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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
d_samuel_udokpok
Community Member

This is a great news. As a beginner in Upwork, clients not leaving feedback has impacted negatively on my JSS. I hope to see increase in my JSS soon

calado-marco
Community Member

Hi Gilang, i got curious about your post so i went to check your profile. Got to say this;

1 - you're an hell of an artist

2 - there's definitly something wrong with your JSS

3 - Check with the Upwork gurus to help you out with the score and fix it.

 

Your score doesn't reflect your feedback, in my view you should be at least above 85% if not over 90%!

to everyone reading this post please see her profile:  Tantowi Gilang 

There must be a mistake in her Score.

29350bfa
Community Member
Alexander B wrote:

Finally, Upwork does something right. By notifying us in advance, we can warn you if the changes you want to implement will be wrong. In this case, you're solving an old problem and have already had tons of feedback on it. You can't mess this up! Lol. 
 
Upwork has a lot of highly experienced professionals in it. Some are more skilled than Upwork employees when it comes to their respective skills. Upwork shouldn't ignore this segment of the community that is so willing to help Upwork, AT NO COST. 



Since I'm new to Upwork, so far I've felt like I have direct contact with their CEO or something. First with the Fiverr-like projects, and now this. Honestly, man, I feel like I'm on a roll! 😂 My cousin hooked me up with his Fiverr account a couple of years back, which had 88 reviews, and a Level-One badge, and I got it to 139 reviews, and a Level-Two badge, but sadly, a customer mistook my honesty for rudeness, so she told me to get mental help, knowing that I went out of my way to give her all the instructions she needed to sync tasks with multiple devices, using my Hackintosh, and my Android phone to create the whole situation — I only use my phone for SMS verification. Because I never take **Edited for Community Guidelines** from anyone, I went Ultra Instinct on her, and I showed her what me being rude really looks like. In other words, I gave Fiverr a real reason to side with her instead of the commonly boring "customer's always right" one.


Anyway, I just love how Upwork doesn't have profanity filters like Fiverr does. Imagine being exceptionally good at what you do, and blowing every customer away, and all a platform cares about is how you talk to customers, and when they demote your **Edited for Community Guidelines** you shouldn't take it personally, because it's just a bot. 🙄In other words, they want me to sound like a mindless robot with an annoying "dear", and "sir" verbal tic. What's wrong with putting my English to good use even though I'm not a native? If I say **Edited for Community Guidelines** instead of "mess up", why would that be considered being rude when the tone is clearly not hostile?


Anyhoo, just like how I bought a face mask 4 years before COVID19, I knew I had to broaden the scope by creating an account on Upwork (and I thought I was too real for Upwork. Boy, was I wrong! 😂), and Freelancer, so when my cousin's Fiverr account got disabled, I was like, "Good riddance! Enjoy dealing with **Edited for Community Guidelines** freelancers who can barely speak English!" I'm never rude to anyone from the get-go; I don't even have that initial hostility towards people like most people do. Maybe it's one of the reasons that many of my customers are returning ones. Even one of my oldest customers, Adam from the UK, he was like, "That's what I like about you. You never take anything from anyone, or care about getting shut down." The more people try to bring me down, whether they hide behind silly policies or bureaucy, the more persistent I am about breaking the cycle, that is, mediocrity in the form of half-**Edited for Community Guidelines** everything, while hiding behind political correctness.
calado-marco
Community Member

Hi Ahmed.

 

The "friend pimping up" the JSS is trully a fair point! But for that to happen the job must be closed an paid for, and in that case and if that happens then Upwork will get their fees anyway!! So the question is; why would they bother? But that is trully a great point!!

29350bfa
Community Member


Prachi T wrote:

Petra R wrote:

In practice, such contracts rarely had any negative impact on the JSS for years now anyway. 

 

I used to have a guy bookmarked who had between 80% and 85% of his contracts ended without feedback in all 3 calculation windows and a 100% JSS.

 

So are we now just making something official that has (for all intents and purposes) been the case for a long time anyway?

I agree. A couple of months ago, I came across a freelancer's profile. Top rated. But he had closed several (about 50!) contracts in the same week. All without feedback. Looked like he just decided to clean up his job history. 

