to modify my gig. I was confused but I have had to make little tweaks before in the past, so I didn't think much of it. I checked it out and, for whatever reason the trust and safety team had flagged my gig video and description because I mention zoom. Now, I exclusively use Fiverr's own zoom integration and provide no links to get in touch outside of the platform. The only link I included was a link to the zoom website that allows a user to jump into a test call to verify they can get connected before our meeting. It's a useful way to verify everything's working without wasting time in our meeting. It's important to note that this link does not provide any way for them to contact me off-platform. Despite this, I removed this link as requested and resubmitted only to be asked to remove the link (which I had already removed). I then proceeded to reword all mentions of "zoom" to "Fiverr's Zoom integration", so as to be extremely clear that I was NOT soliciting communication off-platform. Anyway, I resubmitted it and my gig was then marked as "Denied". I don't know why it kept getting flagged even after I had made the changes. Maybe there was a bug in the system and the trust and safety rep wasn't getting the update. I don't know. So, I had never heard of a "Denied" gig before but I soon learned that this meant my gig had been removed and COULD NOT be restored. At this point I became very worried! I have 20 gigs on Fiverr and this particular gig probably makes up about 70% of my earnings historically. It was also Fiverr's Choice in its category and had over 100 five star reviews, and a couple at 4.7. Basically, losing this gig would be like going back in time 3 years and starting again. Now, here's the point of this post – Customer Support don't always get the best rap and I wanted to tell this story because I was genuinely looked after like I have never experienced on Fiverr before. I messaged them as soon as I could but I was very concerned that it was a futile endeavour. All the help pages I could find told me that Denied gigs cannot be restored. This is so engrained in the support process that there was no way to even ask for help on this. I had to actually report it as a different issue just so I could raise a ticket. I waited a few hours and then got a message that my enquiry had been forwarded onto the relevant team. Then, minutes later, my gig was alive again! All my reviews were there, the Fiverr's Choice badge had returned and my gig was ranked in about the same spot in search as it had been before. It had also been approved immediately without any other flags, so it was obviously clear to the person looking at it, that there was no issues with the content within my gig. This was a masterclass in simple, basic customer service. Within minutes of picking up my ticket, it was resolved and I breathed an enormous sigh of relief. As a note for any sellers too, I did notice that it flagged my gig title, which had never been an issue before. I have a training certification, which was in my title. Considering the new "Certified" thing Fiverr just announced/released, I think it was taking issue with my title mentioning that I hold a certification. It only gave me a very vague "this title does not match our guidelines" message (or words to that effect) but once I removed mention of the certification that flag disappeared. Just one to be aware of if any of you have certifications that you mention in your gig. I'm not mad this happened. Mistakes happen, technical glitches happen. It was the resolution that I want to celebrate. – Thank you Fiverr Support!

Thanks. It’s nice to see fiverr continuously improving!

I love the Fiverr calls feature and use it tons with my buyers (and prospect buyers, of course). I'd love to have a way to schedule calls with them ahead of time though, rather than pressing the "start call" button. Sometimes I can't talk now but don't want to have to come back to the inbox ten minutes before I've scheduled to talk to them, so I can create the call and check it's working etc. I've noticed if you create the call and then come back maybe an hour later, it says 'link invalid' or something and I have to recreate the call so I can't just press the button and use it when I return. Something exactly like the paid consultations feature (which I also love) but for non-paid consultations. It's a small gripe but a real one. Thanks

I'm not sure how much this will help people, unless they're changing more about the selection process behind the scenes. I passed 20K years ago and have had perfect (or near perfect) stats every month, been Fiverr's choice on several gigs for months, tons of orders, great ratings and I'm still level 2. 🤷‍♂️

