lenasemenkova

Imagine creating a rating system that is designed to drag your rating down, then start suspecting sellers with returning buyers in said rating manipulation. Eh.

I have some purple prose in mine as well. Reviews are just a mess, period. Some buyers treat it like a chat. I got a few “talk soon, bye!” this year alone. A few longer ones going “Lena, can I also order a smaller version of this for my Instagram?" and "Can you email these files to me?" A bunch of reviews in foreign languages that I don’t speak. Sometimes I’m tempted to contact the buyer with: “These reviews are actually public, everyone can see them” but I don’t want to get flagged. Recently someone slapped me with 4* after mistaking me with another seller (they later reached out unprompted and apologized). I tried to get the review removed (given the acknowledgment and the apology) and CS were dragging their feet so hard that I just dropped the matter. I feel like the reviews are free rein for buyers as long as there are no slurs involved.

In my work, I strongly rely on understanding the buyer’s vision that is personal and unique to them. It is crucial that it’s written in their own words. I don’t care if it’s poorly written. I don’t care if your English is not good. I just genuinely, sincerely don’t need to read through the ChatGPT’s interpretation of your vision. And boy, do I get a lot of those ramblings these days. All of it reads like a college essay that was padded heavily for the word count. Or a cult brochure. A lot is said and nothing is said at all. Most of them start with: ‘Hello. My name is [Your Name]...’ and ends with ‘Best regards,’ I absolutely can ‘create visually appealing marketing materials fully in line with modern design trends’ but it would be helpful if I knew what *you* personally think those are. Because based on some revisions I get certain people’s understanding of ‘visual appeal’ is... rather unique. In other words, involving AI in communication between us two humans doesn’t help. It also doesn’t help you to sound smart(er). It’s just giving me a headache. Please, refrain from it. I promise that the process will run smoother and the end result will be better.

I post my cats on Instagram. Luckily, they are very photogenic.

+1 to politely decline to work with them in the future. And block them if they start whining. You’ll lose money, yes, but I’ve noticed that if I get properly stressed by one buyer it then affects my work with other buyers (who are completely reasonable people). It’s just not worth it to get involved continuously. You can have a conversation with them about how hurrying you will affect the quality but if it doesn't help (it usually doesn't), I'd just finish any active orders I have with them and walk away.

Aw. I’ve been running around with CPTSD for years and at some point finally arrived at a responsible adult conclusion that it was crippling certain aspects of my life and needed to be addressed. Unfortunately for me, I arrived at that conclusion in January 2022 (hilarious timing on my part). Didn’t have a chance to deal with it yet, the line is too long these days. Fiverr is a lot of “direct” stress and it’s fine. Great for anxiety, sort of like fighting fire with fire. Would recommend. You got yourself a difficult customer, you know for sure you’re on your own. The order becomes your dungeon, it’s your job to crawl out of it with the loot without losing your cool or triggering the ToS in 12 hours or less even if there are 24 hours on the timer. What is difficult to deal with, is this “sOoN we’ll implement the changes, you won’t know exactly when but keep an eye on those metrics of yours, you never know when it hits you but one day it sure will, very, very soon. Not right now, though…” If you’re going to do it every 3 months, maybe just tear the bandaid off without the preamble next time. I wish it was frustrating. Frustration is a great fuel for work. Exhaustion isn’t.

I’m just tired of this. That’s how I feel. Review editing could be useful in case of accidental 4*s. Probably won’t be against 4.7*s which are the real danger that will slowly drag a 5.0* profile down.

Hi, @Kesha Can I ask my old regular buyer why she stopped leaving reviews? Or will it get me a warning? We’ve been working together for 5-6 years and she would review every order (with a couple exceptions). It’s around 100 reviews in total and during this race to 4.9* a few extra trusted 5* a month wouldn’t hurt. She stopped reviewing immediately after the new system was introduced. So she’s either turned off by the new rating system, saw the options, and figured that I was “pretty good” but not “spectacular” and is trying not to hurt my feelings or is not allowed by Fiverr to review anymore (because 100+ reviews it’s suspicious, gaming the system, etc., etc.) I’m just so curious about what happened, it drives me insane.

Also, speaking of Value for Money. Someone just declined my $130 offer after seeing all the Fiverr fees added on top. My offer was perfectly within the budget and they were happy with the price.

Oh god, can you imagine? The new review system is so cool and convenient that multiple regular buyers of mine stopped leaving reviews immediately after it was introduced. They’ll just leave a message that everything’s great but won’t review anymore. And I can’t even ask them what’s the issue. PS Looks like the new buyers leave reviews less frequently as well now.

Are we sure that it’s specifically a “value for money issue” and not the final, 3rd metric issue when the buyer just gives up on clicking things at some point? I looked through most if not all of my 4.7* reviews (old system and new) and all of them are missing the final 5th star in the 3rd row (where Value for Money currently is and Service as Described and Recommend to a Friend used to be). Except for the orders where there was a miscommunication of some sort and the buyer took care to leave 4* in the first row specifically (where the Communication metric was).

I hope that this *negative impact* comes into play when the order takes a lot of revisions (5+?) Most of my orders take 1-2, sometimes 0 but it’s rare and I haven’t suffered any negative impact yet so maaaybee a revision or two is fine? I’m trying to be optimistic. If you have buyers who like to “play around” too much, I’d either repeatedly stress that you don’t do unlimited revisions or start turning these buyers away.

In any visual medium, some buyers just love revisions “to play around”. It’s like a fun game to them and it’s an exciting and expected part of the creative process. It doesn’t mean that their business is suffering and it doesn’t make me a terrible seller if I oblige. I’m sure Fiverr representatives have bought a logo or a postcard for grandma at least once in their lives. In fact, a Fiverr representative ordered a social media ad from me directly once and kept coming back to revise the dates because they couldn’t get them approved by the Fiverr higher-ups. They *know* how the design process naturally works, what are they doing?

Wonderful. The unlimited revisions enthusiasts, buyers, and sellers alike are going to be so happy to hear this*. * My average is 1-2 revisions per order. Having 0 revisions is nearly impossible, everybody likes to tweak the copy once they see it laid out within the design. Something that I noticed as well is that some regular buyers have stopped leaving reviews altogether as soon as the *new and improved* review system was introduced. I get fewer reviews, period. The new reviews are so helpful and awesome that buyers, especially the trusted ones, are actively avoiding them. Which will for sure get my profile to 4.7* and beyond quicker.

So, essentially, Fiverr is gently nudging everyone to make a ‘request to order’ the norm, yes? That’s the only way to guarantee that every seller has all the required information before the order is started. Someone mentioned it before but Fiverr seems to be overly invested in creating the atmosphere of animosity between buyers and sellers for no reason. It was already extremely annoying when a buyer would place an order and go: “I’m working on the text, it’ll be ready once I’m back from a holiday, byeee”. How am I supposed to feel now, when I know that I’m stuck with this buyer and there is no way for me to get out of the situation unscathed at all? I can’t even tell them that they’re screwing me over without meaning to because it’d be “manipulating the buyer”. All of this is just so bleak.