Client insists on Skype communication with his employees

[lebedev-vitaly]

Hi, guys. Probably it is a pretty familiar situation for many of you. 

I was hired by a client to do some programming. The client is a project manager. His knowledge of programming is not brilliant. So the client insists on my assistance to his programmer in implementing product I deliver. The programmer is not Upworker, so the means of communication must be Skype. I am not happy with this demand.

My questions are:

1. does the client has a right to insist on Skype
2. do I break Upwork ToS by using Skype (hourly contract and screenshots of Skype are bound to happen)
3. can I tell the client that a contract between me and him, so communication with his employee are not a must

Being a novice I would greatly appreciate not only answers to my questions but any tips from experienced colleagues.

[feed_my_eyes]

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Vitaly L wrote:

Hi, guys. Probably it is a pretty familiar situation for many of you. 

I was hired by a client to do some programming. The client is a project manager. His knowledge of programming is not brilliant. So the client insists on my assistance to his programmer in implementing product I deliver. The programmer is not Upworker, so the means of communication must be Skype. I am not happy with this demand.

My questions are:

1. does the client has a right to insist on Skype
2. do I break Upwork ToS by using Skype (hourly contract and screenshots of Skype are bound to happen)
3. can I tell the client that a contract between me and him, so communication with his employee are not a must

Being a novice I would greatly appreciate not only answers to my questions but any tips from experienced colleagues.

---

If your client wants you to work with his programmer and the programmer wants to use Skype, then personally, I would go along with this request, since it's just basic good customer service to accommodate entirely reasonable requests from a client. You won't be breaking any rules. 

Of course, you can refuse if you want to, as long as you don't mind ending up with an unhappy client who might give you a bad review and never hire you again. 

However, it IS possible for your client to add his programmer to Upwork so that you can exchange messages here; perhaps if you mention this, everyone will be happy. 

[lebedev-vitaly]

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However, it IS possible for your client to add his programmer to Upwork so that you can exchange messages here;

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Sounds awesome to me! But is it a complicated process, does it involves registration on Upwork with all verification routines? Or, maybe, a client can simply add a new team member and thus simplifying the registration procedure?

[prestonhunter]

re: "does the client has a right to insist on Skype"

Yes.

Does a freelancer have a right to reject clients who insist on using Skype?

Yes.

re: "do I break Upwork ToS by using Skype"

No.

[prestonhunter · Accepted solution]

re: "is it a complicated process, does it involves registration on Upwork with all verification routines? Or, maybe, a client can simply add a new team member and thus simplifying the registration procedure?"

It is far easier to add a user to a Skype or Slack conversation.

However, it IS possible to add another person to an Upwork conversation, by adding them as a team member. They don't necessarily need to be a fully-approved freelancer.

Add or Remove Team Members

Team Permissions

Invite Outside Freelancers to Upwork

As a practical matter... If a non-Upwork team member (freelancer) is ALREADY working on a project, then it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to add them as an Upwork freelancer on the project. It would be simpler and make more sense for everybody if the team used a separate (non-Upwork) communication tool to communicate, or if the non-Upwork freelancer was added as a non-freelancer delegate operative (with a client account) if the team really wants to communicate using the Upwork Messages tool.

[feed_my_eyes]

Yes, I meant that the client should add the programmer to his team; the programmer doesn't need to join Upwork as a freelancer (I very much doubt that they'd agree to that, since there's nothing in it for them but to lose 20% of their pay).