Fewer sellers writing reviews?

[smashradio]

Fiverr is data-driven, so I’m sure the product team is constantly working on the sales process based on metrics and data gathered from the usage patterns of the website.

Yet, there’s one part of the process that seems to have suffered, at least in my experience; the review process.

I say this not only as a buyer but also as a seller. As a seller, I’ve noticed that I receive fewer reviews compared to before.

My rated orders (all time) has gone down a few per cent (3-4% I believe) in the past months, but the acute effect is more visible: 3 out of 4 buyers have not left a review in the past couple of months.

That’s a big dip, considering I’m offering the same high-quality support and service as before, and I don’t think there’s a coincidence.

I’ve noticed as a buyer that the review process has become more and more involved over time.

This is understandable since Fiverr loves data. The “secret review” (the one you never get to see, but that – at least in my opinion – is the driver behind things like “Fiverr’s Choice”) has been added to the after-sales process.

In the past, the reviews used to be pretty useless, since it was only a matter of leaving a five-star rating and that was it. Even the text box was prefilled with “Outstanding experience!” or something like it if I remember correctly.

So I get why it needs to be more involved than before.

However; it has become a chore to leave a simple review. It takes 1-2 minutes if you don’t know what you’re doing, and at least 30 seconds + whatever time you need to write the actual review.

I think the process has gone from streamlined to clunky, and to be honest, even I stopped leaving reviews unless I’m super excited or very unhappy with the service, because it takes too much time to complete the process.

I might be mistaken: maybe the product team has different data and maybe the review process has increased the engagement, but that’s not what I’m seeing.

Anyone else with an opinion on this? Are you getting more or fewer reviews, compared to a year ago? Two years ago?

[donnovan86]

Yes, fewer people are writing reviews if they have a good experience. The problem is that a lot of people just write if they have something negative to say. Which is totally unfair. I had a bunch of 4.3 star reviews where people abused the word count, made me work double than I should, and they still wanted to penalize me some way. So… I am just moving on from this and just focus on doing my best work. I don’t really care about reviews anymore.

[mariashtelle1]

Uhhh, my percentage went from 80% to 50% rated orders in the last couple of months (or maybe a year :thinking:)

I might be wrong but I think fiverr now is asking to fill secret review first before proceeding to a public review.
So it will be interesting to hear from someone who bought on fiverr recently.
So I’m sure it definitely affects the amount of people leaving public reviews

[smashradio]

Yes, fewer people are writing reviews if they have a good experience. The problem is that a lot of people just write if they have something negative to say. Which is totally unfair. I had a bunch of 4.3 star reviews where people abused the word count, made me work double than I should, and they still wanted to penalize me some way. So… I am just moving on from this and just focus on doing my best work. I don’t really care about reviews anymore.

Reviews aren’t THAT important, unless you’re new. When you have a few under your belt you’re probably fine. But it just speaks to the issue with the entire ordering process, when we see the number of reviews dropping this much: it’s bad user experience design.

@mariashtelle1 That’s right, they do. Secret review first (or at least a part of it).

The secret review is getting more and more important to Fiverr, but clearly, it’s costing us as sellers public reviews, since the buyers will probably complete that first part, then they’ll be presented with another part (basically asked to review the same order twice) and they’ll go “nah.”

It’s interesting to hear that I’m not the only one who sees a clear indication of this happening.

[uk1000]

The fact that they will probably get a review by the seller on their (the buyer’s) profile if they review might be putting some buyers off reviewing. If they didn’t probably more people would review. Maybe it would help if reviews were more anonymous. Maybe outsourcers sometimes don’t want to leave a review or it could be a problem if the proof of work was shown in the gallery for outsourcers sometimes (if the end copyright would belong to their buyer).

[donnovan86]

Reviews aren’t THAT important, unless you’re new. When you have a few under your belt you’re probably fine. But it just speaks to the issue with the entire ordering process, when we see the number of reviews dropping this much: it’s bad user experience design.

@mariashtelle1 That’s right, they do. Secret review first (or at least a part of it).

The secret review is getting more and more important to Fiverr, but clearly, it’s costing us as sellers public reviews, since the buyers will probably complete that first part, then they’ll be presented with another part (basically asked to review the same order twice) and they’ll go “nah.”

It’s interesting to hear that I’m not the only one who sees a clear indication of this happening.

