Will One Negative Feedback Ruin Your Fiverr Gig?

If you’ve looked at my Fiverr gigs lately, you’ll see that there are a couple of negative feedbacks. They annoy me, but I’ve just put up a rebuttal and left them there.

You see, for me those negative feedbacks aren’t going to instantly ruin my Fiverr gig. I’ve got 800+ reviews on one of those gigs, so three negatives is relatively minor. However, three negatives could really cause some people damage.

The Negatives vs. The Positives

If you’re worried about negative feedbacks affecting your Fiverr gig, you need to consider the number of positive comments you have. I think the majority of buyers will look at the rating before actually checking out the reviews. If the rating is 100%, then there is a high chance people will still buy. That can still happen with the odd negative review.

The problem comes if you don’t have that many positive reviews. You look like a new seller (even if it’s just the case that people aren’t leaving feedback) so just one negative will really stand out and not in a good way. People worry that that one bad experience will be their experience later on, and they look for someone with a better rating to order from.

People Expect Negatives

When you fulfil more and more orders, you’re going to get people you can’t impress. I’ve seen it with the biggest companies. Just look at the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google. They’ve all had bad reviews, but that hasn’t stopped people buying their products. It doesn’t stop developers creating apps or customers signing up for services.

You see, people expect negatives when you sell a lot. If they don’t see the negatives it can set off some alarm bells. There is the thought that you cover up the negatives or that you bribe people to get rid of the black marks.

The negatives show that you are human. They show others that you don’t please everyone, and that’s to be expected. One negative remark out of 500 orders isn’t going to stop that many people buying because they expect to see that someone wasn’t happy.

It’s About Your Reaction on Your Fiverr Gig

When someone sees a negative feedback, they’re looking into the details and the way that you react. I’ve seen some sellers react in very negative ways and that does way more harm than good. Reacting like this shows that you’re not professional.

But you do need to give some sort of rebuttal. This shows your side of the story and what you’ve done to try and fix problems. It shows that you’re not completely to blame, but that you’re sorry you couldn’t please the buyer this time. That puts the faith back in you as a seller for future buyers.

Hopefully that gives you a little more insight into negative feedback on Fiverr gigs. They don’t have to mean the end of your Fiverr gig, but it all depends on other factors.

If you’ve been hit with negative feedback and would like to improve your Fiverr gig, why not purchase my gig to help you? I will offer a comprehensive report looking into many different aspects of your gig, including the description, title and tags, to help improve your chances of sales.

Fiverr Seller Tips: Handling Negative Feedback

I just received another negative review. It was from a demanding buyer, who chose to not give the right instructions in the first place and then not provide the necessary information to revise the product.

It became clear that the buyer didn’t appreciate the work that goes into finding resources and creating a quality product. He tried to claim that there were spun parts in an article and when asked for the bits he believed were like that (there weren’t any), he failed to reply. That always raises alarm bells for me. It’s someone looking for a free product.

 I know plenty of Fiverr sellers in this position and they need help handling the negative reviews. I’ve given up giving into these sellers, so now I’m offering Fiverr seller tips on handling the negative reviews.

Don’t Respond Right Away

Unless you’ve already been back and forth like I have, you need to talk to the buyer first. There may have been a misunderstanding that has led to this negative feedback.

Go to the buyer as if you’re the one that’s made a mistake and apologise. That way you start on good terms to find out the exact problem. Don’t get irate. Simply listen to everything the buyer says. Not all are looking for free gigs. In fact, 99% of the time you’ll get very decent buyers who will talk to you beforehand about the work sent.

Leaving it before responding also gives you the chance to walk away and clear your head. You can think of a professional response.

Give Your Side

There are always two sides to every story. The biggest of my Fiverr seller tips when handling negative feedback is to share your side of the story, but keep it professional. Do not start attacking the buyer!

Explain the work you did, and the reason for the misunderstanding. Explain everything you did to try and avoid the negative.

There’s not much space, but I’ve often used it to explain how long it took a buyer to come back to leave feedback and any important factors in our conversations like misunderstandings and the buyer refusing to do something making my job harder.

Brush It Off

There’s no point worrying about one bit of negative feedback. Dropping a rating to 99%, especially if you have a good track record beforehand, should not be a major problem. I’ve seen people with hundreds of negatives on their profiles still sell and build their levels!

Brush the negative feedback off and chalk it up to experience. Could you have done something different that you’ll do next time? Is it a case of an unreasonable and unresponsive buyer?