Misson Complete: Post redundant 🫠

Most sellers that would seem to be ready for Top Rated status aren't held back by the revenue limit. I think it's the unclear selection method that most people find a bit hard to understand, and a little frustrating. I've never heard complaints about people having to earn the required amount first. It's more common that it's the other way around i.e. people have near perfect stats and earned the required $20K years ago and every month comes and goes without any word on the review process. It would be great to have some insight into the selection process or perhaps even some indication that a seller's account has been looked at and perhaps the reason they haven't been selected this time around. If anything, I wonder if lowering the 20K limit is going in the wrong direction. Hitting the 20K limit is, for me, a distant memory. It was something to work towards but now, with TRS selection so ambiguous, hitting that goal doesn't really seem to mean much. By lowering it, are you just increasing the number of people scratching their heads as to why they're not being selected? I am pleased with how this has been handled following the seller outcry when it was announced. Fiverr's willingness to listen hasn't gone unnoticed. It's nice to see some small tweaks to the process on this too. A platform's willingness to listen and make changes, even if they still proceed with the plan, is a good sign of their commitment to their community. I can't see it announced here (perhaps it's not turned on for everyone yet), but you can reply in threads in the inbox now – excellent addition and something I requested a few weeks ago! Regarding everything else, bravo! Some great updates.

Fiverr implemented this idea today 🤩

Update: Someone from support was able to reinstate my gig. I am so relieved!

I woke up to a message telling me that I needed to update my gig and, did exactly what was asked of me and each time I resubmitted the gig they told me that I needed to make the change I had already made. My gig has now been denied and it is the most successful gig I have on Fiverr. Probably accounting for 60 or 70% of my work in the last 3 years. I don’t know whether this was a platform issue, where they weren’t seeing the changes I was making or if they were rejecting my gig for other reasons and not telling me, but regardless, this is absolutely and unquestionably a mistake (or misunderstanding) To be specific, they were taking issue with the fact that I reference zoom in my gig. At no point did I share any zoom contact details and I only use the Fiverr zoom integration, which is provided by and within the platform. The second time I got rejected, to be as clear as possible, I reworded it to specifically mention the Fiverr zoom integration so there could be absolutely no doubt that I was not telling buyers to communicate off-platform. I need the Fiverr team to review this as a matter of urgency as this will make a significant impact on my freelance work. I don’t understand why such a successful gig can be so quickly deleted? I would greatly appreciate any advice that can be offered by the community or Fiverr team.

I tried tons of times to reply to buyer requests and never had any luck. As you said, it seems like either spam or just a race to the bottom in terms of price. Unfortunately, I don’t think the new system is any better. I’ve had a single order from the new system and they were not a good buyer. The thing I really don’t like is when someone writes “flexible” but they actually do have a budget.

While it’s not ideal that this was your first review, there’s a silver lining, I think. Sometimes when someone has very few reviews and they’re all 5 stars, it might seem to a potential buyer that the reviews could be fake. Obviously fiverr does a lot to ensure that fake reviews aren’t on the platform but a new buyer might not know that. The odd imperfect or even negative review shows that the reviews you’re receiving are real and that you’re not perfect (who is?) Obviously, you need mainly positive reviews, but I don’t think this is the end of the world. Once you have 300 reviews, no one will doubt the authenticity of them, because of the sheer number. I know this doesn’t help you get your next order but, when it comes, hopefully you’ll do great and get 5 stars. Then you’ll be well on your way. As one final note, 4.7 stars is not a bad score, in my opinion. I have a gig with a 4.3 average, due to a low number of orders and a single negative review. That gig still gets impressions, clicks and the occasional order.

That’s a fair point. I joined in 2020, so I don’t think the way cancellations affect metrics has changed. I was basing it on number of orders rather than a dollar amount. I’d say I’m on the higher end, when it comes to pricing.

Fiverr mainly measures cancellation rate over 60 days but, with the upcoming cancelled order reviews coming up, I’m curious where my overall cancellation rate sits and whether people think it’s good or not. Obviously my aim would be to have zero cancellations for all time, but I think that’s a big ask. Across nearly 600 orders since I started on Fiverr, the percentage of those orders that have been cancelled is 4.4% I’m actually quite pleased with this, especially as a portion of these were cancelled as part of Fiverr’s suggested process for offering a partial refund. But…what does everyone think and how does this compare to other people’s cancellation rate?

