Repairing a Bad Fiverr Relationship & Acknowledging Being Wrong

[cyaxrex]

Well, it’s confession time. Yes, I might be the greatest writer on Fiverr aside from all the people who are better than me, but I do still make mistakes from time to time. What is more, I made a pretty huge mistake on an order back in June.

I had a regular buyer who had always overpaid and always left Five star reviews, but one who always used to ask me to write about intensely hard to research subjects.

Given the nature of my client’s orders, I used to love but loathe them. I loved testing my ability and getting a huge pat on the back. At the same time though, I loathed having to allocate an entire day to educate myself on a certain topic, before hoping that my efforts would be duly compensated for in the form of a tip.

Now, as you can probably guess, my luck finally ran out. The buyer in question placed an order and a mix of things happened. They assumed that I didn’t need that much of a brief since I am apparently an expert in everything, At the same time, I didn’t check that brief as soon as it came in, and even when I did start work, I convinced myself that I could manage without asking for further information or admitting that I might not be the best person to fulfil the work at hand.

The result was a $15 article which didn’t meet my client’s expectations. Naturally, they then politely told me that. The only problem was that I then decided to defend my work by citing the poor brief and price that had been paid, and to cut straight to the chase, I completely ruined my relationship with a client for the sake of ego. - (That and being hugely overbooked at the time).

The end result? No more orders from that client because I was an ass.

But then today happened. I got a message from the client in question which was obviously written in a very tense/guarded way, asking if I could write 1,000 words about a yet again incredibly difficult subject. What I found myself hating though, was the fact that the buyer was clearly not happy to have to come to me.

This being the case, I said sorry.

I told the client that there was no need to be guarded, that I am very aware that the past problem was all down to me, and that I would be more than happy to take on the work in question. I then also offered to provide the client in question with some FOC video work as a way of apologizing for the way things ended the last time we worked together.

And then the floodgates opened… My buyer has missed me. If I want, there are 26 articles which he really needs written and he understands now that these might not fall in line with my regular pricing since he keeps being let down by people priced the same as me.

Now, I’m skimming over a few things here and it should be noted that no seller should ever spam a buyer with messages saying “sorry, please order from me again.” - In fact, ideally, the kind of situation which I have just outlined shouldn’t come about in the first place if you are a real professional.

My point is, though, that when things do go wrong, sometimes the best thing we can do as sellers is own up to the how, why, and what, and appreciate that we will always only stand to preserve our integrity by admitting our failings, even if we can’t see these in the heat of the moment.

[eoinfinnegan]

Fantastic stuff and fair play for owning the situation.
The typical Fiverr seller response that we hear about is for them to come to the forum and rant about this “unreasonable buyer who wants everything for nothing”.
The reality is though, you have I am sure been giving the client excellent value for however long and the reality of finding good writers at your price point will have surely been giving them headaches since the issue arose between you. Offering an apology and a freebie etc is a great way of winning back a client (not for review changing) after something has gone wrong - it works, is mutually beneficial and shows a level of professionalism that is lacking in a lot of sellers. No reasonable people will expect perfection 100% of the time but it is how you handle those less than perfect moments that enable you to keep the reasonable buyers as regulars.
Again, fair play!

[indieoven]

Fantastic stuff and fair play for owning the situation.

The typical Fiverr seller response that we hear about is for them to come to the forum and rant about this “unreasonable buyer who wants everything for nothing”.

The reality is though, you have I am sure been giving the client excellent value for however long and the reality of finding good writers at your price point will have surely been giving them headaches since the issue arose between you. Offering an apology and a freebie etc is a great way of winning back a client (not for review changing) after something has gone wrong - it works, is mutually beneficial and shows a level of professionalism that is lacking in a lot of sellers. No reasonable people will expect perfection 100% of the time but it is how you handle those less than perfect moments that enable you to keep the reasonable buyers as regulars.

Again, fair play!

o reasonable people will expect perfection 100% of the time but it is how you handle those less than perfect moments that enable you to keep the reasonable buyers as regulars.

Amen!

I agree with @eoinfinnegan - thanks for sharing with the full story in detail with learned lesson! @cyaxrex

[cyaxrex]

Fantastic stuff and fair play for owning the situation.

The typical Fiverr seller response that we hear about is for them to come to the forum and rant about this “unreasonable buyer who wants everything for nothing”.

The reality is though, you have I am sure been giving the client excellent value for however long and the reality of finding good writers at your price point will have surely been giving them headaches since the issue arose between you. Offering an apology and a freebie etc is a great way of winning back a client (not for review changing) after something has gone wrong - it works, is mutually beneficial and shows a level of professionalism that is lacking in a lot of sellers. No reasonable people will expect perfection 100% of the time but it is how you handle those less than perfect moments that enable you to keep the reasonable buyers as regulars.

Again, fair play!

Well, the bonus (kind of) is that the buyer doesn’t want/need the freebie. I thought they would but apparently, they have someone they now regularly use for all their video work. The buyer was just thrilled (like I am now) that we worked things out.

In this case, I suppose an add on to my post could be, “don’t screw up your upselling by letting the heat of the moment get to you.”

[ideasnerd]

Well, the bonus (kind of) is that the buyer doesn’t want/need the freebie. I thought they would but apparently, they have someone they now regularly use for all their video work. The buyer was just thrilled (like I am now) that we worked things out.

In this case, I suppose an add on to my post could be, “don’t screw up your upselling by letting the heat of the moment get to you.”

Exactly. Thanks man. God bless you