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! 

[sagiumaretiya]

Thanks, Jason. We all know that we are human and it's not necessarily that every time we can fulfill the client requirement at their 100% expectation and due to that they are sometimes not leave feedback when a contract is ending. These changes definitely help the negative impact on JSS. Thanks a lot for the freelancer's favor initiative.  

[263915f3]

This is such good news! Giving feedback is sometimes a hassle for the client, or sometimes they forget. It was so discouraging to see the JSS drop due to lack of feedback while knowing clients had actually walked away happy with their results. Thank you for this new feature!!

[chadworth]

Thank you for making this reasonable change UpWork.
It really shouldn't be my responsibility if your client u.i and user experience is poor. I am glad that you finally agree.

I am heartened by the change in language. I note UpWork is referring to us as professionals now. Progress.

I was here when UpWork was oDesk. I had an eLance profile that I never made money from.

I wrote blog posts about overwork like an idiot, thinking I had to work myself to death, to grind my way to success.

UpWork has sent me an email congratulating me on the number of consecutive years I have been Top Rated.

I set my UpWork profile to unavailable until December. I have too much work. After I am done writing this post, I am going to change that to January.

My fridge is full. My wife is happy. It won't always be like this I'm sure. There was a time when it wasn't this way.

I found success because people who knew better were kind enough to tell me when I was being unprofessional.

One client told me, "Raise your rates."
Another client told me, "You should take this seriously. Get a professional headshot." I was using an image of me in my car with my head cocked to the side. I wonder what impression that image left with clients.

So many of you are making the same mistakes.

Your rates are too low. You don't have a professional headshot.

And I'm not trying to sing my own praises.

I just want you to know what you're competing against.

Most of you I'm sure have a YouTube feed filled with some celebrity's recent doings.

My YouTube is recommending Project Management videos by actual subject matter area experts, and tech reviews so I know what equipment to purchase next so I get more efficient over time. And I know how much I will need to spend when I am ready to purchase. There is a reason I own the fastest phone on the planet. And it's not because I want to impress my friends.

I spent over $10,000 hiring freelancers myself this year.

And I don't have any special skills. I'm using Microsoft Word, and Chrome, and FireFox like the rest of you. I have forgotten how to use PhotoShop, but I know how to find and hire professionals who know PhotoShop better than I ever will. I have an UpWork client account.

If you are a freelancer and you don't have NotePad++ and PhraseExpress installed on your machine, you are wasting your time.

If you are a freelancer you need to adhere to one simple creed. And I wish UpWork would enforce this with an automatic 2 week ban every single time it happens.

I am a freelancer. I do not work for free. I do not start work until the contract has been funded.

How many different ways, in different places do they need to say it so people get the message?

I don't know why you guys refuse to do it the right way, but clients don't even get to talk to me until they have paid me money. And you guys are out here working and not getting paid?

People can make fun of Ahmed's $500 on platform, but like him I have also made most of my income off platform.

There was a time when UpWork wasn't as concientious, wasn't as user-friendly, wasn't as supportive as it is now.

Ahmed knows what he's doing. I think he needs to raise his rates though.

Freelancing is a great life. But like everything else, there is an easy way, and a hard way. Everybody gets to choose how they want to do it.

You can spend your time arguing with clients about getting paid, or you can pretend that you are the prettiest girl at the dance and you don't talk to broke n**a**.

One client who gave me advice told me she never feels bad about turning a potential client down. She said, "It's not my fault they can't afford me."

I mean, I know this requires you to be very honest with yourself, and improve your profile, and learn copywriting, and get rid of typos, and learn who your ideal client is, and build a portfolio even if it means working for free, because let's face it all of that is work. Who wants to do work?

But if you're actually here to work... Why won't you work effectively? Why are you arguing with clients after you've done the work?

Listen. I am so good at what I do, if a client leaves me a negative review, I report them to UpWork. Obviously a crazy person. And most of the time UpWork agrees with me.

And I'm no better than anybody else. I started somewhere too. You can see on my UpWork profile where I underbid a project and failed. Tried to write two throughly researched articles for $30. No wonder I was having trouble making rent. What was I thinking?

This is a business. People depend on you. My wife wanted to go back to college. My daughter wanted to buy clothes she actually liked instead of what I could afford. My mom wanted to be able to go to her own doctor, somebody who cares about her instead of someone randomly assigned.

Who is depending on you?

Stop self-sabotaging, stop complaining, and do what works. Stop wasting time.

Pleasure competing against you guys.

You'll hear from me again I'm sure.

[mariaharutyunyan]

This is great, thanks 🙂

[boris268]

This update was great but to me my rating dropped this week since the new update.

[VladimirG]

Hi Manish,

Thanks for the question. If you're working with the client in question regularly and completing projects on an ongoing basis, you can consider working through a single contract and make sure the client funds new Milestones before starting work on a new task. Keeping contracts with no recent activity open should not affect your score negatively. Furthermore, clients you work with for at least three months in the last 12 months and receive payments from regularly do qualify as long-term clients. That said, if you have contracts that are open but no further work needs in the near future, you can consider asking your clients to close them and rehire you once they require your services again. I'd like to note that the rehiring process is streamlined and can be completed in a few easy steps. 

[annette-design]

This is good news as I think a lot of clients never end a contract as they consider the project complete once they have approved the milestones and released payments and leaving contracts open also makes people think you are not avaliable.

[achionetti]

This is great news! Clients often FORGET to leave feedback and that impacts directly on our stats. I'm really happy with this update!

[partner-team]

The best news so far. So happy to hear that. Those contracts affected a lot on my JSS. Thanks again Upwork for giving us a great experience as freelancers. 

[chris_p_morris]

This is great to hear, and a very sensible decision.

Does this mean that I can safely close down my 30-odd outstanding contracts that aren't active?!

That was a serious question, not a joke BTW. Well, it was a bit of a joke, but it was also serious!