I understand the sentiment, as a large proportion of my work is motion graphics that include source files. I guess I have two ways I’d play devil’s advocate here. 1. If the source files are part of the delivery you need to deliver them and make them accessible, otherwise you haven’t delivered what you promised and the client cannot verify that they’re correct. 2. This whole process can’t work without an element of trust. Most of my orders contain source files and this has never been an issue. If you’re this worried about this, it might be the calibre of clients that’s the issue. it might be time to raise your prices and try and elevate your service beyond the kind of buyers that you’re concerned about. Or… maybe invest in seller plus so you can speak to clients before they can order and you can build that trust ahead of time.

Thanks for your reply. That’s good to know.

I applied to be a Pro seller but haven’t heard back yet. In the meantime, I did have a business seller profile previously. Does this mean I am no longer able to work with buyers in the Pro (previously business) area?

I’m curious about what this will mean for my pending application. The old pro application form link is broken but when I found the new link and tried to apply it still says “submitted”, so it seems like the form might be unchanged. I’d love to know if my application is still going to be looked at.

Will Fiverr Pro sellers still appear in a normal search made by someone that isn't browsing the Pro catalogue?

All these new features seem very interesting. They all appear to be different ways for buyers to find freelancers. It seems there will be new ways for sellers to validate their knowledge, with the certification thing but can you explain in what other ways sellers will be affected by these changes? Will the way we work be any different? Also, I recently applied to sell as a Fiverr Pro. Will I need to resubmit my application now things have changed?

I agree! I include a single revision, and send an offer if a client requests more. I do wish fiverr had some systematic process that would connect the included revisions to the revision request process. While I agree with the myriad sellers that want these kind of restrictions on revision requests so buyers can’t just request revisions infinitely, that’s not my main reason for suggesting this. It’s more that it is just more convenient for all parties. If you’re simply going to send an offer for a revision manually, it’s a shame the system can’t just offer the revision extra at a preset price for the customer. They can place an order without having to speak to the seller; so it would seem that it would save everyone time if they could just buy a revision from within the order page too. I can foresee challenges with this kind of automation but I don’t think it’s anything that can’t be solved. This is the feature that would make me by seller plus, if it were included.

I’m hoping I get in. Hopefully it’s not too long a wait.

I've applied for Fiverr Pro but not heard back yet. Right now, even though I'm not a Fiverr Pro, I still see the same button but it takes me to my Fiverr Business profile, as before. Perhaps the plan is to combine the Pro and Business thing. That might make sense, considering they recently allowed certain gigs to be posted exclusively in the Business space. Perhaps they were testing segregating them and the plan is to only allow Fiverr Pros to work with Fiverr Business buyers. I like the idea but I hope it doesn't preclude me from working with Business clients. Right now, I do work with some and they're great buyers and always very happy with my work. It would be a shame to lose that stream of custom because Fiverr doesn't deem me a Pro. If this is the case, I assume they'll need to change the Pro admission process. Presumably there's no way that the current number of Pro sellers can accommodate all the needs of all the Business clients?

Fair enough. Well, luckily I have enough orders to keep me going for now, so hopefully it won't make much difference in the short term. I totally agree that it's important to spend time on it, and I did. I still think there should be a form, with a video submission and a space to write about why you think you're a great fit for the program etc. I guess it just seems weird to repeat certain steps. For example, uploading a video file that is already in my portfolio on my profile, or outlining key clients I've worked with that are already on my profile – that kind of thing. The other advantage to one's profile being a big part of the submission is it shows the Fiverr team how the seller presents themselves on Fiverr, which surely is an important consideration. To use your job search analogy, you might be the best candidate out there, but if you can't perform in the interview, you're not getting the job. I'd argue that how one presents themselves within the Fiverr platform is a fair analogy to that. It's not just proof that you have the skills of a pro, but that you know how to translate those skills into the Fiverr community and eco-system.