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Support & Troubleshooting

Hi all! My name is Tucie because my mom, who ironically has her PHD in English, misspelled Lucie and I have been a successful freelancer on this platform for 2 years (level 2 seller, benchmarks checked for TRS). Please note that this is the first time I've felt the need to post my opinion on the internet, much less on a Fiverr forum. Although this currently feels far-fetched, my hope is to have a representative from Fiverr sees this and take some of these insights into consideration. Otherwise, the next best case scenario is helping sellers better understand Fiverr more as a business perspective. 

 It's first important to understand that Fiverr prompts buyer's to leave a private review after you've left a buyer a review. It's also important to note that the private reviews hold more weight than the public reviews. With that in mind, you never want to leave an honest review on a buyer's profile. From a seller's perspective, you don't want a buyer to leave a negative private review that's stemmed from vindictiveness. From Fiverr's perspective, they expect you to treat your profile as it's your own business (because it is); and in business, it's never a good idea to burn your bridges. 

Given my line of work, I undergo consultations as apart of my onboarding process. The main reason I do these consultations is to build a relationship with clients; and in this consultation, I ask about their previous Fiverr experiences. It was truly shocking to hear how many buyers have had negative experiences, yet still left a 5 star review because the previous seller "tried their best" or they chose to not leave a review at all out of fear they'd hurt the seller's business. When you think about this from Fiverr's perspective, private reviews are a necessity: if buyers are having bad experiences, they will not return to the platform and Fiverr will be out of business. If a particular seller is consistently getting negative private reviews, it is a smart idea to dilute their algorithm until further notice. 

If you're a newer seller just learning about the platform, private reviews have practically always been around. The frustrating part about the old system is not knowing WHEN you got a private review. That said, I am personally a fan of being able to see an overview of my client satisfaction level. 

Although sellers know WHEN they get a negative private review, they still don't know WHY. My solution to this is to add pre-written selection of different elements as apart of the private review that can be shared with sellers. For instance, in the new rating system, buyers have the ability to select what they liked about the service. This tells a seller what they're doing well at. While that can encourage a buyer's impulse to purchase a service, it is useless feedback to the seller. Adding a similar feature to the private reviews and sharing that with sellers will enable the seller to know exactly what they need to work on. All in all, showing that there's a negative impact is not specific enough to be helpful. 

From my understanding, this is the same as tracking the order response rate. If you're a newer seller, Fiverr is tracking how quickly you respond to your current orders and you're expected to reply within 24 hours. This is something that they've always tracked, but previously was not a requirement to maintain a seller level. 

 Regardless of it being a direct client or a buyer here on Fiverr, not responding in a timely manner tells buyers/clients that you are overworked and/or that you do not prioritize their needs, which is a major no-no given they're quite literally paying you to prioritize their needs. From Fiverr's prospective, it doesn't make sense for them to boost a gig's impressions if the seller is not responding to the orders they currently have: why would they give sellers with more work if a seller is already struggling with their current workload? 

 Given the endless array trust and safety risks, I completely understand why Fiverr does not allow outsiders to sign into a seller's account. However, it would be nice to have the ability to hire an assistant that can help respond to messages without the fear of being banned. It'd overall be a neat upsell feature: sellers will have the ability to close in on more offers due to a quicker response rate that isn't just a generic auto-response and would be willing to pay significantly more for this feature considering it makes them more money in the long haul. 

From my understanding, this is referring to the frequency in which you extend a buyer's delivery date. 

Fiverr's stance on this is simple: give buyers clear expectations. If a seller is consistently extending orders, then it's clear that the seller needs to re-evaluate their onboarding/client in-take process. I understand the need to track this, but the current set-up is wildly ineffective and hurts sellers more than it helps. 

When Fiverr rolled out the auto-accept feature extending delivery dates, I thought it was a smart move because it increases the likelihood of an order to be completed (increasing Fiverr's profits) because it gives the buyer more time to respond when life happens. However, this new metric incentives sellers to outright cancel the order from unresponsive buyers and have it removed from seller statistics if the buyer does not reorder within two weeks. 

Speaking solely based on my own personal experience, the times I've had to extend the delivery deadline is usually a direct result of a buyer placing an order without messaging me first, DESPITE clear directions placed numerous times throughout my gig to do so. I know that there is a feature that's already available to some sellers that grants them the ability to disallow buyers to purchase a gig unless it's sent via custom offer. That said, I strongly feel this feature should be available to all sellers with the expectation that the feature itself will NOT affect a gig's impressions; because frankly, it's not fair to punish sellers based on the actions of a buyer. If anything, granting sellers the freedom to have control over their onboarding process will only increase buyer satisfaction. 

To that end, I also strongly feel that the consultation option should be available to all sellers. In my line of work, I require a mandatory consultation before taking on clients. Since this feature isn't available to me (despite being a level 2 seller with TRS benchmarks complete), I have to utilize my first package as the consultation. This not only limit's a buyer's purchasing power, but can cause discrepancy of what prices actually are if the buyer does not click through all of the package options before placing an order; and since my "consultation" is in form of a gig package, the times I've had to extend the deadline is usually due to a buyer not showing up to a consultation and/or needing to reschedule on their end; and as stated previously, it's not fair to punish sellers for something that's out of their control. 

And these are just some added points for consultations, sellers that don't have this feature available are being put at risk of violating TOS by having to use outside contact via different schedular systems that they have to pay for; but more importantly, it can affect buyer satisfaction if they have to use a system they're unfamiliar with and/or is frustrating for them to use. 

4. & 5. Order Cancellations and Delivery Time 

It's relatively straight-forward as to why Fiverr has always tracked these metrics. As a seller, you kind of have to think of offers like a contract: whether it's completing the project or delivering it on time, you are obligated to hold up your end of the deal. If you're unable to do so with the orders you currently have, then it makes no sense for Fiverr to boost your impressions. 

Ironically I am a sales coach that has worked with billion dollar clients such as AT&T, Apple and Samsung as a sales manager for over 5 years. I was responsible for launching events any time a new phone line came out on a regional scale managing teams of 200+ people. With that in mind, this is the stupidest metric I've ever heard of. 

 Have you ever bought something that you thought was a great deal, but when you expressed excitement about this deal to a loved one, they told you that you got ripped off or they thought you were downright stupid for making such a purchase? Why is it that you thought it was a great deal and they didn't? It's because value does not equate to price whatsoever. They are entirely two separate things: if you have a bigger need for something, then you'll value that thing way more than someone who doesn't have a need for it. In my opinion, this metric is an absolute wild card because it's judging a seller based on the severity of a buyer's needs which is something a seller cannot control. I sincerely think "reccomend to a friend" represents the same thing: if you saw great value in something, you'd reccomend it to a friend. 

 Sellers, especially if they're based in countries like US, have to compete with sellers from other countries that have the same quality work with a lower price point. That part is what it is, but pricing is in particular difficult because there's a 20% service charge on top of having to save 30-40%+ taxes, never mind any business expenses a seller may have to account to perform said service. In all seriousness, it's asking a buyer to judge their money's worth based on double the price of what it would be compared to invoicing a client directly and in a time where inflation is unprecedented. Quite frankly, there's no incentive for sellers to keep buyers on the platform other than the fear of being banned. Implementing a structure similar to Upwork where the service fee is lowered when specific metrics that met and are encouraged based on the frequency of working with the same client over a period of time would be an ideal solution, but I highly doubt that Fiverr will ever make that transition. 

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