Freelancers are NOT PERMITTED to See Past Cli...

jessicasimko · ‎05-12-2020

As inconvenient as it has been, I have been able to go to Upwork support and be able to view past feedback on a client after the client sends me a direct job offer (there is no job post). All I can see on a direct offer is their total star rating on the sidebar with no comments. However, I am more interested in how the client rates his past freelancers (I wouldn't want to do a job for a client who gives one star ratings to top rated freelancers, right?) so I have to go to support and get that information. It takes a while but I always get it. Today, I talked to 2 different support agents AND a supervisor and they all said they cannot provide that information to a freelancer. It's "private'. What is feedback for if freelancers can't see it?!

I originally thought the first agent might just be unaware of the ability to do this, because I have done this many times in the past and the information was freely offered. So I went back through support again to a second agent and then a third agent - a supervisor - and got the same answer all 3 times ("we can't provide this information to you") And after WELL over an hour, I finally got a screenshot of just ONE feedback on his profile because there are no open public jobs. There were never open public jobs in the past yet I was able to view ALL the feedback.

Why in the world would Upwork withhold this information from freelancers?! Why would I not have the right to see all of a clients' past feedback when he can see mine? Almost all my jobs are private but clients can see my feedback when we are engaged in a conversation so why can't I see theirs when they send me a JOB OFFER? When freelancers come here with "client problems" Upwork seems to love to say that freelancers must vet their clients more carefully - yet you are NOT ALLOWING this to fully happen by NOT allowing freelancers to see past client feedback.

mwiggenhorn · ‎05-12-2020

That is absurd. Why would I ever accept a direct invitation without that vital information? I hope a moderator chimes in with some explanation.

jessicasimko · ‎05-12-2020

Sometimes I wonder if clients with past terrible feedback will not post jobs and instead send direct job offers so that the freelancer won't know about it. The entire purpose of feedback on clients is for the freelancer to see so this makes ZERO sense.

kochubei_valeria · ‎05-12-2020

Hi Jessica,

I'm following up with our customer support team about your ticket and we'll make sure it's updated as soon as possible. I'll also be sharing your feedback and experience with our product team. I understand how it's always been an issue that freelancers can't access such valuable information as the client's Work History and Feedback on their own.

~ Valeria

jessicasimko · ‎05-12-2020

Valeria K wrote:
Hi Jessica,

I'm following up with our customer support team about your ticket and we'll make sure it's updated as soon as possible. I'll also be sharing your feedback and experience with our product team. I understand how it's always been an issue that freelancers can't access such valuable information as the client's Work History and Feedback on their own.

Thank you Valeria. Please make sure something happens with this THIS time as i have brought this up before - just the simple fact that I have to go to support at ALL to see past client feedback on direct job offers. Why should I have to do that? When a client sends over a direct job offer, I should be able to see all their past feedback. But nothing has changed except it appears to be worse now! At least before I could go through the cumbersome process of going to support to get it - now it appears they are not allowing this "private" information to be seen.

Maybe you all should remove the entire feature of direct job offers and direct job inquries until this is fixed. This isn't fair to the freelancer that Upwork is withholding the most critical part of the vetting process. Even if it reverts back to "going to support to get it" that process is a good 10-20 minutes long - I dread it every time and wait until the very last minute to do it as I have much more important things to do. There is no reason why that information can't be readily accessible to the freelancer.

tomzilla1 · ‎05-12-2020

I've asked about this before as well. Heard nothing from Upwork.

mwiggenhorn · ‎05-12-2020

Valeria, the point is that it was always impossible for a FL to access this information without help from CS but now it appears that even that assistance is unavailable to us.

wlyonsatl · ‎05-12-2020

I never knew I could get that information from any source.

I'd be happy just to get some summary information about a client's previous projects, including:

a) What percentage of the client's projects has the client cancelled?

b) What percentage of the client's projects have been subject to Upwork mediation?

c) What percentage of the client's projects have gone to arbitration?

d) What is the client's average private and public feedback/rating on previous projects?

It would also be great to know which clients have had this Upwork policy applied to them:

"We exclude clients whose freelancers report a history of unreasonable feedback so their scores won't count against you..."

But that might be a bridge too far...

lizablau · ‎05-12-2020

"Maybe you all should remove the entire feature of direct job offers and direct job inquries until this is fixed."

No, just no. That's a terrible idea. Why would you suggest such a thing? I received two great jobs this week from direct offers.

I used to be able to call Support and get a link to the client's history. While I agree that it's inconvenient that they no longer provide this info, there are other ways to suss prospective clients out.

I've been meeting wonderful people from around the world through direct job inquiries and offers, so I'd hate to see this feature removed.

jessicasimko · ‎05-12-2020

Lisa B wrote:
"Maybe you all should remove the entire feature of direct job offers and direct job inquries until this is fixed."

