Jump to content

Canceled order or bad review? Which is preferable?


mrs_write

Recommended Posts

Hello, fellow Fiverrers! 🙂 I searched for an answer on this topic, but, after some reading, I’m still not sure what the best option would be in my case.

Long story s̶h̶o̶r̶t̶ long (I also posted a synopsis in my first post below): I have been a seller since the end of October 2019 and have since provided work which was well received by all my previous buyers (one of them returned for a second order).

Last Friday, I received an order. At first, it all seemed normal: the buyer had provided the information in my requirements form, I reached out to them, thanked them for choosing me, assured them I would deliver the work within the deadline and asked if they had additional specifications. They said they did not.

I delivered the work 10 hours after the order was placed (out of the total 24 hours deadline). When delivering the order, I summarized the creative process, reassuring them that I had taken all their requirements into consideration.

For the next 2 days, I received no feedback/sign from the buyer, despite the order chat showing that they had repeatedly been online during this time.

Suddenly, they request a revision (I offer 1 free revision). In the message accompanying the revision request, the buyer starts having a condescending attitude, saying that the only 2 versions they liked (out of the 10 I provided, according to my gig description) are not original. They said they were already used by their competitors. I googled those specific slogans and found nothing like that. I should mention that my gig does not offer competitor research and that I am very involved in the creative process, as I am very passionate with writing. I have never used generators, nor have I plagiarized existing slogans.

I had provided 8 creative slogans, and 2 more general ones, all of them according to the buyer’s requirements.

Although in my FAQ, as well as when I deliver my orders, I clearly specify that, for my gig, a revision means slightly modifying/adapting the initial work, not doing the work differently from scratch, I pondered whether risking a bad review would be worth it, and I decided to make an exception and provide 10 new slogans, following the direction of those 2 slogans that the buyer had indicated they liked. I made sure to inform the customer about this, in a friendly and professional manner, focusing on the fact that I will re-do the work in order to have an efficient and fruitful collaboration.

I provided the second batch within hours. Again, the buyer kept silent for almost 24 hours, after which they requested another revision (although I only offer 1 for free, and they did not buy the extra for this), simply saying “I do not like any of the revisions. The slogans provided are not original as advertised.” Shortly after, they requested me to cancel the order.

In the Terms of Service, it is stated that: Orders are not eligible to be cancelled based on the quality of service/materials delivered by the Seller if the service was rendered as described in the Gig Page. Buyers may rate their experience with the Seller on the Order Page, including the overall level of service quality received.

The situation this buyer has put me in is not fair at all. If I cancel, this would basically mean that I did a double amount of work for free (not to mention the stress and the efforts I made in order to provide a timely delivery). I am much convinced that this buyer only wanted work for free. I delivered them 20 slogans and now they want their money back.

On the other hand, if I do not cancel, I am convinced they will leave a negative review (judging by their attitude, I would not be surprised if they left a 1 star review). My gig has a general 5-star review, based on 10 reviews and I am very close to becoming a Level 1 seller.

What would you advice me to do? Cancel the order and lose money/time/energy but maintain my good rating? Would this cancelling affect my statistics, being that this would be my first ever canceling? Or address CS and, if the order does not get canceled, risking a 1 or 2 stars review, which could mess up my Level 1 upgrade and possibly influence future buyers into not ordering from me?

Thank you in advance and sorry for this long post! I felt that painting the whole picture would be necessary when seeking advice.

  • Like 40
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello, fellow Fiverrers! 🙂 I searched for an answer on this topic, but, after some reading, I’m still not sure what the best option would be in my case.

Long story s̶h̶o̶r̶t̶ long (I also posted a synopsis in my first post below): I have been a seller since the end of October 2019 and have since provided work which was well received by all my previous buyers (one of them returned for a second order).

Last Friday, I received an order. At first, it all seemed normal: the buyer had provided the information in my requirements form, I reached out to them, thanked them for choosing me, assured them I would deliver the work within the deadline and asked if they had additional specifications. They said they did not.

I delivered the work 10 hours after the order was placed (out of the total 24 hours deadline). When delivering the order, I summarized the creative process, reassuring them that I had taken all their requirements into consideration.

For the next 2 days, I received no feedback/sign from the buyer, despite the order chat showing that they had repeatedly been online during this time.

