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How the Fiverr rating system is broken and makes sellers into desperate beggars


jonathandellmar

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So, I commissioned a gig for a logo. The job gets done and I’m happy. I left a 4 star review and I tipped an additional 20%

The seller messages me: “Thank you sir! But a tip with 4stars? That’s a bit contradictory 😂

My response was: “God has a hard time getting five stars from me… If someone gets a 5 star review or a 10 / 10 from me, it means that the work was so good that my heart stop beating and it was all I could do from demanding that the Pope canonize and raise them to living sainthood.”

The sellers response was mind blowing: “Then don’t try to contact me again 🙂 because with that 4 stars you didn’t help me develop my business, regardless with the disrespect in your first message. Ciao 👋

WTF… You got an above average rating… You got tipped… And now you are butt hurt because you didn’t get a five out of five? The work wasn’t perfect. I did have to repeat myself a few times. So, the work wasn’t perfect and you didn’t get a perfect score. It was above average and you got good marks.
You got graded on the work you did and telling a paying (and formerly happy) customer to never come back… How the hell is doing that going to help you build your business sunshine?

Is this what I should expect when engaging sellers on Fiverr?

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I think we take the rating thing too seriously here sometimes. It’s nice to get 5 stars, but I’m here for the money.

The system on Fiverr tends to reward people with higher ratings, but lately the whole system seems like it’s in a state of flux, so who knows?

Like you said, there is some thin skin here. If it’s bad here in a semi-anonymous medium, I can only imagine what it’s like in a face to face situation, where clients can be brutal. Even in that situation, you walk it off and learn for the next time.

I wish you success!

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So, I commissioned a gig for a logo. The job gets done and I’m happy. I left a 4 star review and I tipped an additional 20%

The seller messages me: “Thank you sir! But a tip with 4stars? That’s a bit contradictory 😂

My response was: “God has a hard time getting five stars from me… If someone gets a 5 star review or a 10 / 10 from me, it means that the work was so good that my heart stop beating and it was all I could do from demanding that the Pope canonize and raise them to living sainthood.”

The sellers response was mind blowing: “Then don’t try to contact me again 🙂 because with that 4 stars you didn’t help me develop my business, regardless with the disrespect in your first message. Ciao 👋

WTF… You got an above average rating… You got tipped… And now you are butt hurt because you didn’t get a five out of five? The work wasn’t perfect. I did have to repeat myself a few times. So, the work wasn’t perfect and you didn’t get a perfect score. It was above average and you got good marks.

You got graded on the work you did and telling a paying (and formerly happy) customer to never come back… How the hell is doing that going to help you build your business sunshine?

Is this what I should expect when engaging sellers on Fiverr?

“Thank you sir! But a tip with 4stars? That’s a bit contradictory

That was wrong of the seller to send that message.

“God has a hard time getting five stars from me… If someone gets a 5 star review or a 10 / 10 from me, it means that the work was so good that my heart stop beating and it was all I could do from demanding that the Pope canonize and raise them to living sainthood.”

This is relishing your power over others too much. It sounds like there is a lot of good feelings for your ego with this attitude. It’s like there are few people on earth who are worthy of your bestowing the ultimate honor because you hold the human race to such high standards due to rightfully expecting almost superhuman things from them.

It was bad behavior on the part of the seller who should never have sent a message about the 4 stars though so the fault is his.

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So, I commissioned a gig for a logo. The job gets done and I’m happy. I left a 4 star review and I tipped an additional 20%

The seller messages me: “Thank you sir! But a tip with 4stars? That’s a bit contradictory 😂

My response was: “God has a hard time getting five stars from me… If someone gets a 5 star review or a 10 / 10 from me, it means that the work was so good that my heart stop beating and it was all I could do from demanding that the Pope canonize and raise them to living sainthood.”

The sellers response was mind blowing: “Then don’t try to contact me again 🙂 because with that 4 stars you didn’t help me develop my business, regardless with the disrespect in your first message. Ciao 👋

WTF… You got an above average rating… You got tipped… And now you are butt hurt because you didn’t get a five out of five? The work wasn’t perfect. I did have to repeat myself a few times. So, the work wasn’t perfect and you didn’t get a perfect score. It was above average and you got good marks.

You got graded on the work you did and telling a paying (and formerly happy) customer to never come back… How the hell is doing that going to help you build your business sunshine?

