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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
reputationstars
Community Member

Ok so I had 97% JSS before the change and now I have 92% JSS. Almost all my clients given me feedback, total 47 clients and maybe 3-4 didnt give me feedback. All my feedbacks are 5 star, except one 4 star.

 

Why did this effect my rating negativly??? shouldnt this no effect me, but only effect those posivily that didnt have enough feedbacks??? This doesnt make sene and I am not happy about this. 

reputationstars
Community Member

Upwork takes a security deposit for mielstones. Do not start any work unless client already left deposit. You probably do not  know how this works. What you are saying should not happen unless you started work without client leaving deposit first.

gaucho76
Community Member

welcome to the wonderful world of UpWork's algorithms, designed by people that didn't even finish college. Don't bother fighting it, it's what it is

jdzaffuto
Community Member

When will this happen exactly? I just quit my membership as it wasn't worth it to have a 90% JSS when I got 100% positive feedback due to some people not leaving feedback. 

jdzaffuto
Community Member

Doesn't seem to be Nov 8th as my score is still the same. 

carol_thompson
Community Member

So for some of us, we are being penalized because clients didn't leave feedback? How is that fair? We complete a project successfully, and now we are getting wrist-slapped because no feedback was left. Some of my clients were one-time users and didn't come back to leave feedback.

 

How do you expect freelancers to survive in this environment? We are dammed if we do and dammed if we don't.

 

You are making it impossible to be a freelancer here.

 

And while I'm venting, why not put clients through the same scrutiny as the freelancers? We have to verify our identity and payment method, yet clients don't have to and that's why Upwork is well-known for having a large number of scammers. Maybe if there was more to the process, clients would know that feedback is important. 

 

BojanS
Community Manager

Hi Pierre,

 

Before this change, if too many clients did not leave feedback for you, it could negatively impact your JSS. However, after this change contracts with no feedback will no longer impact JSS. I'd like to note however, that there are other factors that are and will continue to be included in the calculation such as long-term relationships for example. Additionally, the score will continue to be calculated for six-, 12- and 24-month windows and the best score out of these moving time windows will displayed on your profile and updated about every two weeks. Here you can learn more about this.

 

Thank you!

BojanS
Community Manager

Hi Jason,

 

The change announced on this thread has already been implemented and reflected in the most recent Job Success Score calculation. If you didn't see any changes to your score this weekend, it's possible that the number of No Feedback contracts you have wasn't significant enough to affect your score before. Please know that both private and public feedback along with a number of other factors goes into the calculation of the score. Here you can learn more about it.

 

Thank you!

BojanS
Community Manager

Hi Carol,

 

I'd like to clarify that before the change announced on this thread, if too many clients had not left feedback for you, it could have negatively impacted your JSS. However, this is no longer the case. Since this change contracts with no feedback no longer impact JSS.

s-preuschat
Community Member

I like the change for the simple reason that I have no control over whether a client chooses to leave feedback or not. If the job's been done and the client was satisfied enough to pay for it, those circumstances speak for themselves. I don't see why my job satisfaction score should be affected by factors I can't change. In addition, as a bookkeeper, most of my jobs are longterm. I can go years without a contract being closed and therefore no feedback requested or given. (It might be nice to allow for feedback from open jobs. A client who stays with me over the course of years is obviously a satisfied client.)