bbakersvoice

I'm not sure if I missed it but when do I get more than a comment box and a 5 star system to review clients I work with? If this is all about "transparency" shouldn't sellers know who they are really working with. It might help them avoid bad experiences with buyers. Is that coming soon??

The question everyone should be asking is what is the real driver for this "big" change? Have we (the sellers) been begging for a better review system? One that is hyper critical and will cause us to lose our breath everytime we getter an order because we are more concerned about our "rating" then delivering great work? The "rating" is not for our ego...it directly impacts our future income...SO IT MATTERS. But the last thing we should be focused on when working with a client is our rating. You simply won't do your best work and you will appear desperate and make decisions just to get a "good" review. So again I ponder over why this is happening. Please don't say "transparency" as I don't think most sellers asked for this, however I could be wrong. I still wonder if this is a push to take Fiverr back to being what it originally was? A place to go get a quick "Fiverr" as I foresee gig rates plumenting to the bottom of the barrel....in our effort to increase our rating for "value for the money."

Do you value your freelancers as much as your clients? I mean you can't have one without the other...correct? Why do you put so much "teeth" into clients' review while the freelancer has a simple 5 star tool with comment section? Believe it or not some clients are not professional, friendly or/and honest. Some want the world for nothing and no matter how fast you deliver, the quality of the work, the communication, etc. they are never satisfied. This really comes to light with the "value for the money" rating. Right from the start this is flawed as it is so subjective in nature. The fact that they hired me should imply that they felt my work/service is worth paying the price. Your rating system creates a "power struggle" between the hardworking freelancer who make Fiverr successful and the client. The client has all of the power over the freelancer due to the rating system and their ability to just extend/cancel projects at will. It's obvious this is creating undue stress on many professional freelancers who are now wondering if they will see a significant drop in revenue when their 5 star reviews drop to 3. Same quality, same service, etc. but a new tool that seems to want to drive ratings down. It will be interesting in 3 months from now (or sooner) when potential clients come to Fiverr and search for a professional (in my case Pro Voiceovers) and see a talent pool with low ratings (i.e. 1 to 3 stars). Are they really going to have confidence in our services? Will they be more likely to hire us? Time will tell. I make a great income here on Fiverr and Fiverr benefits from this as well. However, I definitely concerned this will change everything.

Yeah I'm heading in this direction I think as well. The other thing I started doing is not providing reviews anymore as I honestly don't want to see these new ratings coming in. We are all human and when you see your reviews plummet for no clear reason it can start to wain on your confidence which will effect the quality of your work. I'm just going to keep providing excellent service/quality work and just avoid the whole review system all together. Yeah...time to be an Ostrich.

I think I'm going on 6 years now on Fiverr but mostly the "real" work has been done in the last 4 years. Fiverr has been great for me in the VO realm. However this trend seems to continue this trend that the client is more valued then the freelancer. Fiverr must understand that these two stakeholders should both carry equal weight for Fiverr to continue to be successful. In the last week it was my first time in years I started looking at other venues to work in again. This "hold the freelancer accountable" strategy is going to backfire in my opinion. I now have clients not even filling out the review as it is too cumbersome/long. There is something to be said about keeping the review process simple...I mean very simple. Just give the clients the same review tool the freelancer use. If they really don't like your work they just won't come back to you. This is a great example of the sausage making that normally happens in the public sector.

What is really strange and stressful is the disconnect between the client's public communication and then when you get these "new" ratings. Again, I have clients I have worked with for years (who keep coming back) where I deliver early, multiple VO versions, etc. etc. They leave a glowing review and even leave a TIP! The rating # comes out 3.7? They gave a low score for "value for the money" but left me a tip. What is going on Fiverr??

I think there might be some truth to this statement "Fiverr doesn't want sellers to sell high to get more revenue." I wonder if Fiverr is taking the site back to it's roots where people come here for a quick "fiverr" for $5? Seems like a strange move but this new rating system will drive down rates over time as people's ratings come down.

It will be interesting to see how this affects rates across the boards especially for those of us with a "Pro" ranking. As review rankings begin to drop I foresee a "race to the bottom" in regards to gig rates. My latest reviews are from regular clients who for years have left 5 star reviews and now they are jumping from 3.7 to 4. Same happy client same quality of work. One of the rankings/categories I don't understand is "value for the money." As a "pro" voiceover talent my rates are fairly high and I do have some clients who reluctantly hire me because their clients wants to use me. They will often try and get me to lower my rates but I don't do that. So they still hire me but I know they are not happy about paying that much in the first place. So when they go to rate me for "value for the money" you guessed it...a low score. Well I have rambled enough about this. I am very concerned on where this is going and what my own future looks like on Fiverr. I want to add another thing I don't understand. Why do buyers have such an in depth ranking system for sellers but sellers basically just have 5 simple stars to use for the buyer? Shouldn't we have the same ranking/review system as the buyer??