Pros and Cons of the new Fiverr level metrics

[laughzilla]

Full disclosure: I worked at fiverr for a couple of years or so, in the past. Therefore, my experience as a fiverr Seller is also somewhat affected by my time as an employee of the company, and all the good and bad things that exist in any company, and my opinion of fiverr overall is that it is an amazing company with great values, run day to day by awesome people. That doesn’t bar me from being honestly and reasonably critical, of course, and here below is one such particular criticism I have about fiverr at present.

Hi fellow fiverr forum folks,

I have been looking over the new level system for sellers, and thinking about its impact on the community, since it was announced.

Here are my pros and cons about the new seller level system:

Pros:

1. it’s automagical, so you remove any human politics and human error (in theory)
2. it’s explained clearly (though not completely) with stats and charts and easy text.
3. the reviews are monthly, giving you the chance to climb as quickly as possible (again, in theory).

Cons:

1. it’s automatic and not a smart AI algorithm, meaning it’s blind to context and therefore harms sellers and as a result, also harms the buyers who would have otherwise purchased that seller’s gig.

2. it’s not clearly explained at all. the data is insufficient and incomplete. the metrics’ data is not all fully accessible in an easy way, even if you can dig around for it and extrapolate data for yourself.

3. the reviews are monthly, even though most sellers sell very few gigs in any given month. So a single buyer can destroy a seller’s level, even if they just did it to harm the seller’s level, and yes, that happens more than you probably know.

4. the system does not care who canceled an order, or why. Again, as above, this means anyone can buy anything from anyone and cancel and take the seller down a level. i know, because this happened to me just today. i was dropped from Level 2 down to Level 1, and that is ridiculous. How does all of the aggregate time that someone has spent offering and delivering great gigs for happy customers, not count more than a single canceled order from someone who clearly did not cancel for any legit reason? again, because the system is automated, there’s no way to make the system take that into consideration.

5. the system does not care if a rating is right or wrong. So again, as above, a single seller can leave even a 4 star review and this can take someone down from Top Rated Seller to level 2. I know, because this happened to me. And keep in mind that a 4 star rating is hardly a bad rating! Why should anyone be demoted for getting a good rating that just isn’t 5 stars?

6. the system uses only the last 60 days as data to judge a seller’s rating. While that surely seems smart inside of the company, it’s terrible for sellers and buyers, because it represents a completely false picture of the marketplace. Now, anyone can go on and do negative work against any seller and get away with it much more easily than before. And now anyone can also hack the game to raise their levels with a bunch of quick tricks that i won’t share here, because people should not do those things! This means fiverr is now letting anyone game the system, and is killing off actual high quality gigs by being lazy and using an automatic system, rather than by increasing the human resources necessary to maintain an actually high-quality marketplace.

7. This is all very bad, extremely demotivational, anti-aspirational, anti-freelancer, anti-solopreneur and anti-SMB. and what it means is that fiverr is driving small volume sellers (and other sellers) away from the platform, especially the individual sellers upon which fiverr was built.

There are better ways to prune such a large marketplace of bad sellers. The method chosen was apparently the laziest, worst and most short-sighted one possible.

It’s a shame that fiverr has done this.

I remain optimistic that fiverr will improve again. i just hope it’s sooner, rather than later.

[uxreview]

Full disclosure: I worked at fiverr for a couple of years or so, in the past. Therefore, my experience as a fiverr Seller is also somewhat affected by my time as an employee of the company, and all the good and bad things that exist in any company, and my opinion of fiverr overall is that it is an amazing company with great values, run day to day by awesome people. That doesn’t bar me from being honestly and reasonably critical, of course, and here below is one such particular criticism I have about fiverr at present.

Hi fellow fiverr forum folks,

I have been looking over the new level system for sellers, and thinking about its impact on the community, since it was announced.

Here are my pros and cons about the new seller level system:

Pros:

1. it’s automagical, so you remove any human politics and human error (in theory)
2. it’s explained clearly (though not completely) with stats and charts and easy text.
3. the reviews are monthly, giving you the chance to climb as quickly as possible (again, in theory).