The secret review is getting more and more important to Fiverr

The secret review thing is rather unfair to be honest. Why would you force people to share a secret and a public review. For me, it feels like there’s something to hide. People that are unhappy will share a bad review anyway, we don’t need yet another thing to worry about as sellers.

[smashradio]

The secret review is getting more and more important to Fiverr

The secret review thing is rather unfair to be honest. Why would you force people to share a secret and a public review. For me, it feels like there’s something to hide. People that are unhappy will share a bad review anyway, we don’t need yet another thing to worry about as sellers.

I get why the secret review is important to Fiverr. It provides them with information about the quality and if expectations were met, and might encourage more honesty since buyers might feel bad about telling the truth in public.

It’s a way to ensure that Fiverr can recommend the best sellers to the right people. So I understand it, and I don’t think it’s unfair, to be honest.

But I do think it needs some work, because, if it causes fewer people to leave reviews, it might keep sellers back, especially the new ones who are climbing the ladder.

I’m not so much concerned about myself, but for the platform as a whole, I think the review process should be streamlined.

It could be one question for the secret review and a single star rating instead of three, then a review box, and that’s it. (Or something else, I’m not a UX designer, so I’m not qualified to say what might work best) but I do recognize bad UX design when I see it, and the review part of the buying process is not working well at the moment.

[donnovan86]

I get why the secret review is important to Fiverr. It provides them with information about the quality and if expectations were met, and might encourage more honesty since buyers might feel bad about telling the truth in public.

It’s a way to ensure that Fiverr can recommend the best sellers to the right people. So I understand it, and I don’t think it’s unfair, to be honest.

But I do think it needs some work, because, if it causes fewer people to leave reviews, it might keep sellers back, especially the new ones who are climbing the ladder.

I’m not so much concerned about myself, but for the platform as a whole, I think the review process should be streamlined.

It could be one question for the secret review and a single star rating instead of three, then a review box, and that’s it. (Or something else, I’m not a UX designer, so I’m not qualified to say what might work best) but I do recognize bad UX design when I see it, and the review part of the buying process is not working well at the moment.

since buyers might feel bad about telling the truth in public.

Really? Someone that delivers great reviews might have that, but people that want to bash you and destroy your ratings don’t feel any remorse whatsoever. And I experienced that quite a lot recently. People that provide 4.3 star reviews or 4 star reviews stating this is the best work they received in years or stuff like that. Really?

[miiila]

I get why the secret review is important to Fiverr. It provides them with information about the quality and if expectations were met, and might encourage more honesty since buyers might feel bad about telling the truth in public.

It’s a way to ensure that Fiverr can recommend the best sellers to the right people. So I understand it, and I don’t think it’s unfair, to be honest.

But I do think it needs some work, because, if it causes fewer people to leave reviews, it might keep sellers back, especially the new ones who are climbing the ladder.

I’m not so much concerned about myself, but for the platform as a whole, I think the review process should be streamlined.

It could be one question for the secret review and a single star rating instead of three, then a review box, and that’s it. (Or something else, I’m not a UX designer, so I’m not qualified to say what might work best) but I do recognize bad UX design when I see it, and the review part of the buying process is not working well at the moment.

I think it would be best if both was visible on the first and ideally only page right away, and immediately obvious “how much work” it is, as well as which part is the public, and which the private review.

From not so few reviews, it’s even clear that some buyers thought they were replying privately to the seller in the inbox or something, that shouldn’t happen.

[smashradio]

since buyers might feel bad about telling the truth in public.

Really? Someone that delivers great reviews might have that, but people that want to bash you and destroy your ratings don’t feel any remorse whatsoever. And I experienced that quite a lot recently. People that provide 4.3 star reviews or 4 star reviews stating this is the best work they received in years or stuff like that. Really?

I’ve had a couple of bad reviews during my years on Fiverr. Most of them has been a 4.3 rating or 4.7. Often, this might be because they want to leave a truthful review on every aspect, and maybe they don’t know how detrimental a bad review can be. However, I never considered 4.7 to be “bad”, and I think a lot of sellers are taking the reviews too seriously. It’s like their world is collapsing if they get anything less than five stars. But that’s not the point of a review, is it? The point is to get a truthful review of the quality and level of service you provide.

True, there are some bad buyers out there that will bash you and don’t feel remorse. But I find that simply raising my prices a bit got rid of 99% of them.

I don’t mind the secret review process. It’s used to help Fiverr determine if a seller offers good value and high-quality services, allowing Fiverr to connect the right buyer with the right seller using recommendations and ranking as tools.