Suddenly, they request a revision (I offer 1 free revision). In the message accompanying the revision request, the buyer starts having a condescending attitude, saying that the only 2 versions they liked (out of the 10 I provided, according to my gig description) are not original. They said they were already used by their competitors. I googled those specific slogans and found nothing like that. I should mention that my gig does not offer competitor research and that I am very involved in the creative process, as I am very passionate with writing. I have never used generators, nor have I plagiarized existing slogans.

I had provided 8 creative slogans, and 2 more general ones, all of them according to the buyer’s requirements.

Although in my FAQ, as well as when I deliver my orders, I clearly specify that, for my gig, a revision means slightly modifying/adapting the initial work, not doing the work differently from scratch, I pondered whether risking a bad review would be worth it, and I decided to make an exception and provide 10 new slogans, following the direction of those 2 slogans that the buyer had indicated they liked. I made sure to inform the customer about this, in a friendly and professional manner, focusing on the fact that I will re-do the work in order to have an efficient and fruitful collaboration.

I provided the second batch within hours. Again, the buyer kept silent for almost 24 hours, after which they requested another revision (although I only offer 1 for free, and they did not buy the extra for this), simply saying “I do not like any of the revisions. The slogans provided are not original as advertised.” Shortly after, they requested me to cancel the order.

In the Terms of Service, it is stated that: Orders are not eligible to be cancelled based on the quality of service/materials delivered by the Seller if the service was rendered as described in the Gig Page. Buyers may rate their experience with the Seller on the Order Page, including the overall level of service quality received.

The situation this buyer has put me in is not fair at all. If I cancel, this would basically mean that I did a double amount of work for free (not to mention the stress and the efforts I made in order to provide a timely delivery). I am much convinced that this buyer only wanted work for free. I delivered them 20 slogans and now they want their money back.

On the other hand, if I do not cancel, I am convinced they will leave a negative review (judging by their attitude, I would not be surprised if they left a 1 star review). My gig has a general 5-star review, based on 10 reviews and I am very close to becoming a Level 1 seller.

What would you advice me to do? Cancel the order and lose money/time/energy but maintain my good rating? Would this cancelling affect my statistics, being that this would be my first ever canceling? Or address CS and, if the order does not get canceled, risking a 1 or 2 stars review, which could mess up my Level 1 upgrade and possibly influence future buyers into not ordering from me?

Thank you in advance and sorry for this long post! I felt that painting the whole picture would be necessary when seeking advice.

Long story short

Hello, it’s still a long story. I wish you could edit out about 90%. But that’s probably just me. I like it concise when there is a problem.

I went through it reading only the first sentence of each paragraph and got the gist of it. It’s really your decision which is the worst for you.

This is a very common problem probably caused by someone wanting free work.

  • Like 24
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Long story short

Hello, it’s still a long story. I wish you could edit out about 90%. But that’s probably just me. I like it concise when there is a problem.

I went through it reading only the first sentence of each paragraph and got the gist of it. It’s really your decision which is the worst for you.

This is a very common problem probably caused by someone wanting free work.

Sorry, but I felt that leaving details out would not help in this situation. Thank you for your response, that’s my feeling also…

For other people who prefer a synopsis: Basically, the buyer may have tricked me into delivering two batches of work for free, although my revision does not equal re-doing the job. I made an exception in order to avoid a bad review. After the second delivery, they were rude and asked for order cancellation.

What would be the better choice? Cancel the order, or adressing CS and risking a negative review?

  • Like 20
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry, but I felt that leaving details out would not help in this situation. Thank you for your response, that’s my feeling also…

For other people who prefer a synopsis: Basically, the buyer may have tricked me into delivering two batches of work for free, although my revision does not equal re-doing the job. I made an exception in order to avoid a bad review. After the second delivery, they were rude and asked for order cancellation.

What would be the better choice? Cancel the order, or adressing CS and risking a negative review?

These usually follow the same pattern you are describing. It’s very common.

It’s your decision based on:

  1. how much stress of dealing with the person you can tolerate

    2.how much you don’t want a bad review

    3.how much you think a cancellation will hurt you. We don’t have actual statistics on what exactly each of these possible scenarios will do to your sales or account. It’s a hard situation to be in.

  • Like 21
Link to comment
Share on other sites

These usually follow the same pattern you are describing. It’s very common.

