The ABC of Handling Low-Q Clients Like a Rockstar (on Fiverr)

Writing is my passion. And when I do something passionately, I give my best. I give it all in. When turning over a commissioned piece of writing I like to know I have left nothing behind. In the odd scenario where the client might not like, feel or vibe to my creation, at least I know it is one of those rare occasions where that might happen. And it has nothing to do with my skills. Besides... there is always room for feedback, readjustment and taking a V2 out from the oven and still hit that galactic 5 stars!

But sometimes a poor undesired outcome has nothing to do with you, how you managed the situation or even your professional skills. Some clients like chaos, and others even try to get freebies out from every freelancer they order with.

Rest assure no business can go a really long way with that mindset. But what about your mindset? The challenge is to be fresh, not getting hooked up in those bad experiences. Do not extrapolate that "X" platform sucks, or "this or that happened to me.... so I believe this is not for me after all....". Build yourself a concrete strong mindset!

Negative things are an expected thing statistically speaking. One bad rating or a one star rating is not a freelancing writer's career maker or breaker. Move past those bitter shots into better and more profitable realms.

In my own personal experience, I am a data freak. Even though I live from my creative aspect, I find a sort of art in the numbers too. And when I carefully analyzed my gigs stats on Fiverr, after the thought of that damned one start chasing me night after night after having done everything correctly, I had a revelation.

Just for the sake of it, sometimes you may not click with a client. But in this case, someone bought 3 creative business names from me and I ended up providing 63!!! In retrospective, that might have been THE BEST customer service I ever provided. And only for USD 12 (never again luckily).

Going back to the stats part, numbers clearly talked to me. And they told me "Did you realize that every single cancellation or bad rating is coming from people purchasing the cheapest package of the entire Fiverr universe? AND YOU ARE INVESTING EVEN MORE TIME INTO THEM THAN INTO YOUR 5X PAYING CUSTOMERS?"

That's when it clicked. I completely removed the "cheap package" from the face of the earth and my life changed. And even if I then encountered another low rating, at least I could agree with it!

For some strange reason, the "cheap stuff" nucleates these odd types of customers. Which I see as common sense outcasts, that perhaps are not even looking for a solution.

After increasing -significantly- the bargain tier of all my services, everything went back to normal.

LESSON: Before ever questioning yourself or your entire life or career, just take a step back. A deep breath. Analyze the variables and try to reach a reasonable conclusion. Most of the times there is one! And you have little to nothing to do with it.

Paul DC

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