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

[mitchell-jason]

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! 

[epae]

LOL! Nothing happened with JSS (although I had a successfully closed project a week ago and a great review from a client). The damage you have done in the last few years with JSS, I do not know how you will be able to repair. You didn't want to listen to us veterans from this platform when we told that you to do the wrong thing.
You completely lost your compass.

[atria]

We are working so hard here and giving you the commision. Make it plain and simple for us. It is not easy to work with some clients. I even experience discrimanation with Asian employers. was that our fault?

[sethbrown]

A long-awaited and much-needed change! This is a great move and will be much appreciated by freelancers. Between this and finally adding zoom calls to the platform, I feel like there have been some real improvements of late.

[chris_maroulis]

I totally agree with you. 

JSS is an unfair, not supportive and definately not accurate metric which can destroy the reputation of a freelancer. Having all contracts rated by the clients with 5* and yet have a JSS lower than 70% is totally unacceptable.

Can't figure out a way to "improve" since unavoidably I automatically get filtered out of list of candidates.

I'm thinking of deleting my account as well, although I tried hard to build a good reputation. It's a shame.. 

[gajer_kelly]

I want to reply that my score has gone up, so I'm grateful for that and for the many responses to my original comment. I've been reading some of the other posts and want to say that many times there A LOT of ambiguity in the deliverables, and clients, even if by no fault of their own don't "spell it out clearly" and set clear expectations it can be very difficult to iron out the wrinkles. Yes, Upwork has an arbitration system, but the best feedback that I've received are from the clients that I continually collaborate with during the project that don't ghost me until the moment I download the document. THIS is why my JSS was swinging like a pedulum. I know that I do good work, I don't always expect feedback, I usually ALWAYS ask for it, but for a small independent contractor like me, who is up against these big companies with lots of writers, cranking out content, this change really makes it more easy for me to feel confident that new clients will hire me.

[fsafner]

Hi Jason.

This has sense. I guess that sometimes people (clients) just ignore this or consider it less important. I had to close contracts miself since the projects were ended, paid and delivered long time ago.

Best,

Florin

[6d5f84ea]

I agree with you!

[krystofk]

Hello Jason,

this is extremely positive news for a lot of freelancers. I was fighting years with many pending long-term contracts without knowing what to do with them. They were lowering my score constantly a little bit and when I closed them then they lowered the score significantly. So now there is finally an option on how to get rid of these pending contracts without clients' cooperation. This is finally a solution as a lot of clients simply do not care about their projects/contracts. This was a big flaw in the JSS system

Thank you

 Krystof

[VladimirG]

Hi Niktar and Unni,

If no feedback is provided on the contract by your client, it will not have an impact on your score. Please check the information Valeria shared here for a more detailed explanation.

[krystofk]

Of course it did negatively impacted the score if you had more of these jobs without feedback. Also if you had a lot of pending contracts without any activity then it also lowered the score. K