Is this what I should expect when engaging sellers on Fiverr?

God has a hard time getting five stars from me

And yet with those standards, here you are in the bargain basement of fiverr. Funny, one naturally expects heart stopping, mind blowing perfection for $5.

I do agree that he should have not responded in that way. However you seem to really enjoy dispensing less than perfect feedback to justify the “I’m such a perfectionist, no one could ever live up to my standards” dialog. I’ll bet you are a riot when you tip your waitress a quarter and say, “try harder next time, sweetie.”

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So, I commissioned a gig for a logo. The job gets done and I’m happy. I left a 4 star review and I tipped an additional 20%

The seller messages me: “Thank you sir! But a tip with 4stars? That’s a bit contradictory 😂

My response was: “God has a hard time getting five stars from me… If someone gets a 5 star review or a 10 / 10 from me, it means that the work was so good that my heart stop beating and it was all I could do from demanding that the Pope canonize and raise them to living sainthood.”

The sellers response was mind blowing: “Then don’t try to contact me again 🙂 because with that 4 stars you didn’t help me develop my business, regardless with the disrespect in your first message. Ciao 👋

WTF… You got an above average rating… You got tipped… And now you are butt hurt because you didn’t get a five out of five? The work wasn’t perfect. I did have to repeat myself a few times. So, the work wasn’t perfect and you didn’t get a perfect score. It was above average and you got good marks.

You got graded on the work you did and telling a paying (and formerly happy) customer to never come back… How the hell is doing that going to help you build your business sunshine?

Is this what I should expect when engaging sellers on Fiverr?

My response was: “God has a hard time getting five stars from me… If someone gets a 5 star review or a 10 / 10 from me, it means that the work was so good that my heart stop beating and it was all I could do from demanding that the Pope canonize and raise them to living sainthood.”

God always gets 10 out of 5 stars from me. He deserves it. But that’s just my two cents . 😉

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So, I commissioned a gig for a logo. The job gets done and I’m happy. I left a 4 star review and I tipped an additional 20%

The seller messages me: “Thank you sir! But a tip with 4stars? That’s a bit contradictory 😂

My response was: “God has a hard time getting five stars from me… If someone gets a 5 star review or a 10 / 10 from me, it means that the work was so good that my heart stop beating and it was all I could do from demanding that the Pope canonize and raise them to living sainthood.”

The sellers response was mind blowing: “Then don’t try to contact me again 🙂 because with that 4 stars you didn’t help me develop my business, regardless with the disrespect in your first message. Ciao 👋

WTF… You got an above average rating… You got tipped… And now you are butt hurt because you didn’t get a five out of five? The work wasn’t perfect. I did have to repeat myself a few times. So, the work wasn’t perfect and you didn’t get a perfect score. It was above average and you got good marks.

You got graded on the work you did and telling a paying (and formerly happy) customer to never come back… How the hell is doing that going to help you build your business sunshine?

Is this what I should expect when engaging sellers on Fiverr?

Aside from the silly message from the seller and the ridiculousness of your requirements to bestow your magnificent maximum endorsement upon lowly Fiverr sellers, the real issue here is that the demand for 5 stars is actually down to Fiverr’s requirements.

A seller who gets an average of 4 star ratings:

  • will never achieve the Level 2 seller badge.
  • will not be able to send offers to buyer requests

The above show the high standards that Fiverr requires for sellers but of course the necessity for

the work was so good that my heart stop beating and it was all I could do from demanding that the Pope canonize and raise them to living sainthood.

is pretty ridiculous and completely out of touch with the reality of what reviews actually mean here. There are occasionally buyers who say things like this but thankfully most buyers understand the point of reviews.

By all means, knock off a star or two for the fact that the seller’s communication wasn’t great so they get a 4.4 or 4.7 star overall review or whatever but don’t be unreasonable, it reflects badly on you.

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I have mixed emotions. The seller should of never messaged you with their complaint but your high regard of yourself offsets the seller’s message.

No high regard on my part. When I have to ask three times for “White Text with a Black Border” to get white text (Not light blue, not really light blue…) with a black border (Not dark blue…) you have knocked yourself out of the running for perfect. A perfect rating is earned. The seller in question got a solid 4 star review, no negative comments and a 20% tip. And was unhappy and blew another logo job, business cards and stationary for the other projects I have…

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I think we take the rating thing too seriously here sometimes. It’s nice to get 5 stars, but I’m here for the money.