No, just no. That's a terrible idea. Why would you suggest such a thing? I received two great jobs this week from direct offers.
Yes. just Yes. This isn't about you. Why don't you read the thread before you say such a thing? I am not going to accept jobs from clients and risk my reputation (that I worked very hard to build) simply because Upwork won't let me review the client's past feedback.

lizablau · ‎05-12-2020

So don't accept them. Yes, I read your thread. This is what you wrote:

"Maybe you all should remove the entire feature of direct job offers and direct job inquries until this is fixed."

YOU may not want to accept direct job offers, but you're asking for a highly lucrative feature for other freelancers be removed. And they're a huge part of my (and many other freelancers) weekly income right now.

kochubei_valeria · ‎05-13-2020

A couple of most recent posts have been removed from this thread as they were in violation of the Community Guidelines. Personal attacks and interpersonal disputes aren't allowed in this Community. Please, make sure your responses to others are professional even if your opinions differ,

Jessica and Lisa,

We've shared feedback provided on this and other threads about this issue with the team. We'll continue working on improving the features of Direct Offers and Direct Messages overtime. Currently there are no plans to remove these features as they are successfully used by many freelancers and clients. Freelancers can decide to decline a Direct Offer or not respond to a Direct Message and it will have no effect on their JSS or other stats.

Thank you.

~ Valeria

jessicasimko · ‎05-13-2020

Valeria K wrote:
A couple of most recent posts have been removed from this thread as they were in violation of the Community Guidelines. Personal attacks and interpersonal disputes aren't allowed in this Community. Please, make sure your responses to others are professional even if your opinions differ,

Jessica and Lisa,
We've shared feedback provided on this and other threads about this issue with the team. We'll continue working on improving the features of Direct Offers and Direct Messages overtime. Currently there are no plans to remove these features as they are successfully used by many freelancers and clients. Freelancers can decide to decline a Direct Offer or not respond to a Direct Message and it will have no effect on their JSS or other stats.

Thank you.

Thanks Valeria, I heard from someone from support as well with a promising update. Despite the drama that was brought in, the point I was trying to make (which I think was very obvious) was that I want the process to be fair to freelancers and for us to be able to freely see all client feedback in direct offers.

lizablau · ‎05-13-2020

"Currently there are no plans to remove these features as they are successfully used by many freelancers and clients."

Many thanks, Valeria. Of course, it'd be ridiculous to remove them and harmful to the income of Upwork freelancers.

jessicasimko · ‎06-12-2020

It's been about a month since Upwork escalations promised me that this will no longer be an issue. I have heard nothing since. I have another direct offer and I went through support again and nothing - they WILL NOT provide me with the client's past feedback. I have a call in 35 minutes with this client but I simply will not call her if I can't see her feedback. I have a lot of jobs and can't be wasting time like this.

WHY won't you let me see her past feedback???

k_nadel · ‎06-12-2020

Jessica S wrote:
It's been about a month since Upwork escalations promised me that this will no longer be an issue. I have heard nothing since. I have another direct offer and I went through support again and nothing - they WILL NOT provide me with the client's past feedback. I have a call in 35 minutes with this client but I simply will not call her if I can't see her feedback. I have a lot of jobs and can't be wasting time like this.

WHY won't you let me see her past feedback???

I would love for Upwork to prove me wrong, but this has come up several times and despite it being "escalated to the team" again and again, no such thing as a "client profile page" where freelancers could check a particular clients' history has ever happened. The way I see it, this won't change because:

- Clients are a hot commodity. They bring money to the table and there aren't so many of them.
- Freelancers are not. Countless new freelancers (both good and bad) sign up every day and it's only indirectly that we produce money for UpWork.

Should freelancers have access to some sort of "client profile" where previous feedback could be accessed, it could happen that far-from-ideal feedback would deter freelancers from working with a client: in these cases, the hiring process would be longer and more tedious, and clients (again, the ones bringing the money) might be disappointed and unhappy with the platform, which is bad for UpWork.

It might even be that some clients fail to find a freelancer willing to work with them, and thus UpWork will not make a penny out of that job posting. This is even worse for UpWork.

On the other hand, if freelancers don't have access to client profiles, they might end up taking the risk, and should their reputation be tarnished by bad feedback... tough luck! Money has already gone through the platform and there will always be another freelancer ready to take his place.

Again, I would love for Upwork to prove me wrong, but if this isn't it, I can't see why such an obvious thing as checking feedback needs to go through support (and that is IF they want to share that info!).

feed_my_eyes · ‎06-12-2020

Kevin C. N wrote:

Should freelancers have access to some sort of "client profile" where previous feedback could be accessed, it could happen that far-from-ideal feedback would deter freelancers from working with a client: in these cases, the hiring process would be longer and more tedious, and clients (again, the ones bringing the money) might be disappointed and unhappy with the platform, which is bad for UpWork.

It might even be that some clients fail to find a freelancer willing to work with them, and thus UpWork will not make a penny out of that job posting. This is even worse for UpWork.

On the other hand, if freelancers don't have access to client profiles, they might end up taking the risk, and should their reputation be tarnished by bad feedback... tough luck! Money has already gone through the platform and there will always be another freelancer ready to take his place.

