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No feedback contracts no longer impact Job Success Score (JSS)

mitchell-jason
Community Member

I am excited to announce a new change to the Job Success Score (JSS). We know that JSS is a hot topic. This post aims to provide transparency into the changes and answer any questions you might have. 

 

On November 8th, 2020, we updated the JSS calculation process to exclude contracts that ended without feedback. Before, if a freelancer or agency had a large number of contracts that ended without feedback, those contracts could have negatively impacted their JSS. 

 

What is JSS?

Your JSS measures and reflects your Upwork clients’ satisfaction with the projects you complete for them. You can view your score on your My Stats page and learn more about JSS here.

 

What does this mean?

We removed projects where clients didn't leave feedback from consideration in the JSS calculation in November. This means that it will no longer negatively impact your JSS if a client does not leave feedback at the end of a project. Note that, as a result of this change, a small set of professionals no longer had enough outcomes with different clients to earn a JSS. To minimize this impact, we reduced the minimum number of distinct clients required to earn a JSS from 3 to 2. 

 

What’s the problem with including contracts that end without feedback in the JSS calculation?

Picture a contract where a professional and a client work together, and at the end of it, the client does not leave feedback. Before the change, if the professional already had a high percentage of completed contracts without feedback, the professional’s JSS could have been negatively affected.

 

The original design was based on a study that found clients who had negative experiences would often avoid filling out the feedback form altogether instead of giving negative reviews. More recent analysis suggests this may no longer be true. As a result, we are changing the calculation to reflect today’s reality. 

 

How does this change affect you?

  • If you had contracts before the change where a client did not leave feedback counting against your JSS, you may notice a boost in your score from this change. 
  • If you do not have sufficient outcomes from at least 2 distinct clients, you may no longer meet the threshold for JSS, and you may see your JSS go away. Getting more jobs can help minimize this impact. 

What’s next?

This is just one of several changes we’re planning to implement in the coming months, so stay tuned!

 

This post itself is in response to your feedback that you want to be informed when changes are made. Thanks to everyone who has offered feedback on JSS communication through our customer surveys and social media, through the Upwork Community, and directly to our team. Be on the lookout for more changes to JSS and other aspects of the Upwork experience in the near future. 

 

We are all looking forward to this next chapter together! 

956 Comments
calado-marco
Community Member

Totally agree. I have a steady client over than 3 years now that regularly has sent me more than 50 jobs alone. I've worked with him so many times that he doesn't even bother to close the previous job! Over all he may have posted 5 (the most) feedbacks, and the number of closed jobs with him may be around twenty-ish ...?! Like you said; when a client comes back, even without feedback, that should count as a positive feedback. But i do understand that's something hard to follow, from a upwork's point of view.

29350bfa
Community Member

Pearlene T wrote:
My issue is the Clients who come on here sneakily trying to take your work without paying. I think upwork should take a security deposit from Clients on fixed price contracts and stop allowing to use milestone.

Yup, that happens to me, too, on both Upwork, and Freelancer. Sometimes I provide the solution for free, because I'd rather people contact me once, and never reply again, and get a solution for free, than start a contract, and then come up with some silly superficial reason to leave me negative feedback like calling me rude for using the f-word to imply "mess up", while giving some harmless example about something.

Because I love all the geeky stuff  that I do, and I care more about returning customers, I don't mind taking the risk of getting the job done before getting paid, because who knows? Maybe a customer will leave you negative feedback for being paranoid, and there's nothing you can do about it, because the customer's always right. 🙄 So far, my business model has been working great, and sometimes customers up their budget, and I don't even have to say a word; they witness the 'tech miracles' themselves. They hire me to solve one tech problem, and I end up solving a dozen, so they make it rain with bonuses, and the good thing about it is that I never expect anything, and that's why I'm always happy no matter the outcome, since I'm all about self-fulfillment, and knowing a lot, being good, and genuine shouldn't be depressing; I've said this before, but I refuse to believe that the more you know, the more miserable you become. I'd rather just keep it upbeat, and not expect anything. Believe it or not, but things always work out. 😃

tarekemara
Community Member

Thank you so much what a great news!

hope Upwork can look into private feedback more and make 8 as private feedback not affecting the Jss anymore because many people see that 8 is fine!

marijajeremijic
Community Member

Hi,

 

What about paused contracts? Thanks!

29350bfa
Community Member

I concur! Especially when the same customer leaves positive feedback over, and over. What's to stop Upwork from thinking that you have a friend that's "pimping your JSS"? Haha Kind of like when a music corporation buys its own artists' albums, so that the stats would be jaw-dropping, while also giving people incentive to do the same. 😂

8f79f445
Community Member

Thank you very much! Just figured out how to close a contract; I didn't realize it was possible from the freelancer end. Appreciate it!

kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Maria,

 

Thanks for your question. The fact that a contract is paused or not has no effect on JSS. 

calado-marco
Community Member

From my personal experience, long time idle contracts afect in a negative way your JSS. My advice is to send a message to the client first, wait two or three days for a reply and if he doesn't reply go to the job and submit the work for payment. That will keep the job active and at the end of the two weeks if he still doesn't reply you can close the job without any kind of influence in your JSS.

janagoughmba
Community Member

Thank you UpWork!!!

29350bfa
Community Member

Michael I wrote:

Thank you for this wonderful change. But you know, sometimes even happy clients don't leave feedback - they're in a hurry, they don't understand the importance of feedback, etc. So it would be great if you make it clear on the "Leave Feedback" client pop up that "Feedback is very important to your freelancer." And if they don't leave feedback, then perhaps there could be a second pop up before they close out the job that says "Are you sure you don't want to take a moment to leave important feedback?" Also, maybe you could make it easier for clients to log back in and leave feedback they didn't leave ... or to change the feedback they did leave ... for example, to correct spelling or grammar mistakes. Or, perhaps make it easier for a freelancer to call the HELP line and ask for spelling or grammar mistakes to be fixed. As an editor, for example, it's difficult to have a "5" on a job and some great written feedback that has typos or syntax errors. My two cents for further improvement ... but again, thanks for making this vital change. Thanks for all you do! 




As long as the experience is so good that customers pour their heart out, I don't mind the typos, and the syntax errors despite the fact that I'm a Grammar **Edited for Community Guidelines** myself. 😂 Being a perfectionist, it just makes me my worst critic, but that's it, because I don't like correcting people; it just seems obnoxious. When I leave my customers' reviews on my website as testimonials, I fight the urge to add all the missing indefinite articles, and let's not talk about punctuation. Back in high school, my English teacher, Mr. Feddal, used to put my exam paper in the air like that infamous scene from The Lion King, and he'd say, "Well, look at Ahmed's writing: Not a single mistake!" I remember looking at my writing when I got my paper back, and I noticed there was a dot in red ink. I remember saying to Mr. Feddal, "Oh, you had to use the red pen, so you wouldn't feel like you weren't doing your job, huh?" And he would start chuckling uncontrollably. He was hands down one of the greatest teachers I've ever known, and he never found my sense of humor rude or anything, which is something I always admire about people who are too mature to take life so seriously. 😂😍