I slapped my forehead thinking this is JSS suicide. But in the next week's update, nothing happened at all! His JSS was intact!


Thinking about JSS sometimes, it reminds me of that Black Mirror episode called Nose Dive. Sometimes I'm like, "Just like I didn't let my grades in school define me whether I was top of my class or the guy who skips every class, I should do the same with JSS."

Most people who have decided to hire me have become returning customers, and all I had to do was talk about the project in a relevant way instead of just copying, and pasting one's 'lucky charm' cover letter. Honestly, I don't feel bad when I don't get hired; I just pray — not literally — they don't get scammed, because I got scammed on Freelancer 5 years ago, and so far, I've never developed any vengeful feelings or anything over the years. In fact, all I developed was awesome websites, and pretty useful scripts, since back in 2015, I've already had 9 years of experience in IT under my belt. 😂

This might sound cliche, but I think that if we keep a positive mental attitude, and not let stats, and numbers affect the chemicals in our brain, there's nothing we can't accomplish. Take it from a guy who has no diplomas, and yet I've worked with all kinds of people over the years, including civil engineers, musicians, teachers, principals, etc — and those were just IRL — and they were all shocked by the fact that I taught myself everything, including English, and everything tech-related. I think of life as a game; the harder the challenges it throws my way, the more excited I am about facing them head on, and coming out victorious every time. 😃

29350bfa
Community Member

Marco C wrote:

Hi Ahmed.

 

The "friend pimping up" the JSS is trully a fair point! But for that to happen the job must be closed an paid for, and in that case and if that happens then Upwork will get their fees anyway!! So the question is; why would they bother? But that is trully a great point!!




Howdy Marco,

That totally slipped my mind, and ironically, I only remembered that when I mentioned working for free sometimes on another reply, and it hit me like, "Wait, Upwork would kill if they knew I help people sometimes for free, even if it's part of an old-school non-technology-dependent warranty." I even say to my customers sometimes, "You don't have to pay for EVERYTHING, and human decency precedes silly algorithms. I know there are a lot of scammers out there, but not everyone is out to get us." I intend to be one of the first people to disappoint Bertrand Russell on the fact that the problem with the world is that wise people are full of doubts, while fools are confident. I don't need a digital babysitter to teach me to provide the best service imaginable with a 100% customer satisfaction, and I just find fool-me-once scammers very myopic, and pathetic. I mean, why would you scam people where you could help them, and win them over for life? What's so sneaky or smart about that? And the ironic thing is that, whenever I get scammed, I make a lot more in the next few weeks to the point where I'm like, "What scam? That feels like a donation now!" 😂 And even when I refund a customer who misjugded me, while the amount is relatively significant, 20 satisfied customers, including returning ones, make up for that tiny pickle. People underestimate how powerful positive thinking can be. I dropped out of university although I was top of my class in the English Department, and I made 6 grand in the next few months for the first time ever. That memory alone is like Thor's hammer. 😂 I'm never going to stress myself over the fact that some sneaky freeloader thought they could rob me blind, and ruin my day like I'm their own personal jackpot, and they're on a roll. 😂 It may seem gullible, but I always look at the bright side of things eventually even if I complain at first. E.g., freeloaders in my line of work can be THE perfect target practice. 😂😁 One thing I learned over the years: Don't make plans you can't afford YET, don't expect anything from anyone, and contentedness will be your default state of mind. 😂✌ Cheers, irmao! 😃

aartiau
Community Member
Thanks upwork.
nhi_ny
Community Member

This is great for freelancers!

anum-shezadi
Community Member
Hello Everyone...!
Great newz😍
But I have question in my mind that when freelancer will ends the payed contract and giving the feedback to client but client not give the feedback to freelancer.
Is this project will be included in JSS calculation or not..!!!
one more question "is this change will only impact on previous closed contract with no feedback or also implement onward contracts which client doesn't give the feedback to freelancer..?

Thank you
catalyst14
Community Member

Considering your very little experience on Upwork and less than $500 lifetime earnings, this doesn't make sense.