Cons:

1. it’s automatic and not a smart AI algorithm, meaning it’s blind to context and therefore harms sellers and as a result, also harms the buyers who would have otherwise purchased that seller’s gig.

2. it’s not clearly explained at all. the data is insufficient and incomplete. the metrics’ data is not all fully accessible in an easy way, even if you can dig around for it and extrapolate data for yourself.

3. the reviews are monthly, even though most sellers sell very few gigs in any given month. So a single buyer can destroy a seller’s level, even if they just did it to harm the seller’s level, and yes, that happens more than you probably know.

4. the system does not care who canceled an order, or why. Again, as above, this means anyone can buy anything from anyone and cancel and take the seller down a level. i know, because this happened to me just today. i was dropped from Level 2 down to Level 1, and that is ridiculous. How does all of the aggregate time that someone has spent offering and delivering great gigs for happy customers, not count more than a single canceled order from someone who clearly did not cancel for any legit reason? again, because the system is automated, there’s no way to make the system take that into consideration.

5. the system does not care if a rating is right or wrong. So again, as above, a single seller can leave even a 4 star review and this can take someone down from Top Rated Seller to level 2. I know, because this happened to me. And keep in mind that a 4 star rating is hardly a bad rating! Why should anyone be demoted for getting a good rating that just isn’t 5 stars?

6. the system uses only the last 60 days as data to judge a seller’s rating. While that surely seems smart inside of the company, it’s terrible for sellers and buyers, because it represents a completely false picture of the marketplace. Now, anyone can go on and do negative work against any seller and get away with it much more easily than before. And now anyone can also hack the game to raise their levels with a bunch of quick tricks that i won’t share here, because people should not do those things! This means fiverr is now letting anyone game the system, and is killing off actual high quality gigs by being lazy and using an automatic system, rather than by increasing the human resources necessary to maintain an actually high-quality marketplace.

7. This is all very bad, extremely demotivational, anti-aspirational, anti-freelancer, anti-solopreneur and anti-SMB. and what it means is that fiverr is driving small volume sellers (and other sellers) away from the platform, especially the individual sellers upon which fiverr was built.

There are better ways to prune such a large marketplace of bad sellers. The method chosen was apparently the laziest, worst and most short-sighted one possible.

It’s a shame that fiverr has done this.

I remain optimistic that fiverr will improve again. i just hope it’s sooner, rather than later.

it’s not clearly explained at all

I believe all the metrics that are calculated by the system have been explained. What exactly are you having trouble with? We might be able to help you find the answer from the forum.

a 4 star rating is hardly a bad rating! Why should anyone be demoted for getting a good rating that just isn’t 5 stars?

I agree with this one. I think it should be something like

• if you get 4.8 you get promoted
• if you’re below 3 then you get demoted
• if your rating is between 3 and 4.8 then nothing happens.

Why? As you said 4-star rating shouldn’t be a punishment.

I mean, you wouldn’t get fired if you did your job and your boss evaluated it as 4 stars.

the system uses only the last 60 days as data to judge a seller’s rating. While that surely seems smart inside of the company, it’s terrible for sellers and buyers, because it represents a completely false picture of the marketplace.

60 days is fine. There’s no reason to change it to 2-3 years just because of some dimwits who try to sabotage it. Fiverr can fight those case by case if they wanted.

[Guest offlinehelpers]

it’s not clearly explained at all

I believe all the metrics that are calculated by the system have been explained. What exactly are you having trouble with? We might be able to help you find the answer from the forum.

a 4 star rating is hardly a bad rating! Why should anyone be demoted for getting a good rating that just isn’t 5 stars?

I agree with this one. I think it should be something like

• if you get 4.8 you get promoted
• if you’re below 3 then you get demoted
• if your rating is between 3 and 4.8 then nothing happens.

Why? As you said 4-star rating shouldn’t be a punishment.