After all - what we should all be interested in - is that we as sellers get paired with buyers who are likely to order and be happy with what we have to offer.

@miiila I agree. I think the first part of the review process should be the public review.

[gina_riley2]

When I first joined, I left reviews 100% of the time, now I’ve stop altogether.

For repeat sellers, I’m running out of new things to say. I rarely hire new sellers (ones I’ve never worked with) any more. The processing fee is too high for me to experiment.

I just go back to tried and true seller who I know will do great work.

I also, don’t like reviews to appear on my Buyer’s Profile. It’s no one’s business what I buy, who I buy from and how often. Yes, you can always google search me but that was still a bit more private. It’s really intrusive.

2 reviews just showed up on my profile one day, really irked me as I received no notice from 5r that was going to happen.

Edit: I didn’t think about the fact that unhappy people are more apt to write reviews than satisfied ones. I guess that would definitely hurt your rating. Truth is I think 5r should remove customers ratings in your monthly evaluation. If it’s not mandatory, it’s not fair.

The reviews on 5r are useless any ways. Reading, 1000 “Good work” with 5 ⭐ is irritating and worthless. I’ve hired those seller before and gotten bad or stolen work. Either 1000 people lied or didn’t know they got bad/stolen work.

[donnovan86]

I’ve had a couple of bad reviews during my years on Fiverr. Most of them has been a 4.3 rating or 4.7. Often, this might be because they want to leave a truthful review on every aspect, and maybe they don’t know how detrimental a bad review can be. However, I never considered 4.7 to be “bad”, and I think a lot of sellers are taking the reviews too seriously. It’s like their world is collapsing if they get anything less than five stars. But that’s not the point of a review, is it? The point is to get a truthful review of the quality and level of service you provide.

True, there are some bad buyers out there that will bash you and don’t feel remorse. But I find that simply raising my prices a bit got rid of 99% of them.

I don’t mind the secret review process. It’s used to help Fiverr determine if a seller offers good value and high-quality services, allowing Fiverr to connect the right buyer with the right seller using recommendations and ranking as tools.

After all - what we should all be interested in - is that we as sellers get paired with buyers who are likely to order and be happy with what we have to offer.

@miiila I agree. I think the first part of the review process should be the public review.

The point is to get a truthful review of the quality and level of service you provide.

True, but when you receive something like Excellent, will come back for more and you see 4 stars… doesn’t something feel off to you?

[gina_riley2]

The point is to get a truthful review of the quality and level of service you provide.

True, but when you receive something like Excellent, will come back for more and you see 4 stars… doesn’t something feel off to you?

5r works on a different level.

Most places have

3 stars for good work

4 stars for excellent work

5 stars for outstanding work

New buyers probably don’t know that 4 stars or 80% could penalize you or get you demoted. Let’s face it, majority of the buyers don’t read the TOS and even if they did, it doesn’t talk about how to review…

[eoinfinnegan]

I’d like to see private review invitations being sent to buyers who either don’t review or review negatively - in fact, an option would be to allow them write a review and submit it publicly, privately or both.

[donnovan86]

5r works on a different level.

Most places have

3 stars for good work

4 stars for excellent work

5 stars for outstanding work

New buyers probably don’t know that 4 stars or 80% could penalize you or get you demoted. Let’s face it, majority of the buyers don’t read the TOS and even if they did, it doesn’t talk about how to review…

New buyers

The reason why I am upset is not due to new people. I am talking about people that have been here for years that clearly give 4 star reviews just to make a point. At the end of the day, I’ve been here for more than 7 years, nothing surprises me anymore, at least not a whole lot. But seeing more and more people posting 4 star reviews with excelent work remarks… that just feels sad to me.

[nurtajmohammed]

this is first time I heard something like that, want more to listen

[moikchap]

I’ve been going at a pace where I’ll run a few orders through the same person every day or so. I noticed that sometimes on the 3rd or 4th delivery, they’re reminding me to leave a review. But, I had already reviewed them 3 or 4 times. I go to confirm my review is in place, and I see a bit of tiny grey boilerplate text saying the review will be posted on a certain date or when the seller leaves a review. I pointed that part out to them, and then their reviews came through a little while later. I think a lot of sellers might not know about this blind reviews phase where the reviews are held and it’s beneficial to them to review back.

