Fiverr's New STARS Rating System

I cannot stress enough.. how hard I worked to maintain a 100% rating... only to have Fiverr implement a STARS rating system that just makes it harder for sellers to maintain it.

How so,  you may ask?

Well, with the previous system, buyers only had the Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down rating to choose from. And, with it, they could post a comment. In this comment, even if they were unhappy about an aspect - time delivery for example but were happy with the overall product - they could leave a positive thumbs up and leave a remark about the delivery.

Bear in mind that sellers choose the timeframe in which to deliver their order. For example: my main rewrite gig:  http://www.fiverr.com/emeraldawnn/humanly-rewrite-1-piece-of-work-up-to-600-words  has a delivery timeframe of 29 days.. There are several reasons for this:

• Fiverr doesn't increase the timeframe for multiple orders. Therefore, if your gig is set for 3 days for a $5 order and buyer orders $40 worth of stuff, several times, you still have to complete the order in 3 days for all those orders. That's just not possible.. especially if you have to work for a living and have a family.  (Most of my orders are bulk too, as buyers seem to love what I do.. but I still worry about those $5 orders that I cannot get to until the last minute BECAUSE of the bulk orders... it has and will continue to happen).
• It stems from the fact that everybody has a life outside the Internet - may not seem like at times - but we do! We cannot stay on Fiverr 24 hours a day, 7 days a week...
• We have other orders to work on.... and they may not even be on Fiverr!

WHAT THE HELL WAS FIVERR THINKING!!!!



Now, with this STARS review, a buyer can leave feedback on responsiveness (hello, we're not always available), Service As Expected (that was seen with the old rating system) and Buy Again or Recommend (What if the buyer doesn't need anything of the sort again).  

Seriously, too much power has been given to the buyers. They can and will abuse this system. For example, there's no reason to have them buy the add-ons for quicker delivery anymore. They can just threaten me with a 1-star... Gee thanks!

Also, Fiverr claims that we can also rate buyers, and sure we can, BUT, the ratings don't show up and what good is it for us anyway when we don't have a system that allows us to accept or decline a job without using the mutual cancellation option.  This is a system sellers have been begging for for months...

Fiverr is a cheap service for goods... it doesn't need all the bells and whistles other freelancing sites have - After all,  it's just $5, not $100 or $500 an order. I would feel differently if that were the case. Fiverr thinks that to stay "Hip" it needs to make this change..

Simplicity is best.... and that's what made Fiverr great!

Fiverr needs to really look at fixing its other issues:

• Lack of customer service response (I rarely have these but have heard horror stories)
• Problems with notifications (I have this happen on a regular basis)
• Implementing an accept/decline button (something we sellers need)

And, that's just 3 issues I see from my angle..

Fiverr really needs to worry more about these and other problems, and stop trying to fix something that's not broken!

The backlash that Fiverr has received about this new system seems to go unheard. They read it and say they're still implementing it! DO WHAT?! In response to that, many sellers - myself included - are taking a 1 to 2-day sabbatical from Fiverr... starting July 1.. Let's just see how much it hurts their pocketbook when they don't see orders coming in for their sellers across the board.

In fact, many sellers have or are contemplating leaving Fiverr for good.. So sad....