I mean, you wouldn’t get fired if you did your job and your boss evaluated it as 4 stars.

the system uses only the last 60 days as data to judge a seller’s rating. While that surely seems smart inside of the company, it’s terrible for sellers and buyers, because it represents a completely false picture of the marketplace.

60 days is fine. There’s no reason to change it to 2-3 years just because of some dimwits who try to sabotage it. Fiverr can fight those case by case if they wanted.

• if you get 4.8 you get promoted
• if you’re below 3 then you get demoted
• if your rating is between 3 and 4.8 then nothing happens.

Love this idea! 🙂

However, until they can sort out the difference between anything that isn’t 5 e.g. 4.3, 4.5, 4.7 etc. all sellers are relying on values which are fluid when 4.8 is precise.

[laughzilla]

it’s not clearly explained at all

I believe all the metrics that are calculated by the system have been explained. What exactly are you having trouble with? We might be able to help you find the answer from the forum.

a 4 star rating is hardly a bad rating! Why should anyone be demoted for getting a good rating that just isn’t 5 stars?

I agree with this one. I think it should be something like

• if you get 4.8 you get promoted
• if you’re below 3 then you get demoted
• if your rating is between 3 and 4.8 then nothing happens.

Why? As you said 4-star rating shouldn’t be a punishment.

I mean, you wouldn’t get fired if you did your job and your boss evaluated it as 4 stars.

the system uses only the last 60 days as data to judge a seller’s rating. While that surely seems smart inside of the company, it’s terrible for sellers and buyers, because it represents a completely false picture of the marketplace.

60 days is fine. There’s no reason to change it to 2-3 years just because of some dimwits who try to sabotage it. Fiverr can fight those case by case if they wanted.

thanks for your reply!

60 days is really not enough to judge any seller whose gigs have been online for years.

Most sellers do not sell a high volume of gigs in any 6 days period. Which means it’s easy to do negative work against any seller. Very easy.

Where you suggest that fiverr could challenge things on a case-by-case basis, their ability to do so is extremely limited, and they usually just say that everything is automatic now and there’s nothing they can do.

[uxreview]

thanks for your reply!

60 days is really not enough to judge any seller whose gigs have been online for years.

Most sellers do not sell a high volume of gigs in any 6 days period. Which means it’s easy to do negative work against any seller. Very easy.

Where you suggest that fiverr could challenge things on a case-by-case basis, their ability to do so is extremely limited, and they usually just say that everything is automatic now and there’s nothing they can do.

Most sellers do not sell a high volume of gigs in any 6 days period.

I know, I sell about 3-4 orders a month and I’ve lost my level twice over mistake orders.

But what would be sufficient amount of time? 1, 2 or 3 years?

I’m also a buyer and to be honest I don’t care what the seller did a year ago. I want to know what’s their service level based on the most recent months.

Fiverr wants to make sure that you’re delivering great service right now and that you’re not relying on your past reviews.

[laughzilla]

• if you get 4.8 you get promoted
• if you’re below 3 then you get demoted
• if your rating is between 3 and 4.8 then nothing happens.

Love this idea! 🙂

However, until they can sort out the difference between anything that isn’t 5 e.g. 4.3, 4.5, 4.7 etc. all sellers are relying on values which are fluid when 4.8 is precise.

Thanks for your reply, offlinehelpers. Regarding your point about the ratings: Agreed! they count decimals even though the buyer can’t insert decimals into the ratings.

And also many happy buyers simply fail to properly post a review, therefore their otherwise wonderful review does not get counted. it’s just text in a chat dialogue that never got properly posted to the Reviews. It’s just one more way the platform does harm to the Sellers, without whom no orders would be sold on Fiverr.

[marieknight]

Fiverr really isn’t about to do “individual basis” anything. Believe me I have asked. My response rate hasn’t improved over the last 20 ish days, and I haven’t missed a message yet. But, if I were to miss one, as I did several months ago, it would drop a full percentage. How is that right?