The system on Fiverr tends to reward people with higher ratings, but lately the whole system seems like it’s in a state of flux, so who knows?

Like you said, there is some thin skin here. If it’s bad here in a semi-anonymous medium, I can only imagine what it’s like in a face to face situation, where clients can be brutal. Even in that situation, you walk it off and learn for the next time.

I wish you success!

I got a good logo. I would have given the guy more business, which is the ultimate compliment from an online customer.

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I got a good logo. I would have given the guy more business, which is the ultimate compliment from an online customer.

If I liked something enough to place another order that rates 5 stars I think. But you are entitled to leave any review rating you want of course. I would turn down someone who wanted to order again and left a 4 star review. I just wouldn’t feel appreciated enough to want to do more work for that person.

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I hate those terms “snowflake” and “butthurt” too. They are used together by a certain type of person to crudely insult others. They are hateful.

I couldn’t agree more…those terms have a political meaning and they are used as an insult. Despite the wrongdoing of the seller’s message, I doubt there are many sellers who read the buyer’s comments, would want to work with him.

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Aside from the silly message from the seller and the ridiculousness of your requirements to bestow your magnificent maximum endorsement upon lowly Fiverr sellers, the real issue here is that the demand for 5 stars is actually down to Fiverr’s requirements.

A seller who gets an average of 4 star ratings:

  • will never achieve the Level 2 seller badge.
  • will not be able to send offers to buyer requests

The above show the high standards that Fiverr requires for sellers but of course the necessity for

the work was so good that my heart stop beating and it was all I could do from demanding that the Pope canonize and raise them to living sainthood.

is pretty ridiculous and completely out of touch with the reality of what reviews actually mean here. There are occasionally buyers who say things like this but thankfully most buyers understand the point of reviews.

By all means, knock off a star or two for the fact that the seller’s communication wasn’t great so they get a 4.4 or 4.7 star overall review or whatever but don’t be unreasonable, it reflects badly on you.

Ok. I’ve always been told that:

1 star - The work sucked Total trainwreck and the lawyers are being called.

2 stars - The work was barely passable. Not a dumpster fire but the job is done and everybody walks away with their marbles.

3 stars - The work met expectations. Your run of the mill everybody did their job and went home satisfied rating.

4 stars - The work exceeded expectations. The client got something above and beyond. Pat yourself on the back and enjoy.

5 stars - The work exceeded all reasonable expectations.

If everything below a 5 star review is considered a dumpster fire, Fiver should put that in big red letters on the top of the review page. Or just give us a “yes” or “no” check box.

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Ok. I’ve always been told that:

1 star - The work sucked Total trainwreck and the lawyers are being called.

2 stars - The work was barely passable. Not a dumpster fire but the job is done and everybody walks away with their marbles.

3 stars - The work met expectations. Your run of the mill everybody did their job and went home satisfied rating.

4 stars - The work exceeded expectations. The client got something above and beyond. Pat yourself on the back and enjoy.

5 stars - The work exceeded all reasonable expectations.

If everything below a 5 star review is considered a dumpster fire, Fiver should put that in big red letters on the top of the review page. Or just give us a “yes” or “no” check box.

It’s not a perfect review system. Anything less than 5 stars is not considered very good including 4 stars.

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Ok. I’ve always been told that:

1 star - The work sucked Total trainwreck and the lawyers are being called.

2 stars - The work was barely passable. Not a dumpster fire but the job is done and everybody walks away with their marbles.

3 stars - The work met expectations. Your run of the mill everybody did their job and went home satisfied rating.

4 stars - The work exceeded expectations. The client got something above and beyond. Pat yourself on the back and enjoy.

5 stars - The work exceeded all reasonable expectations.

If everything below a 5 star review is considered a dumpster fire, Fiver should put that in big red letters on the top of the review page. Or just give us a “yes” or “no” check box.

Fiverr doesn’t put it in big red letters because buyers like you are the exception, not the norm.

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It’s not a perfect review system. Anything less than 5 stars is not considered very good including 4 stars.