It’s your decision based on:

  1. how much stress of dealing with the person you can tolerate

    2.how much you don’t want a bad review

    3.how much you think a cancellation will hurt you. We don’t have actual statistics on what exactly each of these possible scenarios will do to your sales or account. It’s a hard situation to be in.

Thank you! Could you please also help me with this question? If I choose not to cancel the order, will it automatically get marked as completed in 3 days if the buyer does not accept it, even if the status of the order is now “In revision”? (as they abusively asked for a second revision, although my gig only offers 1).

  • Like 20
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you! Could you please also help me with this question? If I choose not to cancel the order, will it automatically get marked as completed in 3 days if the buyer does not accept it, even if the status of the order is now “In revision”? (as they abusively asked for a second revision, although my gig only offers 1).

If the order is in revision, you will not get paid.

Basically, 3 days need to pass after the order is delivered for it to be marked as complete. Either that or the buyer accepts it. If he continues to ask for revisions, your order will constantly be postponed and you can’t get paid until the order is accepted.

  • Like 25
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the order is in revision, you will not get paid.

Basically, 3 days need to pass after the order is delivered for it to be marked as complete. Either that or the buyer accepts it. If he continues to ask for revisions, your order will constantly be postponed and you can’t get paid until the order is accepted.

Thank you for your response! I don’t understand why they can still ask for a revision after they already used the only revision available. So they basically made sure I can’t get paid (since the order would not get completed), and this way I would be forced to cancel it and they would get away with my work for free. I wonder if reporting them to CS would help or if this would result in me receiving a warning, as I read on an older topic.

  • Like 20
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for your response! I don’t understand why they can still ask for a revision after they already used the only revision available. So they basically made sure I can’t get paid (since the order would not get completed), and this way I would be forced to cancel it and they would get away with my work for free. I wonder if reporting them to CS would help or if this would result in me receiving a warning, as I read on an older topic.

and this way I would be forced to cancel it and they would get away with my work for free.

You till can redeliver your work.

(In case if you’ll want to stand your ground and do not cancel) you will also have to reject cancellation request.

As others said the decision will be totally yours. You will be loosing in both situations you just need to pick which one will harm you less.

I never cancel orders based on the situations like yours. I’d rather have a bad review and explain my situation under their review that they tried to get away with free work. That’s also scaring away all other scammers.

However the review will always stay on your account and it’s only your choice if you want to get a hit on your stats of order completion ratio or hit on your overall rating.

You can calculate which one will bring down stats less based on the ratio and orders in the last 60 days.

  • Like 22
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like other said, it’s almost a lose/lose situation. That can happen sometimes with difficult buyers as the structure of the platform often caters to the Buyer experience over the Sellers.

That being said, when considering which would hurt less, like @mariashtelle1 stated, a negative review will stay with you much longer. You shouldn’t really feel the effects of a canceled order after 60 days, but you’d be hard pressed to recover from a 1 star review. This is mostly true as you are a relatively new Seller. If you had hundreds of reviews, one negative review wouldn’t be too big of a deal. But if you have 10 reviews, a 1 star obviously has a greater impact.

  • Like 27
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you as well, @mariashtelle1 and @articulateasian! If I get a 1 star review, my rating will drop around 4.6, so I guess cancelling would affect me less on the long run.

Yet, I still cannot let this situation at this, knowing that this person may continue doing this to countless other sellers if no measures are taken (he already has a recent 3-star review, so I guess I was not the first victim). I think about reporting this to Fiverr, via screen shots, so the abusive behavior may be proven. The TOS clearly says that buyers cannot request order cancelling solely based on their perceived quality of the work. But, if I do report him in an effort to shut down this practice and he will be forced to accept and review the order, this will get me to point 1, where my rating will be very affected. Such a dilemma…

  • Like 21
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha, I just accessed the profile of the seller who recently left this buyer a 3 star review and this is the review this buyer had left him (1.7 stars):

The seller seemed to get irritated after I asked him to revise his work because of errors and work I did not like and asked him to change.

Should I mention that said seller has a total of 50 reviews and this buyer’s review is the only negative one. So this is clearly a pattern…

  • Like 22
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was in a conversation about nearly this topic 2 days ago:

You have 45 5-stars. One bad review will affect that, yes, but several top sellers have less than perfect scores. You’ll also have the chance to respond to a negative review, and give you’re side of the story. The only only option that I can see to avoid a non-perfect review score is canceling, which has other consequences that I think are probably worse, including not getting paid for your work. The only possible way to get out of this without affecting your stats is asking CS to cancel withou…

The situation isn’t identical (no abusive language, larger review ‘cushion’, continuous revisions issue), but there are similarities.

