Clients won't close contracts

[emilyzier]

During a project, I’ve found that my clients are responsive and pleased with my work. And then at the end, I prompt them to complete the job by kindly asking them to approve the final milestone/payment and to close the contract (especially if they hadn’t approved/released yet). However, after they approve, they typically never close the contract and then become unresponsive.

So what is the best solution on my end to avoid decreasing my JSS score? Should I keep an inactive open contract, or close the contract and the unlikely chance of not receiving any feedback (not because they're unhappy with me, but because they’re too busy)?

[wlyonsatl]

Emily Z.,

Having a lot of idle accounts showing as active can make it harder for you to get business from new clients, as they think you may be too busy to do a good job for them.

We've been told on this board that closing a completed job a client refuses to close can adversely affect the freelancer's JSS, but I regularly close idle projects - at least four at once, the last time I did it - after a couple of months of no communication from those clients. I have never noticed any affect on my JSS. (I have completed a lot of jobs on Upwork, which may mean the negative effect is very diluted compared to a new freelancer who had only a few completed projects.)

I have always thought it was ridiculous for Upwork to ding a freelancer's JSS, which is already an opaque system, when clients won't close completed jobs or jobs the clients are no longer interested in.