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Replacing 5-Star Average Feedback with Job Success Score

garnorm
Community Member

Hi all,

We remove 5-star average feedback entirely, and display only your Job Success score throughout most of the Upwork site. 5-star feedback given per contract will remain displayed on your Work History.

 

We’re making this decision because we’ve seen Job Success scores help top performing freelancers win more contracts. This means clients are having better experiences and coming back for more, which in turn benefits the marketplace and generates more opportunities for freelancers overall. The score helps freelancers at all levels stand out from the competition by presenting clients with a complete picture of their differences. This is an opportunity to help freelancers continue to grow their businesses that we can’t pass up.

 

Additionally, you can learn more about Job Success score and how it's calculated in our help article.

540 Comments
asifsky
Community Member

This might backfire to the most experienced and skilled freelancer on this marketplace. For any professional freelancers, it takes some time to build strong portfolio with positive ratings and feedback from client. Though, the rating itself represent value of the work and performance level from client's satisfaction.

 

Coming back to job success rate, from my money, this depends mostly on delivering work on time, continuous client communication using Upwork and others. On-time delivery is the key factor though. Now, the issue for fixed price job and the delivery of work is not something can always be predicted or fulfilled according to the time fixed on Upwork as this is mostly decided with a certain level of commitment establish between clients and freelancer using Skype, phone or other means. The client even doesn’t bother to change the delivery time frame which once inserted during posting jobs after certain level of commitment or relationship build.

 

For hourly rate, on-time delivery, yes possible but again, it does depends on clients whether the client is flexible on changing delivery time or not. For example, after communications with client and understanding jobs, the delivery time is fixed based on job requirements. Now, for some reason(s) the client doesn’t bother to changes the delivery time on Upwork (as most of the client do that); now what will happen is basically after finishing the work even successfully, the freelancer will get Low Job Satisfaction rate.

 

Therefore, the decision is entirely taken on favor of client’s level rather thinking of the benefits of Freelancers. A part from this, the people who were working on this platform from ages 3/5/7 years, their Job success rate will be compared with Newbie’s who hardly even have right amount of experience and skills and which are unfair.

 

Now, my final thought is, I strongly condemn against this decision from Upwork.

 

Cheers

 

mbsarchitect
Community Member

Hello,

 

why don't you ask to the whole community (client and contractor) before any changes? Personally I don't think it is a great idea!

sdunkel
Community Member

I have not felt like contributing to this discussion as I feel kind of powerless. I can perceive in discussions, that Upwork does not care about the freelancers, customer service is already successful when they understand my inquiries, which does not mean it is going to be resolved. I give up on most inquiries there as I only receive canned responses that have nothing to do with my inquiry.

 

I have to say, this is well inquired. Unfortunately, and as far as I could perceive, Big Garnor, wanna-be re-inventor of the wheel, has not further cared about the freelancers' concerns in this discussion after his big speech.

 

The word Job Success is absolutely inappropriate already. A job success rate less than 100% means that a freelancer was not able to accomplish a job or more. The details how job success is going to be calculated indicate that not one person that worked on the formula has ever worked as a freelancer. Freelancers are going to be made responsible for clients' failures. Why is that necessary? Why are freelancers on Upwork not treated as clients? In the end it is us that pay the fees. Why does Upwork not apply the minimum democratic rights, for example in doubt for the accused? When a client does not provide feedback, then it should not be negatively applied to the JSS, same when deadlines have been exceeded because a client does not provide source files in time or answers questions within a timely manner.

 

Best of all, while Upwork is messing up, the competition seems to not notice as they continue to be quiet and do nothing to attract freelancers or clients. This is the only thing that makes me laugh heartily in this situation.

frasertimo
Community Member

I haven't been on Upwork for long, so I'm not sure how this will affect me, but it doesn't seem like a good thing. There are plenty of reasons why people might have a good five star rating, but not as good a job success score. If someone has plenty of reviews, and a score of 5 or nearabouts, doesn't that suggest they're leaving plenty of satisfied customers? Whereas a success score of less than 90% might be because of all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with a freelancer's abilities or professionalism.

 

Plus there's the whole matter of how the complete formula for success scores isn't known to either freelancers or employers. With the review system at least it's clear as to how you got your score.

 

I really hope that Upwork listens to the response to this decision, which seems to be overwhelmingly negative, and actually makes some changes as a result. I'm not saying they should totally reverse the decision, but maybe if they're going to drop the five star system then they need to tweak the success score to include client feedback, or something like that.