Fiverr is not interested in the sellers, just the money they make for them. I am not trying to be negative Nancy here, but I’ve had several issues with Fiverr since this new system came out. I’ve also had orders canceled without explanation and some that negatively effected by rankings. This USED to be a site where they listened to us, but all you get are canned customer support messages (which don’t actually answer the question)and run around answers (if they actually do read your complaint). I mean I’ve made Fiverr some decent $ over the years, doesn’t that make ME a customer too?

If Fiverr were actually listening to us they would do something like this. AND they would give us better analytics on the mysterious “response time” and “response rate” systems. But, they arent.

[uxreview]

thanks for your reply!

60 days is really not enough to judge any seller whose gigs have been online for years.

Most sellers do not sell a high volume of gigs in any 6 days period. Which means it’s easy to do negative work against any seller. Very easy.

Where you suggest that fiverr could challenge things on a case-by-case basis, their ability to do so is extremely limited, and they usually just say that everything is automatic now and there’s nothing they can do.

fiverr could challenge things on a case-by-case basis, their ability to do so is extremely limited

It’s a matter of priority. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.

[Guest offlinehelpers]

Thanks for your reply, offlinehelpers. Regarding your point about the ratings: Agreed! they count decimals even though the buyer can’t insert decimals into the ratings.

And also many happy buyers simply fail to properly post a review, therefore their otherwise wonderful review does not get counted. it’s just text in a chat dialogue that never got properly posted to the Reviews. It’s just one more way the platform does harm to the Sellers, without whom no orders would be sold on Fiverr.

Regarding your point about the ratings: Agreed! they count decimals even though the buyer can’t insert decimals into the ratings.

The problem is that the decimals are being calculated incorrectly (inconsistently):

Is anyone else having problems with their ratings? I keep getting 3 different ratings. When I share my gig, it shows that I have a 4.9, but on my PC and phone app, my rating is 4.4 on my profile. I have 172 ratings and only 2 of those ratings are 1 star. I also have 3 and 4 star ratings from two different people. Does my overall rating sound right? Have you had this issue?

[laughzilla]

Fiverr really isn’t about to do “individual basis” anything. Believe me I have asked. My response rate hasn’t improved over the last 20 ish days, and I haven’t missed a message yet. But, if I were to miss one, as I did several months ago, it would drop a full percentage. How is that right?

Fiverr is not interested in the sellers, just the money they make for them. I am not trying to be negative Nancy here, but I’ve had several issues with Fiverr since this new system came out. I’ve also had orders canceled without explanation and some that negatively effected by rankings. This USED to be a site where they listened to us, but all you get are canned customer support messages (which don’t actually answer the question)and run around answers (if they actually do read your complaint). I mean I’ve made Fiverr some decent $ over the years, doesn’t that make ME a customer too?

If Fiverr were actually listening to us they would do something like this. AND they would give us better analytics on the mysterious “response time” and “response rate” systems. But, they arent.

Thanks for your reply! I think you are also right. Your sentiments are spot-on for many sellers, I believe.

[marieknight]

fiverr could challenge things on a case-by-case basis, their ability to do so is extremely limited

It’s a matter of priority. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.

They have the power to. They wont. I’ve tried. Mine was not about the ratings, but about the response system. And I was just given the canned response of “Well, answer your messages.” I have been, and I haven’t missed one. But it didn’t improve. That didn’t seem right to me so I asked again. AND I got the same message. I asked for an Audit, just in case. No reply.

Like I said, its not the site it used to be.

[laughzilla]

fiverr could challenge things on a case-by-case basis, their ability to do so is extremely limited

It’s a matter of priority. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.

Correct, and that’s the sad part. They choose not to be better.

[marieknight]

Thanks for your reply! I think you are also right. Your sentiments are spot-on for many sellers, I believe.

Alot of how fiver calculates this is a mystery. They should give us REAL time information so we can see what we need to do to improve our stuff.

[laughzilla]

Regarding your point about the ratings: Agreed! they count decimals even though the buyer can’t insert decimals into the ratings.

