Clients not closing a contract/JSS being affe...

johncole21 · ‎05-17-2019

Let me first say, I think this issue needs to have constant attention until we come up with a reasonable solution.

We all know of what I'm talking about. With the new changes on the platform that are restricting the Freelancers even more, my personal opinion is that the Client's responsibilites should receive at least equal amounts of attention

Can somebody please explain it to me how is it fair for the Freelancer to not have any means to make the Client close the contract (after the job was completed successfully) while if the Freelancer himself closes the contract it can (and will) negatively affect his JSS, regardless of the client's feedback. And please don't tell me the solution is to beg the client to close it, which is humiliating and not effective at all. Is it that hard to make a system where it's obligatory for Clients to close the contracts after the job was completed or have the contracts close automatically after a period of time?

PS. Yes, I'm feeling a little bit frustrated about this, but after dealing with this problem every single day, it has become quite tiresome. Why does Uwork insist on punishing a Freelancer who did his part while turning a blind eye to the Client who isn't respecting his part of the deal. I don't get it.

lysis10 · ‎05-17-2019

They've eased up on the "no feedback" thing. Just close it if it's done. I usually leave mine open for a while and close contracts after a few months.

petra_r · ‎05-17-2019

Nemanja K wrote:
Let me first say (followed by long rant)

That entire rant was for nothing, because inactive contracts do not affect your JSS at all unless nothing was ever paid under them or you have a really hefty percentage of such contracts. The exact same applies to contracts that are closed by the freelancer without the client leaving feedback.

Nemanja K wrote:

Can somebody please explain it to me how is it fair for the Freelancer to not have any means to make the Client close the contract (after the job was completed successfully) while if the Freelancer himself closes the contract it can (and will) negatively affect his JSS, regardless of the client's feedback.

Good grief, where in the world did you get that nonsense from?

Absolutely untrue.

johncole21 · ‎05-17-2019

Dear Petra,

Speaking from my experience, I'll have to disagree with you. However, even if you are right, that is still a consequence of the problem and not the cause. The client's duty should be to close the contract, same as is his duty to open one.

petra_r · ‎05-17-2019

Nemanja K wrote:

Speaking from my experience, I'll have to disagree with you.

You can't disagree with facts (well, you can, but it is a bit silly to do so)

As long as something was paid under a contract, and as long as you don't have a pattern or a really large percentage of such contracts, they have 0 effect on your JSS.

A freelancer closing a contract has never, ever had a negative effect on the JSS "regardless of the client's feedback."

What does hurt the JSS are poor feedback (public and / or private) and contracts that close without any payment or stay open for month with nothing (ever) paid.

You need not worry about the occasional contract you close without feedback. It is not a problem and there is no need to force clients to close contracts which would be pretty hard to enforce anyway.

It is a non-issue.

johncole21 · ‎05-17-2019

Okay, thanks for the input. Although, I must say I find it a little bit hard to accept something as a fact, especially when you take into consideration that nobody really knows how the algorithm that calculates JSS works (since the platform keeps it under a thick veil of mystery). Also, what you say may be true in theory, although I myself has experienced something different in practice as well as a number of people I have come into contact with. I'm not making things up, this is something that a number of people has testified to.

In the end it doesn't really matter. As I've said I think it's imporant to have rules that bind the Client to close the contract. That is the only problem that I see here.

tlsanders · ‎05-17-2019

Nemanja K wrote:
Okay, thanks for the input. Although, I must say I find it a little bit hard to accept something as a fact, especially when you take into consideration that nobody really knows how the algorithm that calculates JSS works (since the platform keeps it under a thick veil of mystery).
Many of us do know, though, that 10-15% of our contracts have been closed without feedback and we still have 100% JSS. That's pretty powerful evidence that those contracts we closed ourselves and didn't receive feedback on didn't hurt our JSS.

Also, what you say may be true in theory, although I myself has experienced something different in practice as well as a number of people I have come into contact with. I'm not making things up, this is something that a number of people has testified to.

This sort of contradicts your previous point. First, you say no one can know for sure which aspects are hurting JSS since we don't know the algorithm, but here you seem to be saying that you and this "number of people" you have come in contact with know for sure that closing contracts without feedback hurt you, and that it wasn't because the percentage of no feedback contracts was too high.

In the end it doesn't really matter. As I've said I think it's imporant to have rules that bind the Client to close the contract. That is the only problem that I see here.