 

Also, there seems to be no explanation for why Upwork have made this change, aside from "The success score system does the job." This seems fishy to me. Why is it not possible to have both of these scores? It just seems wrong to not allow client feedback to be expressed in some way. Ultimately, that should be the most important factor in whether or not some is recommended.

jmdreller
Community Member

"Yay, here comes an Upwork world where a freelancer with 5 star feedback will be advertised as only achieving 82% success."

 

I Completely agree. This new %-based rating system is arbitratry and intransparent. It is pretty strange that freelancers with a perfect 5-star work-record from Elance who transfer their profile to Upwork suddenly get only 82%. I think Upwork makes a big mistake here and this whole platform is moving in the wrong direction. 

 

This makes it harder for experienced freelancers with a good work-record to compete against low-cost newcomers.  

The main motivation here seems to be to keep labor costs as low as possible to make this an attractive sourcing location for clients looking for lowest rates. You will see that the good freelancers, who provide quality-work and can charge top rates, will leave UpWork in the medium-run...

prestonhunter
Community Member

re: "there seems to be no explanation for why Upwork have made this change"

 

There is no mystery about why Upwork is making this change.

 

Upwork does not like the fact that the "star feedback" averages are highly clustered around the 5-star average, with very little spread. If there was more signficant spread among contractors... with many people having star averages of 3 or 3.5 or 4 or 4.5, etc., then Upwork would not be replacing the system.

 

Upwork prefers the Job Success Score because it exhibits a large spread, which lets clients see greater differences between potential candidates for jobs.

 

Upwork sincerely believes that posting the star average rating does not help the client very much because basically all the client sees is 5-star or near-5-star averages for nearly every job candidate. So the 5-star feedback ends up either (a) not meaning anything; or (b) giving clients a false sense of security regarding the quality of contractors, because many contractors with algorithmically-measured lower levels of job success nevertheless have 5-star or near-5-star feedback averages.

 

Many contractors who complain about this change seem to be losing sight of the fact that Upwork's primary business objective is NOT to:

 

"Please contractors with a rating system they are familiar and which they feel is fair and transparent."

 

This is not a primary goal of the Upwork corporation. Upwork's goal is to:

 

"Make money by attracting paying clients to post jobs and pay contractors, whose fees Upwork extracts 10% from."

 

The Job Success Score is one means toward that end. It is not done for the convenience and pleasure of all contractors. It is a change made to improve client satisfaction and Upwork revenue.

 

Please feel free to disagree or agree with the decision. But there is really no reason to think that we do not know the reason behind the decision. We do know.

mohamadalm
Community Member

Unacceptable !!!!
I work hard to make my feedback rate above 4.5 , even i refund money when my clients give me low feedback
so now you tell me that this will not be the standard for how good or bad ? that is Unacceptable !!!!

 

and what about client feedback ? i do not trust work with client not 5 stars !!
or the client have job success rate too ??


now when you hide it for clients , you make it very not trusted for us as freelancer !

you want to make Upwork as safe platform and environment to work safely

 

but this surprising changes will not make that ever !

 

please think before this surprising decision , we trust , do not fear us !!!

 

I am very upset of this decision !!


you did not think about us !!!!

why !!!

miltanc
Community Member

Dear Upwork Team,

 

Removing 5 star feedback never a good option for anybody's profile. I do have a good Job success rate, but that does not indicate how co-operative I am with my clients and also about my knowledge. I don't understand how proffessionalism is related here as mentioned many times by the advocates of removing 5 star feedback .. but anyway I DO NOT find it logical !

 

Thanks

Miltan Chaudhury

gz99
Community Member

Preston,

 

This is not a good thing. I guess we can all agree on the what the problems are, but the JS "solution" that is beng shoved down our throats is not a solution at all. There cannot be any objectivity in a score that has never been properly explained. The mechanics of how it works are only known to people who created it. So how are we supposed to trust the algorithm if we don't know it? And how are we supposed to enhance it if we have no idea how exactly it's calculated? "Be professional and good things will happen" is not an answer.

Judging from what people are saying, the formula doesn't take into account realities of certain jobs and situations, so Upwork did the simplest thing they could do the best way to avoid criticism - they just covered their flawed approach with a thick layer of vague statements.

mohamadalm
Community Member

This may be right to attract the clients 

but on the otherway , if the freelancer found it is hard on this site , he will leave it and imigrate to another site 
and if upwork lose freelancers , what clients will find in ? they will imigrate too !
the main power of upwork that it is easier for freelancer not client  , so client go to upwork because it have big freelanceres number , so he can found what he want !