I received an email (along with thousands of others no doubt) from Alex Torrenegra of Voice123.com today, announcing that a new FAQ has been posted in their support center with details about their audition rating system and how it is used.
I received an email (along with thousands of others no doubt) from Alex Torrenegra of Voice123.com today, announcing that a new FAQ has been posted in their support center with details about their audition rating system and how it is used.
Bob:
I get the general sense from reviewing the rating systems not only at Voice 123 but also Voices.com that this “added benefit” is fairly unpopular with the people that actually pay the bills…the voice talents.
These ratings seem so out of the control of almost anything the talent can control or dramatically change (their voice is their voice) that the majority of the talents seem NOT to be helped by the rating system.
Maybe…MAYBE…the talents could improve their performance or pricing (ah, the “lowest bidder†syndrome…I can do that spot for 15 cents) and for a few maybe these adjustment could result in better ratings but for most I think what you hear and see is what you get.
So my question as a business owner looking at these models is: why would a company create a public rating system in which your paying clients (the voice talents NOT the voice buyers) may be alienated? Because you think you’re helping them? I think the system might even because a voice talent to quit the VO bidding service altogether…so how does THAT help Voices 123 or Voices.com
The marketplace will improve the quality of vocal performance (thin the herd, so to speak) by hiring only the best. Services like these two that are primarily price driven (from the buyer’s perspective) in my opinion will only be successful in serving as a stable for mostly “lowest bidding” voice over. I think they’re shooting themselves in the foot by alienating a majority of their customers. Subtract the top 10 ranked performers from the total number of subscribers and you tell me how many talents aren’t being ranked strongly enough.
I do not begrudge these services for their business model in the least. Nor do I begrudge any voice talent who wants to participate (I have a free page on both….good for SEO).
But in my screwy head, I can’t for the life of me understand how these rating systems benefit voice talent or how a voice talent risks their brand by participating. Quality work should not be subjected to an arbitrary ranking.
The good news is….I don’t have an opinion about this. 😉
Best always,
– Peter
Peter,
I love that you don’t have an opinion about this! And of course, I do appreciate your thoughts and comments.
The rating model that makes the most sense to me is the one in practice at eBay. There, the purpose is to help prospective buyers make decisions about people with whom they want to do business, or not.
The ratings are publicly visible as are the identities (at least to some extent) of those who’ve left the ratings. Further, those ratings are based only on actual financial transactions. (Imagine if everyone who bid on something at eBay were rated by the sellers?)
But, to be fair to Voice123.com, if all the people posting jobs go away, so does their client bases. So, it makes a lot of sense for them to provide useful tools to the people looking for voices, thus keeping lots of jobs flowing through the system. And it’s those jobs that attract and keep the voice talent willing to pay.
It’s not a perfect model, but humanly speaking, nothing is completely perfect.
Be well,
Bob
Hi Bob,
Thank you for opening this topic up for discussion.
Peter, I’d like to add that Voices.com’s feedback system is just like eBay’s. We removed the “Top Rated List” and replaced it with “Recently Hired List” as we are now recognizing only transaction-based feedback, not ratings that are given by people who have not worked together at Voices.com.
Laurynda and I posted an article about how SurePay Escrow works and gave reasons as to why it is in place. The most recent article on the subject was posted on Monday this week:
http://blogs.voices.com/voxdaily/2007/08/how_to_use_surepay.html
I hope that I have clarified what Voices.com is doing with regard to feedback and reviews.
Thank you again Bob for keeping the dialog open.
Take care,
Stephanie
Stephanie,
Thanks for the comments and for linking back to your post about the way Voices.com is doing feedback these days. I do think the way you folks are handling feedback is a huge improvement over the previous system. However I would not say you’re “just like eBay” quite yet. In their system, the parties to the transaction rate one another regardless of the payment system used. As long as Voices.com’s system is limited to only SurePay Escrow transactions it’s more like if eBay only allowed people to rate transactions when they use PayPal.
This, by the way, isn’t intended as a complaint about your current system, just a clarification of what I see as the main remaining difference between your rating system and eBay’s.
Be well,
Bob