Offer a Cancellation

If you’re really struggling with the feedback being there, you could offer a mutual cancellation. Make sure the buyer accepts it before it auto-completes, otherwise the negative will still be there. The best thing to do is set up a reminder to check the dispute a day or so later and abort it if there has not yet been a response.

The buyer may just wait for it to auto-complete, possibly knowing that the feedback will remain. If you abort it, you could get the buyer to come back to you and ask you about it. You can then make it clear that you expect the buyer to accept it, or it will be aborted again.

Another option is to get the buyer to state in a message that he/she will accept the removal of the feedback should there be a cancellation. You can then use that to talk to Customer Support after the refund to get the feedback removed.

Talk to Customer Support

Don’t give into bully buyers. There are plenty of them on the site (although not as many as the good ones from experience). Strangely enough, I’ve found other sellers on the site to be worse buyers than those simply looking to purchase something!

If you are dealing with a threatening buyer or someone who is breaking the Terms of Service, contact Fiverr Customer Support. Now you can’t just say “I want this feedback removed.” You need to state your case. Explain why you should have it removed, and make a copy of the bit of the TOS that has been broken.

Hopefully these Fiverr seller tips will help you with handling that negative feedback. It happens to the best sellers on Fiverr, so try not to worry about it too much.

What are your Fiverr seller tips for handling negative feedback? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

What to Do When a Fiverr Buyer Threatens You

What would you do if a buyer threatened you?

I recently found myself in a difficult position. I had a Fiverr buyer threaten to leave negative feedback that wasn’t true unless I gave him a refund.

Now, I’d done the work and delivered according to his instructions and my Fiverr gig descriptions. The problem was that he wanted something more after delivering it and expected it for free. His instructions weren’t exactly clear to start with, but due to the way Fiverr is set up I had to start work and hope for the best.

So, what should you do when you’re threatened by a buyer on Fiverr?

Inform Customer Support

The first thing I did was to inform customer support. I don’t expect them to do much—I’ve heard of them not doing anything and most of the time siding with the buyer—but they need to know.

They’ve not gotten back to me yet, but I’m ready to throw their Terms of Service at them and get them to give me a straight answer why they’re not upholding their end of the deal. Not sure what it will do, but it’s worth a try.

I recommend anybody who has a threatening buyer to do this.

Don’t Give In!

Please don’t give into the threats. I’ve seen it all the time, even on the forums, of people being advised to allow the cancellation to go through. I chose to take the negative hit because I will not let a buyer get away with this sort of behaviour.

What made me really mad is that this buyer is a fellow seller (or at least used to be, but now has an 86% rating). He should know the way that Fiverr works and still went about in this uncool way.

The only time I could see someone now wanting to take the negative hit is because they’re just starting out. If you are just starting out, I’d suggest doing anything you can to avoid the negative. However, please contact support first and get them on your side if you can!

Are You in the Wrong?

Look at it subjectively first. Could you possibly be in the wrong?

I did this and was ready to apologise and make right if I was. However, I read over the instructions again and looked through the delivered work three or four times before deciding that there was nothing more I could do. I delivered as requested the first time round.

If you really believe you have delivered to the best of your ability and according to the instructions, don’t give in.

If you know that you could have done better but can’t do anything about it, accept the cancellation and move on.

Post a Polite Reply

You have the opportunity to tell your side of the story. Do it but do it positively.

I went straight online to explain the reality. It was nothing to do with quality—as the buyer suggested—it was to do with the buyer expecting more.

Remain polite at all times. Never ever show that you’re angry with the buyer. That looks bad on you to prospective buyers in the future. Explain what you tried to do to correct it and what the problem was. You have to leave a short message though because you don’t get much room!

I’m really hoping my 800+ positives will make up for this negative. The problem is its sitting at the top right now. I really need some of my buyers who I’ve delivered for over the past couple of days to come in and leave some positive reviews to push this one down.

What would you do if you had a threatening buyer? Leave your comments below!

Buyers and Negative Feedback: Think About Your Actions

Part of the Fiverr system is to allow buyers to leave their sellers feedback. This can either be positive or negative left through a thumbs up or thumbs down with a short message to explain a reason. Leaving feedback can help and hinder a seller's rater, while doing virtually nothing to a buyer's. It leads me to writing and asking Fiverr buyers to really think about their negative feedback and whether it is needed.

