Announcing New Perks and Requirements for our Top Rated Community

[Lena E]

It’s been one year since we launched our Top Rated program, which recognizes and rewards freelancers and agencies who consistently perform high-quality work.

From reading your feedback here in the forums about the Top Rated program, we understand that you want more work and more opportunities to grow your freelancing businesses. In light of Top Rated’s one year anniversary and your feedback, today we introduced new perks and requirements for the Top Rated program. Check out the announcement on our blog here, we’ve also outlined these updates for you below.  

New Perks:

Based on the feedback we’ve received over the last year, we’re improving the Top Rated program to ensure we provide our top users with meaningful rewards and more opportunities. Here is a list of new Top Rated perks:

• An exclusive Job Digest email tailored to your area of expertise to make it easier for you to find attractive opportunities.

• Exclusive Top Rated Office Hours, including webinars, small group discussions, and one-on-one sessions with Upwork team members. The details, dates, and times are posted on the Top Rated forum.
  
  
• Removing a contract’s ratings to exercise more control over your Job Success score. As a Top Rated freelancer or agency, you can request to remove one job’s ratings from your account. The client’s public 5-star rating and comment (if any) will be hidden from your profile, and the contract will be excluded from your Job Success score. This perk can be exercised once every 10 jobs and at most once every 3 months.

*edited to add: You can choose whether to hide the client’s public 5-star rating and comment (if any) from your profile. Elance contracts are not included in this perk.

• The opportunity to host Top Rated Events in your city. We’re piloting this in June, and hope to expand to community members everywhere later this year. All Top Rated freelancers and agencies who are in a host city will receive an email inviting them to the event when one has been scheduled.  

New Requirement:

We’ve added a new requirement to ensure that Top Rated talent consistently meets the highest standards of professionalism and work quality for their clients, making the Top Rated badge even more reputable.

In addition to the original requirements found here, freelancers and agencies must now maintain a Job Success score of at least 90% (or Rising Talent status) for 13 of the last 16 weeks. We have found that freelancers and agencies who have maintained high scores over time are far more likely to deliver high-quality work on an ongoing basis.

You can track your progress toward the Top Rated program by going to your My Stats page.  Existing Top Rated freelancers and agencies will have 90 days to meet the new requirement standard.

We are continuously looking for ways to improve and bring more value to the top performing freelancers and agencies and hope you enjoy these new perks.

[Samrat C]

Hi Lena, I've been maintaining the " Top Rated" badge for more than 2 months now ( can't remember the exact date when I earned this badge),

Now as per the new requirement-

"Existing Top Rated freelancers and agencies will have 90 days to meet the new requirement standard." Could you please explain that a bit more?

Kind Regards,

Samrat

[Katrina B]

Hi Samrat,

There is one additional requirement - maintaining a high Job Success score (or Rising Talent status) for 13 out of 16 weeks (this is 3 out of 4 months).  You can check your number of weeks on your My Stats page under "Top Rated Eligible Weeks." 

If your number is 13 or more, you don't have to do anything.  If you are under 13 weeks, your status will remain for 90 days to give you a chance to keep your score up.

Let me know if you have more questions!

Katrina

[Samrat C]

Thanks, Katrina. I just checked that and it shows 16 out of 16!

[Ali K]

Hi Kristina

Please guid me  a client give me 6 month before low score and  now i want remove this feedback after 6 month so its impact on my job success score or not because 6 month contract is too much late

Thanks

[Vladimir G]

Hi Ali,

Please check this Help article and follow the outlined instructions. You can also read Katrina's replies posted in this thread for additional clarification.

[Anushka K]

What is the meaning of "Rising Talent status for at least 13 of the last 16 weeks" 

Please explain , 

mine - http://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/1353504/b6c77afc7c9a3e733e6ee153d2886372

[Vladimir G]

Hi Anushka,

Please check our replies addressing that question on the previous pages in this thread.

[Anton F]

Can I remove contract from history only after next 10 projects done, or if I have 10+ more now I can use this feature? I got not the best client and now I'm worry to lose Top Rated badge, especcially if it became harder to get it back from now.

[Lena E]

Hi Anton, 

Yes, if you already have 10 jobs you can remove feedback. However, you cannot have an open job removed from your Job Success score. Jobs must be closed before doing so. 

You can remove feedback once every 10 jobs and this benefit can only be used once every 3 months. Find more information in our help article here.

-Lena