I’d copy/paste, but it’d probably be harder to read.

  • Like 22
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@mrs_write Hello, I think better to cancel your order but before cancel take a screenshot you and your buyer massage history if he/she wants extra service and didn’t want to pay extra for that and threaten you for bad reviews then you will send a report with this screenshot. This is my opinion . It depends on you what you want if want work with him then extend the time and offer him extra money or tips 😉
Thank you

  • Like 23
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Had this experience with a buyer. His country of residence was false on the profile. He asked me to replicate an infographic, with minimum charges. I delivered the work in 3 hours and he started dispute over the fact that I added the picture of a water buffalo instead of a cow, which could be replaced in a minute. But he kept going that he did not like quality of work. I accepted the cancellation. He had many 1 and 2 star reviews on his profile which looked like a pattern to get free work done. Only if I had seen his profile before or the discrepancy in his address I wouldn't have accepted the order even.

  • Like 19
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, cainress said:

The only advice for all new sellers, never ever cancel an order, bad review can be fixed, cancelled order means the end

Actually that's the opposite. Canceling orders as a new seller is much better than having a bad review. If you have a 1-star review and that's your only review, the chances of getting new work are 0. Cancellations are tracked for 60 days, so you can easily get past that penalty in 2 months. But reviews stay with you forever.

  • Like 25
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/24/2020 at 6:07 AM, mariashtelle1 said:

As others said the decision will be totally yours. You will be loosing in both situations you just need to pick which one will harm you less.

It'd be really nice if they had something for the sellers, why's it always us to have this lose/lose situation?

They should have provided at least some compensation or anything since we won't get paid at all for all the work we went through. 😞

Just hoping they do something about it. 

  • Like 19
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, p_eeshika said:

They should have provided at least some compensation or anything since we won't get paid at all for all the work we went through.

Look, you are running the business and it on you to resolve such situations. If the client is unhappy and you can resolve a situation with getting paid and getting great review then it’s great. If you can’t then as any business you need to account for any losses would that be a bad review or cancellation. 
it’s your business and fiverr doesn’t have to compensate you from their pocket. 

  • Like 20
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I prefer to cancel, rather than to get a bad review. This is because, if you get a single cancelled order, and you keep delivering other orders as normal, the cancellation rate is something that will get back to normal at some point. A single cancellation isn't the end of the world. 

A bad review, on the other hand, stays there. It doesn't go away. You can't change it. It's ever-lasting, not to mention, it is public. Your cancellation rate isn't. Success depends on perception: if people view you as a serious and successful seller, they are more likely to buy from you. If you have several bad reviews under you belt, that's less likely to happen. 

With that being said: I believe there are ways to solve these things before it gets to a bad review or cancellation. By using customer service skills, being helpful, polite, friendly and professional, you should be able to avoid most cancellations. 

I got an order the other day that I wasn't able to complete due to personal ethical reasons. That meant I had to cancel it. That's life. 

But honestly, most cases can be solved without cancelling or getting a bad review. If you're a successful seller on Fiverr, you're likely to experience them both at some point, and none of them means the end of your carreer. 

  • Like 20
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...

Customer satisfaction is more important than money. I wouldnt need their money incase they didnt like what I present to them. Lets consider a scenerio which a seller would like to have the money instead of cancelling the order. a client didnt like sellers work, gave 1-2 stars and a negative feedback. I personally read the negative feedbacks instead positive ones, because I wonder why those clients walked away unsatisfied. there is no guarantee that it wont happen to me either. that doubt would be enough to look for someone else to hire. 

 

To be honest because of cancellations, I do sometimes drop down and up on stats. besides that I even experience that sometimes less people contact me than usual because of cancellations. But I don't really mind. it is more important to keep your business clean. although I made a lot of cancellations I see that my income grows very well and I do better than previous month everyime in the analytics page.

 

no matter what, either if the client has not enough IQ or in a mischief, if they are unsatisfied I would just do a refund and let them go. I wouldnt want to work with them either at that point. 

  • Like 17
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...