That is an understatement of almost biblical proportions… So basically I should set the filter for 5 out of 5 because the community standards are anything 4.9 and below is a dumpster fire? Jesus. Nice to leave some granularity in the rating system…

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That is an understatement of almost biblical proportions… So basically I should set the filter for 5 out of 5 because the community standards are anything 4.9 and below is a dumpster fire? Jesus. Nice to leave some granularity in the rating system…

Yes set the filter for either 5 stars or no stars, since if any seller has an average of 4 stars overall, which would be an 80% rating they are penalized. It’s basically a thumbs up of 5 stars or a thumbs down of no stars or review. 4 stars is bad.

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Fiverr doesn’t put it in big red letters because buyers like you are the exception, not the norm.

This reminds me of that line from The Incredibles:

When everyone is super… then no one will be.

So, if satisfactory is a five out of five, how do we find the Alpha providers? The “go to” people that you can toss a project to and get the results that warrant gooooood money…

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This reminds me of that line from The Incredibles:

When everyone is super… then no one will be.

So, if satisfactory is a five out of five, how do we find the Alpha providers? The “go to” people that you can toss a project to and get the results that warrant gooooood money…

You look at the reviews and can see a lot of cancellations or a lot of bad reviews.

You can get a good idea from reading reviews still.

Some sellers will have some less than 5 star reviews but have such glowing raving happy reviews that you can safely overlook the bad reviews and this seems to be mostly true in the writing category as it’s so subjective.

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Fiverr doesn’t put it in big red letters because buyers like you are the exception, not the norm.

Ok. Yeppers. I’m kind of old school. Comes with remembering the good ol’ days when we had cassette tapes… 2nd place was a polite term for “first loser”, etc… But, if Fiverr wants the money from my age group to flow into the community, then we are going to run into the culture clashes like this one. I understand that this is a global playground and the standards work differently across the globe. But for the rating system to have meaning, there has to be a usable range.

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God has a hard time getting five stars from me

And yet with those standards, here you are in the bargain basement of fiverr. Funny, one naturally expects heart stopping, mind blowing perfection for $5.

I do agree that he should have not responded in that way. However you seem to really enjoy dispensing less than perfect feedback to justify the “I’m such a perfectionist, no one could ever live up to my standards” dialog. I’ll bet you are a riot when you tip your waitress a quarter and say, “try harder next time, sweetie.”

Good thing I paid more that $5us pesos for the work that I commissioned. I didn’t go with the cheapest provider, I paid for the upgrades and I tipped to boot.

And shock of shocks, I was going to give him more work.

But hey. The extra money does nothing to help grow his business…

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The way you talk as a buyer reminds me of men who think they are God’s gift to women.

Eh. I just checked with the girlfriend. She says that I “will do” for the time being… So, not God’s gift, but good enough to take home to Mom and Dad.

Honestly, the buyer being bent over a 4 out 5 stars after I tipped was a shock. I shot a reply off the cuff and those go out without regret or a filter, especially when I’m paying.

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Eh. I just checked with the girlfriend. She says that I “will do” for the time being… So, not God’s gift, but good enough to take home to Mom and Dad.

Honestly, the buyer being bent over a 4 out 5 stars after I tipped was a shock. I shot a reply off the cuff and those go out without regret or a filter, especially when I’m paying.

The seller was absolutely in the wrong for messaging you and saying that. As a buyer as well, I’m open to them messaging me after I give them a less than 5 star rating and they ask if my experience could be improved upon, opening a dialogue… but just straight up demanding a certain rating is wrong. Ratings are strictly for the buyer to determine-- their dollar their rating. As others have mentioned, the rating system has it’s flaws as it’s basically 5stars or bust here. I’m not a fan of it, and I know that if I’m leaving anything less than 5 stars I’m harming potential business for them. sometimes it’s deserved, most of the time it’s not, but it depends. Him messaging you was just a result of this less-than-ideal rating system we have in place.

In many other places 4/5 is a great review… the first thing that comes to mind is restaurant reviews. Typically I’m only turned off by a restaurant if it has less than 3.5 stars on google or yelp… otherwise 3.5 and up, it doesn’t make me feel one way or another about a restaurant until I’ve tried it. 4/5 I would consider a very solid and positive review.

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Back on topic…

I had a similar experience with a seller recently. Every message was delivered with an instruction and the words ‘if you don’t it will affect my rating.’ I stank of desperation.

I told him that if he looked after his customer then the gig rating would look after itself. Worrying about how Fiverr will view your actions over worrying about what they mean to the customer is a recipe for disaster.

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