The problem is that the decimals are being calculated incorrectly (inconsistently):

Is anyone else having problems with their ratings? I keep getting 3 different ratings. When I share my gig, it shows that I have a 4.9, but on my PC and phone app, my rating is 4.4 on my profile. I have 172 ratings and only 2 of those ratings are 1 star. I also have 3 and 4 star ratings from two different people. Does my overall rating sound right? Have you had this issue?

yes, that too! there is a big history of inconsistencies between the website and the apps.

[uxreview]

They have the power to. They wont. I’ve tried. Mine was not about the ratings, but about the response system. And I was just given the canned response of “Well, answer your messages.” I have been, and I haven’t missed one. But it didn’t improve. That didn’t seem right to me so I asked again. AND I got the same message. I asked for an Audit, just in case. No reply.

Like I said, its not the site it used to be.

They increased the service fee to provide a better support.

We’ll have to wait and see. I believe someone mentioned that they received chat support and it was excellent. If that’s the next step then I’m all for it. I’m tired of those email templates. At least in a chat I can talk to them in real time and ask questions.

[marieknight]

They increased the service fee to provide a better support.

We’ll have to wait and see. I believe someone mentioned that they received chat support and it was excellent. If that’s the next step then I’m all for it. I’m tired of those email templates. At least in a chat I can talk to them in real time and ask questions.

They dont even READ the complaints, they just scan for key words and send what they think you might need.

One did that to me the other day and then closed the session at the same time before I could reply. That is not customer service.,

[laughzilla]

Alot of how fiver calculates this is a mystery. They should give us REAL time information so we can see what we need to do to improve our stuff.

to be honest, How they calculate is not a mystery. yes there are inconsistencies between the platforms of website vs. app, but if you accept that the data actually calculated is correct (and they are pretty good about getting the data right … Eventually) … the problem isn’t how they calculate it.

WHY they calculate the way they do, is the problem. it’s just not the best possible way or reason to do it. that’s the bit i find they need to improve. AND, the other problem is that once their system knocks you down a level or two, they aren’t willing to correct the mistake, even if the data is corrected. Unless you’re very very lucky with a request, you’re stuck where you are, even if they acknowledge that lowering you was a data glitch or an action that should not have been taken.

And it just is disheartening as a Seller.

[uxreview]

They dont even READ the complaints, they just scan for key words and send what they think you might need.

One did that to me the other day and then closed the session at the same time before I could reply. That is not customer service.,

We know very little about their customer service.

I don’t even blame the agents because it starts from the upper management. They decide how much money is allocated for CS and what are the targets they need to hit. Agents get their targets and if templates help them get there then that’s exactly what they will do.

Right now it seems they are trying to add more funds to CS, but it might not help much if the management doesn’t have a proper plan.

Anyway, if I need CS I will contact them. If they don’t provide good service then I provide my feedback. What they do with the feedback is up to them.

[laughzilla]

They increased the service fee to provide a better support.

We’ll have to wait and see. I believe someone mentioned that they received chat support and it was excellent. If that’s the next step then I’m all for it. I’m tired of those email templates. At least in a chat I can talk to them in real time and ask questions.

actually i have to say that their support staff are really great people. i have no issue with them. they do an amazing job, given the pressure they are always under, and that pressure is no laughing matter.

it’s the automatic things that interfere with their support, that have stirred these thoughts about its negative impact on Sellers. the fact that it’s all up to the robot, and not the people, is precisely why this is an issue.

The answer to a human-driven marketplace full of commercial interests at every level and on every side, isn’t to remove human intelligence from the system and replace it with more robots. the answer is to obviously add more robots AND add more humans to make sure the robots are doing their job properly and excellently, and not just following rules blindly without comprehending all of the facts.

[laughzilla]

We know very little about their customer service.

I don’t even blame the agents because it starts from the upper management. They decide how much money is allocated for CS and what are the targets they need to hit. Agents get their targets and if templates help them get there then that’s exactly what they will do.

Right now it seems they are trying to add more funds to CS, but it might not help much if the management doesn’t have a proper plan.