Again, I would love for Upwork to prove me wrong, but if this isn't it, I can't see why such an obvious thing as checking feedback needs to go through support (and that is IF they want to share that info!).

You can't even go through support any more; I tried recently, and they refused to provide any information about the client. I'm sure that more and more clients with bad feedback will figure out that direct offers are a good way to hide their history, so this is a real concern for me. Upwork is mistaken if they think that their best freelancers will jump at the chance to work with anyone and everyone; we need to know about clients so that we can make an informed decision about whether we want to accept a project.

I think that client profiles are a great idea. Elance used to have them, so why not? I think that many clients would welcome this too, because I've seen a few of them comment in the forum that they can't easily find their feedback history either. Plus wouldn't it be nice for everyone if clients felt like they have an equal presence on Upwork as part of the community, and had profiles where they could fill out the overview and any other information (optional, of course), just like freelancers do? Any why wouldn't clients want a chance to "sell themselves" as good prospects to work with? It would be great if Upwork would consider this.

jessicasimko · ‎06-12-2020

Kevin C. N wrote:
Jessica S wrote:
It's been about a month since Upwork escalations promised me that this will no longer be an issue. I have heard nothing since. I have another direct offer and I went through support again and nothing - they WILL NOT provide me with the client's past feedback. I have a call in 35 minutes with this client but I simply will not call her if I can't see her feedback. I have a lot of jobs and can't be wasting time like this.

WHY won't you let me see her past feedback???
I would love for Upwork to prove me wrong, but this has come up several times and despite it being "escalated to the team" again and again, no such thing as a "client profile page" where freelancers could check a particular clients' history has ever happened. The way I see it, this won't change because:

- Clients are a hot commodity. They bring money to the table and there aren't so many of them.
- Freelancers are not. Countless new freelancers (both good and bad) sign up every day and it's only indirectly that we produce money for UpWork.

Should freelancers have access to some sort of "client profile" where previous feedback could be accessed, it could happen that far-from-ideal feedback would deter freelancers from working with a client: in these cases, the hiring process would be longer and more tedious, and clients (again, the ones bringing the money) might be disappointed and unhappy with the platform, which is bad for UpWork.

It might even be that some clients fail to find a freelancer willing to work with them, and thus UpWork will not make a penny out of that job posting. This is even worse for UpWork.

On the other hand, if freelancers don't have access to client profiles, they might end up taking the risk, and should their reputation be tarnished by bad feedback... tough luck! Money has already gone through the platform and there will always be another freelancer ready to take his place.

Again, I would love for Upwork to prove me wrong, but if this isn't it, I can't see why such an obvious thing as checking feedback needs to go through support (and that is IF they want to share that info!).

I agree with this. I have been a client a couple times and on the client side, its NOT at all easy to even find feedback left by a freelancer - not like it is with us where it's front and center on our profile page. It's like Upwork doesn't want them to notice if a freelancer rates them low so they won't go away. It's multiple clicks away and when I asked a client about a very poor past feedback on his profile, from several months ago, (it was important because it was a top rated freelancer who had done the same work he was asking me to do) he had NO idea that the freelancer had left that feedback for him and he got all worked up about it. As a client, you really have to go looking for it to see it and I would guess, because it's so hidden, many clients don't even know that freelancers can give clients feedback as well - even if they have 10 of them on their profile - they simply don't even know it is there.

kochubei_valeria · ‎06-12-2020

Hi Jessica,

I've followed up with the team and they'll be addressing your questions via the ticket. We're working to sort out our internal process for support agents so that we could provide as much information as possible in these situations.

I'd also like to confirm that adding more details about the client to direct offers is on our product team's roadmap, however, we don't have any updates on timing yet.

~ Valeria

jessicasimko · ‎06-12-2020

Valeria K wrote:
Hi Jessica,

I've followed up with the team and they'll be addressing your questions via the ticket. We're working to sort out our internal process for support agents so that we could provide as much information as possible in these situations.

I'd also like to confirm that adding more details about the client to direct offers is on our product team's roadmap, however, we don't have any updates on timing yet.

Valeria,

This should never be something we have to go to support for - it needs to be something we can click on and see immediatey. But.....IN THE MEANTIME - for several years, I could go to support and get this information. Why was that taken away? I get it you don't have the functionality yet for us to immediatley see feedback but you guys TOOK AWAY our ablility to even ASK for it. Why??

Can that change back to how it was - immediatlely??? Where the support agents can at least give us this information?

k_nadel · ‎06-12-2020

I'm so reassured now that I know it's on the roadmap... I'll set up an alarm to quote this in 2022...

wendy_writes · ‎06-12-2020

+100 to Christine's comment.

No client history available = I just ignore the offer or whatever one wants to call it.

If a potential client is too lazy to write a brief RFP of what he/she feels is needed (Note: use of feel and not know) - then, IMO, the client has little interest in the job and outcome.

Transparency counts ... and its a 2 way street.

Freelancers are NOT PERMITTED to See Past Client Feedback?