And how would you like to enforce that? Once the job is done, the client doesn't need anything from Upwork. Upwork has no leverage. And, if they implement something like 'You can't post another job until past contracts are closed" they just discourage clients from returning (and from leaving contracts open with clients they work with sporadically).
If you could find an effective way to implement this, one result would be forcing every client to leave feedback on every job. I'd be fine with that, but since one reason some clients don't close contracts is that they have nothing good to say and don't want to leave negative feedback, your plan wouldn't necessarily benefit freelancers.

petra_r · ‎05-17-2019

Tiffany S wrote:
Many of us do know, though, that 10-15% of our contracts have been closed without feedback and we still have 100% JSS. That's pretty powerful evidence that those contracts we closed ourselves and didn't receive feedback on didn't hurt our JSS.

I've seen one with 43% "No feedback" contracts and a 100% JSS.

I've seen people with over 60 inactive contracts and 100% JSS.

petra_r · ‎05-17-2019

Nemanja K wrote:
nobody really knows how the algorithm that calculates JSS works (since the platform keeps it under a thick veil of mystery

This is not true either.

Read this, especially this part:

Nemanja K wrote:
As I've said I think it's imporant to have rules that bind the Client to close the contract. That is the only problem that I see here.

Why would you need rules that force the client to close the contract? How would you enforce something like that (send the client to bed without dinner? Take away their playstation?) and why would you want to when it doesn't matter?

Strongarming paying clients is NEVER in a platform's interest when just about all the money that makes the thing go round comes from clients...

johncole21 · ‎05-17-2019

Thanks Tiffany for chiming in.

This is my answer to both you and Petra. Then the solution would be for the contract to get automatically closed after a period of time being inactive.

If you don't see a problem with this sentence :

"However, if you have many contracts where no feedback has been given, it can impact your score (a little) negatively because it indicates some of your clients were dissatisfied."

then we have nothing to discuss here. I'd say that it doesn't indicate that some of the clients may be dissatisfied, it just indicates that *some* Clients are too lazy to hop on to Upwork and click a button. Meaning, they got what they came for and they don't care about the Freelancer nor the rules of the platform. Why should we suffer because of that?

In the end it doesn't amount to your skills or your ability to perform a certain task, but mere luck. It's about whether you come across a client who is a decent human being or someone who just doesn't care. Normally I wouldn't care, but the platform is putting my career and future into the hands of those people. Basically, my whole livelyhood comes down to whether someone's having a bad day or not. It's just not fair and if you don't see a problem with that, there's nothing I can do about it. I do love this platform, because it has given me the opportunity to do something that I love (but otherwise couldn't do, because locally there's no market for it), however I think it's important to talk about some flaws that the platform has and how could they be improved.

petra_r · ‎05-17-2019

Nemanja K wrote:
Then the solution would be for the contract to get automatically closed after a period of time being inactive.

And that would help... how? Given that it is still a "no feedback" contract? And given that they don't matter if money was paid and you don't have insane numbers of them?

Nemanja K wrote:

If you don't see a problem with this sentence :
"However, if you have many contracts where no feedback has been given, it can impact your score (a little) negatively because it indicates some of your clients were dissatisfied."
then we have nothing to discuss here. I'd say that it doesn't indicate that some of the clients may be dissatisfied, it just indicates that *some* Clients are too lazy to hop on to Upwork and click a button.

Oh come on. That's when someone has huge numbers of such contracts. Then it might drop the JSS a percent maybe? Not seen it though...

As I said, I've seen up to over 40% with 100% JSS.

Personally I think that if someone has most of their contracts without feedback, it does indicate that they are not managing their contracts right.

If you choose your contracts carefully, interview your clients right, and manage your contracts from before accepting them beyond when they are ended, you will still end up with the odd "no feedback" contract, but nowhere near enough to be a problem.

Relax.

It really is a non-issue.

sergio-soria · ‎05-17-2019

Hi, Nemanja, this has been a subject of discussion for years... I've read it all before. What Petra says is true but of course you can disagree. What can you do if you still don't believe it? This is my suggestion: when you see a job post you are interested in go check the client's history. How did that client rate previous contracts? Does he/she have a pattern of "No feedback given"? If so, then you can pass that one. Does the client have no history? Then you can take the risk or let other freelancer take it.

I am sorry it may not be the solution you wanted but at least you will feel safer, you will miss potential good clients though but that's the price. Don't hold out hopes that Upwork will change its ways on this matter.

Again, if there is something that affects negatively your JSS that is the private bad feedback, unpaid contracts, conflicts, but not the ocassional "No feedback given."

atreglia · ‎05-17-2019

I just tell it like it is. At the end of a project, I request the client to close the contract to avoid a “potential” decrease in my JSS. As long as Upwork insists on dishing out open-ended/vague policies to us freelancers, I see no reason to look silly over it in front of a client. It’s Upwork’s rule, I’m just passing it on for them.

Clients not closing a contract/JSS being affected negatively when a Freelancer closes it