Anyway, if I need CS I will contact them. If they don’t provide good service then I provide my feedback. What they do with the feedback is up to them.

i can tell you i know that in my experience, their CS staff is located in a number of places, and they are always on, and doing a great job.

i don’t know about any of their current internal stuff, but clearly their CS staff is working on a massive amount of tasks, always, and i understand why they need to scale up the system.

again, my 'plaint is about Why they chose to do it they way they did, rather than to scale up the human capacity as well as the technology capacity. The human element is important on a marketplace of this nature. Ignoring it is a recipe for a lower quality marketplace user experience, regardless of what it does for any short-term KPIs.

[laughzilla]

Most sellers do not sell a high volume of gigs in any 6 days period.

I know, I sell about 3-4 orders a month and I’ve lost my level twice over mistake orders.

But what would be sufficient amount of time? 1, 2 or 3 years?

I’m also a buyer and to be honest I don’t care what the seller did a year ago. I want to know what’s their service level based on the most recent months.

Fiverr wants to make sure that you’re delivering great service right now and that you’re not relying on your past reviews.

i wrote 6 days instead of 60 days. #typos

yes i think that they should measure the sellers’ metrics on more than just 60 days. Ok if they want to cut down the time from "lifetime data’ to something smaller for reasons like relevance and server load … but they could also count it based something like your last 500 or 1,000 orders. that way no single order can take you down so much as to kill you off a whole level, just because you had a low traffic month. especially when most sellers rely on fiverr to bring you that trickle of targeted traffic.

and the ones that bring lots of traffic to their own fiverr pages… guess what? they’re usually the worst sellers, selling bad quality “traffic” and that sort of stuff. and again, because of the robotization of the system, these kind of sneaky tricksters now have the run of the roost, and that’s just sad.

I’m already seeing more low quality gigs rise above some great gigs that got demoted. It’s sad. And it’s another stain on Fiverr’s history. Hopefully they’ll get the message and improve Fiverr again.

[uxreview]

i can tell you i know that in my experience, their CS staff is located in a number of places, and they are always on, and doing a great job.

i don’t know about any of their current internal stuff, but clearly their CS staff is working on a massive amount of tasks, always, and i understand why they need to scale up the system.

again, my 'plaint is about Why they chose to do it they way they did, rather than to scale up the human capacity as well as the technology capacity. The human element is important on a marketplace of this nature. Ignoring it is a recipe for a lower quality marketplace user experience, regardless of what it does for any short-term KPIs.

Most of my interactions with their CS have been awful. If I ask something simple they reply with a decent response, but every time the issue is a bit more complicated they can’t find the right template. 🙂

However, as I said before I don’t blame the agents. It’s probably lack of funding and that starts from the management. Now that they increased the service fee I do hope that the funding will improve and in a few months we might see improvements such as chat support

[laughzilla]

Most of my interactions with their CS have been awful. If I ask something simple they reply with a decent response, but every time the issue is a bit more complicated they can’t find the right template. 🙂

However, as I said before I don’t blame the agents. It’s probably lack of funding and that starts from the management. Now that they increased the service fee I do hope that the funding will improve and in a few months we might see improvements such as chat support

Yeah, we can always hope. And I ain’t waitin’ up nights for it to happen, neither.

[marieknight]

Yeah, we can always hope. And I ain’t waitin’ up nights for it to happen, neither.

I agree with you both. I still use fiver as my main means of business. I do some work on other websites, for psychics because that’s what I do, so I can tell you what the difference between customer service actually feels like. On the other side that I work for customer service feels like someone is actually helping you. On fiver it feels like they’re giving you canned responses. If they don’t have the power to change anything or actually help me, why have them answer emails at all?

[marieknight]

Here’s the other thing, you can be verified professional and your levels won’t drop. You could have flashy look in gigs and produce crap stuff, but not get penalized. How is that fair? And how was thay providing people with a good product? I mean just because it’s overpriced doesn’t make it any better than some of the other services that cost less