Think About the Work the Seller Has Done

Before clicking that thumbs down, think about the hard work that the seller has done. If it didn't meet your exact expectations, check over your instructions and decide whether you were clear enough in the first place. Next, talk to the seller to see if they will improve the work; some will do it for free while others will ask for an extra payment because it does take more time, especially graphics works.

After redoing the work you may still not be happy, but does that definitely mean that you have to leave the thumbs up? There is the option to reject the order and cancel it to get your money back. However, cancellations do harm the seller's eligibility for levels so consider whether cancelling is necessary. Maybe you can leave the payment for the seller and just walk away without leaving feedback and tell the seller that you are still not entirely happy but want to pay for the time it has taken to do the work.

I recently received my first legitimate negative for work that was completed almost three weeks ago. The buyer wasn't happy because I didn't go into specific detail when I clearly stated to him that specific detail was impossible. The eBook in question was about business finance. After creating it, the buyer stated that he wanted more information about the Spanish information. He included a link but it was all in Spanish. When he finally sent the English link, there was nothing to help with his eBook but the only links that could have possibly been helpful were all in Spanish. I don't understand Spanish but the buyer expected me to use Google Translate on the off-chance that a whole website would have information to help. Sorry but not worth the time or the hassle!

I had to question whether this was a legitimate reason to leave two lots of feedback - the order was placed in two parts. I thought of it from a buyer's point of view and decided that personally I wouldn't have bothered leaving feedback. I'm not going to ruin a seller's reputation when she had tried to do the work and got stuck due to finding no websites in English. I may have translated the websites myself and sent the relevant bits of information in a word document, but wouldn't have bothered with feedback.

Is It Really the Seller's Fault?

The next question to ask is whether the seller is really at fault. There have been times that I've had negative feedback only to have to talk to Fiverr Customer Support to get it removed because it wasn't a fault of mine. Why should a buyer's mistake lead to a seller's reputation being damaged? For example, maybe you didn't read the gig description completely before ordering or you can only afford the basic gig and not the extras.

Before leaving the feedback, ask yourself whether the seller has filled the gig description and done the best quality work. If the answers are yes but you are still unhappy, you need to determine whether that is really the seller's fault or you forgot to add something or was unwilling to pay the extra. Remember that if you are not happy, you can reject the order and get your money back!

Threatening is NOT Okay!

Please, do not threaten a seller with negative feedback. While there are some bad apples, sellers will try everything possible to make you happy but, at the end of the day, it is a business. Sellers need to think about whether something is worth their time for $5 - well, $4 since Fiverr takes $1 commission. Buyers should consider the amount of hours sellers have to put in to do the work and then make changes.

Threatening because a seller is refusing to do anymore revisions without extra payment is not okay. If you are not happy, request a cancellation and move on. But before you request that cancellation, think about the hard work the seller has already put in. Many want to make a full-time living on Fiverr and you taking up all their time with endless revision requests and then cancelling stops that from happening.

When you do cancel, don't use the work. You didn't pay so the copyright hasn't passed to you. The seller owns the work and can use it however he or she wishes. When a buyer has decided to cancel on me, I put the work onto one of my blogs as soon as I get that request and will demand you take yours down if you decide to use it later.

Threatening isn't worth it. It leads to sellers resenting you so they will want to do your work even less. It could lead to them deciding to cancel the job or contact Customer Support to inform them of a threatening buyer. Try to work things out with your seller and come to a compromise.

So, When Is Negative Feedback Justified?

There are times that leaving negative feedback is justified. One of those is if the seller has scammed you out of money. This happens very rarely; to be honest, you can request a cancellation or contact Customer Support so it isn't really necessary.

The only time I would consider it is if I wanted to warn others about a bad seller. $5 works out to be £3 something, which isn't a lot and is worth it to make sure others are aware of a bad apple among the field of sellers.

Another reason would be if a seller delivers late. After 48 hours after the expected delivery date, you have the right to force a cancellation. This will lead to an automatic negative mark against the seller for late delivery. If you leave the order open, the seller can still send you the work and then you can always leave a negative comment about it being late (however, again, contact the seller before doing this and question whether a thumbs down is really necessary).

In the end, I will always think about the work a buyer has done and whether the thumbs down is necessary. You could always leave a thumbs up and a slight negative comment or just not leave feedback at all. Maybe you could go with the old saying from Bambi: If you can't say nothing nice, don't say anything at all...