The Big Issue - Feedback Removal

[lukesdesigns]

As I’m sure everyone has encountered, Fiverr has changed their Feedback Removal Policy in a way that is very dangerous for sellers. As a seller on Fiverr for almost two years, with 500+ positive reviews and a 98% rating, I take my reviews very seriously. I have had many scenarios where instead of submitting a modification request, buyers will simply leave bad reviews and be on their way, in these scenarios I would message them with a simple “Hello, I’m sorry you had a poor experience and I’d love to work with you on changing that experience”. After improving their experience, every time they would want to change their review. I thought this was something great about Fiverr, this opportunity to provide a next-level service such as that, to go out of your way as a Seller to make sure people had a great experience, in turn improving your feedback, everybody wins.

Now Fiverr has removed the capability to do this, you may not ask the seller in any way or form to change their review. In their terms, we are not allowed to: “solicit feedback changes from Buyers in exchange for refunds, discounts, upgrades or any other type of additional benefit.”

What this basically means is that on a marketplace that revolves around providing a service, we are not allowed to be rewarded for improving someones experience. It is essentially the equivalent to telling any employee that they are not allowed to go above and beyond in their customer service because the business does not want customers to have their experiences improved.

Now I understand the function of this rule, to stop all of the mediocre sellers that beg for feedback removals, offer poor services and then give sob stories as to why they need their feedback removed, try and refund jobs to have feedback removed, etc. As I said I completely understand this function, but the overall damage these rules do seems to be on par with the positive effect they have.

I think Fiverr needs to deal with these issues on a case by case basis if they really want to ensure the best experience for their sellers, something here needs to change.

[blaisefaint]

Dear Luke:

I think it’d be a fine idea for you to make your case in this thread for Fiverrcast Questions, in the hope that it will be addressed in a future episode of Fiverrcast.

My take on this is that over time, having less than 5 stars will no longer be a kiss of death on Fiverr. I certainly hope that Fiverr will adjust the criteria for the Levels to make ratings less stressful for Sellers.

I believe Maddie has made the point that on sites like Amazon, 3 or 4 star ratings are perfectly fine, and that Fiverr appears to be moving toward that model.

If FIverr does not adjust Levels criteria to fit the new policy on ratings, then I wholeheartedly concur with the points you raise.

I’d personally rather be chill on the whole ratings issue, than stressed out over it.

Good luck,
Blaise

[lukesdesigns]

Dear Luke:

I think it’d be a fine idea for you to make your case in this thread for Fiverrcast Questions, in the hope that it will be addressed in a future episode of Fiverrcast.

My take on this is that over time, having less than 5 stars will no longer be a kiss of death on Fiverr. I certainly hope that Fiverr will adjust the criteria for the Levels to make ratings less stressful for Sellers.

I believe Maddie has made the point that on sites like Amazon, 3 or 4 star ratings are perfectly fine, and that Fiverr appears to be moving toward that model.

If FIverr does not adjust Levels criteria to fit the new policy on ratings, then I wholeheartedly concur with the points you raise.

I’d personally rather be chill on the whole ratings issue, than stressed out over it.

Good luck,

Blaise

That’s a good point, I would prefer to not have to sit all day thinking that my rating going from 98% to 97% is going to be the end of my existence, and I do see how creating a bigger gap between the ratings could be an effective system.

Hopefully that is the way things go

[silkroute]

I think it is, in fact, better for sellers.

The ability to change feedback could have been misused by buyers to squeeze more work out of sellers. Now that there’s a finality to it, it’s not a bargaining chip anymore. If the review is obviously malicious, you can get help from CS to have it removed.

[ozzieuk]

In the past feedback has been misused by a lot of sellers offering refunds for feedback removal. This creates a huge imbalance in how services are presented and buyers were buying gigs based on that 100% positive feedback only to find they had a poor experience at the end of it. My personal view is that if you’re delivering great work you’ll stand out from the sellers who were offering refunds to remove feedback, they’ll drop in rank and gradually be filtered out of results as unreliable gigs.

[eoinfinnegan]

I agree with what Ozzie said and in addition, if you include an invitation to your buyers to contact you if they have any queries, they will generally respond if they are disappointed with the result. This gives you the opportunity to fix it before they review. Use this carefully and word it so that you are still in control, don’t mention reviews etc and simply show that you care about their experience and their business and want to deliver what they need.