[vickiespencer]

I’ve been going at a pace where I’ll run a few orders through the same person every day or so. I noticed that sometimes on the 3rd or 4th delivery, they’re reminding me to leave a review. But, I had already reviewed them 3 or 4 times. I go to confirm my review is in place, and I see a bit of tiny grey boilerplate text saying the review will be posted on a certain date or when the seller leaves a review. I pointed that part out to them, and then their reviews came through a little while later. I think a lot of sellers might not know about this blind reviews phase where the reviews are held and it’s beneficial to them to review back.

they’re reminding me to leave a review

Are you talking about the seller or an automatic bot :robot:

[moikchap]

they’re reminding me to leave a review

Are you talking about the seller or an automatic bot :robot:

The seller, in the text box where they described their changes/updates/the delivery. It’s marked as a message from them.

[kno010]

I have also noticed this. The percentage of my orders being rated used to be over 50% for a long time, but has slowly drifted all the way down to 43%.

I do have a different theory as to why this might happen thought. I have noticed that repeat buyers are less likely to leave a review after they have already left a few of them, while your first time customers quite often take the time to leave a review. When you are working with a seller for the first time and want to build a relation with them for future work you will often take the time to write a review, but if it is your 100th order with that seller maybe you won’t bother writing a review for every order.

This means that most sellers as they build a larger network of contacts and repeating buyers will in many cases see the percentage of orders being rated drop as their percentage of orders coming from repeat buyers increase.

Another interesting detail is that you (@smashradio), left a review after your first order with me, but not your second order. This also backs the theory that buyers would be more likely to leave a review the first time. That being said the one you did leave was very well written and the percentage of your orders with me being rated (50%) is higher than my 43% average, so I am definitely not complaining, just thought it was interesting.

For me reviews aren’t as important as they used to be when I was a new seller since my 750+ reviews should be enough for most buyers, but having some good recent reviews is still important and I read and appreciate every single review I get. I also have a long therm goal of getting the amount of reviews for my top selling gigs to simply say 1k+, because I think that looks awesome and would further increase the trust that buyers would have in the quality of my service.

On the topic of secret reviews I would love to have access to some of that useful data myself, and I believe that can be done while allowing every buyer to stay completely anonymous. If the most common answers from the secret reviews were summarized and sent to me at the end of each month I could use that data to improve on any shortcomings. And of course since I have like 60-90 orders each month from a lot of different buyers it would be impossible for me to know anything about which people left which kind of reviews. Perhaps Fiverr could place a limit on how many unique buyers you need each month to have access to the data, to make sure everyone secret reviews stay anonymous, but no matter how they do it I am sure it would be a great benefit to sellers and increase the overall quality of work on the platform.

[vickiespencer]

The seller, in the text box where they described their changes/updates/the delivery. It’s marked as a message from them.

The seller

It is against Fiverr’s TOS for sellers to ask about reviews from their buyers. :roll_eyes:

Your seller who does this could get a warning from Fiverr for review manipulation. 😱

[travelscape]

I think it’s not just Fiverr, but review fatigue on the whole.

On a normal day, I get asked to review at least 4-5 things, and honestly it’s quite annoying. For 1. it’s time consuming as you already pointed out, and 2. there’s no incentive for me to do so.

If I download an app, I get prompted to leave a review. If I book an Uber, review. If I get a delivery from Amazon, review. See a movie, eat at a restaurant, order takeout, navigate somewhere with maps, etc. ad nauseum. Review fatigue.

[donnovan86]

I think it’s not just Fiverr, but review fatigue on the whole.

On a normal day, I get asked to review at least 4-5 things, and honestly it’s quite annoying. For 1. it’s time consuming as you already pointed out, and 2. there’s no incentive for me to do so.

If I download an app, I get prompted to leave a review. If I book an Uber, review. If I get a delivery from Amazon, review. See a movie, eat at a restaurant, order takeout, navigate somewhere with maps, etc. ad nauseum. Review fatigue.

I think it’s not just Fiverr, but review fatigue on the whole.

With Fiverr the problem would be those secret reviews. You’re asked 2 reviews, not one.

[travelscape]

I think it’s not just Fiverr, but review fatigue on the whole.

With Fiverr the problem would be those secret reviews. You’re asked 2 reviews, not one.

That as well. And don’t forget multiple reminders to add a tip!

[donnovan86]

That as well. And don’t forget multiple reminders to add a tip!

That too. Now I get it why regulars are not sharing any reviews. Even if that would help the seller. But they just want to get their job done and get rid of review notifications.