How do you deal with clients keeping you hostage? (and Upwork doing nothing about it)

[tonysimonovskiy]

Hi fellow Upworkers

I believe many of you know this situation too well: you've done part of the work for your new client and then you are stuck waiting for some feedback, information, access or other actions from the client side. And he keeps throwing you promises, while the contract stays with no activity and rather than quickly delivering value and moving on to the next client, you have to constantly spend bits of your time (and more importantly - focus) and managing the situation.

These projects can stay open of weeks or even months.

You cannot close the contract as you risk bad feedback (as in the client's opinion it is ok for you to wait for another few weeks [after few weeks you already waited]).

The client basically keeps you hostage, harming your rating by another never-ending contract which was supposed to be 1-2 weeks.

How do you deal with such situations?

[NikolaS]

Hi Tony,

If you are working with a client and they become unresponsive for a long period of time, it may be best to stop working on the project and wait for contact from the client.

On an hourly contract, it may be best to end your contract with an unresponsive client. Already-logged hours will be invoiced as usual, but no further payment should be expected on the ended contract. Even if your client fails to pay you for the hours invoiced, you will still be paid if you are eligible for Upwork Hourly Protection.

On a fixed-price contract, ending the contract forfeits any funds remaining in escrow. Instead, it is often best to complete your last milestone before you end the contract. If your client fails to respond to your submission, funds will be automatically released after 14 days. If they respond but refuse the work and you believe you have completed the work according to the agreed terms, you have the option to file a dispute.

You can find more information in this help article. 

[feed_my_eyes]

There's no rule that says you can only work for one client at a time, or that you need to make yourself continually available to any one client. I typically have 5-6 projects on the go; some clients keep me hopping on a daily basis, whereas others go quiet for weeks or months and then get back to me. That's how freelancing works. Upwork can't very well contact your clients for you and tell them to hurry up, so what are you expecting them to do? Just manage your projects and communicate with your clients so that they know your availability and you know what their deadlines are. 

[wlyonsatl]

Tony S.,

I typically have 12 - 15 "active" contracts going at any one time.

I am never working on all of them every week; some are on hold while the client looks for necessary information or focuses on other things, some are abandoned by the original client, who either doesn't know or, more likely, doesn't care that Upwork or my prospective new clients think I'm still working on their project.

Every 6 - 8 weeks I send a message to clients whose projects have been idle for more than four weeks or so. I ask them to either pause (if they will want me to work for them in the near future) or close their contracts on Upwork, as it is difficult to get new contracts if prospective clients think I am already very busy with other projects.

Usually, a few will close their projects immediately with very positive public feedback. (Fingers crossed their private feedback is also the same.)

For those who don't respond wihtin the next week or two, I close their contracts (sometimes 5 or 6 at a time) late the Saturday before my JSS is next scheduled to be calculated. I always thank these unresponsive clients for their business and, if I had a good experience with them, encourage them to let me know if they need any further help with their project in the future.

I have been doing this for years and have never gotten a single negative response from a client. And, judging from non-movement in my JSS, none have left significantly negative private feedback either.

Now that the calculation of the JSS does not ding a freelancer for projects without feedback, there is no major reason to leave long-time idle contracts with unresponsive clients open.

[tlbp]

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Tony S wrote:

Hi fellow Upworkers

I believe many of you know this situation too well: you've done part of the work for your new client and then you are stuck waiting for some feedback, information, access or other actions from the client side. And he keeps throwing you promises, while the contract stays with no activity and rather than quickly delivering value and moving on to the next client, you have to constantly spend bits of your time (and more importantly - focus) and managing the situation.

These projects can stay open of weeks or even months.

You cannot close the contract as you risk bad feedback (as in the client's opinion it is ok for you to wait for another few weeks [after few weeks you already waited]).

The client basically keeps you hostage, harming your rating by another never-ending contract which was supposed to be 1-2 weeks.

How do you deal with such situations?

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If a client isn't offering enough value to keep your attention, tell them that you will finish up the most recent assignment and then end the contract. Open contracts have no impact on your rating, though. It is not logical to consider rating when deciding whether an ongoing contract adds value. Are you getting paid? Is the pay worth the effort? That is what you should be considering. 

[gina-herrera]

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Tony S wrote:

The client basically keeps you hostage, harming your rating by another never-ending contract which was supposed to be 1-2 weeks.

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I am tired of people saying clients are "holding them hostage" lol
The only thing holding you hostage is yourself - more specifically, your impatience and your fear of negative feedback.

You have a 99% JSS and have made over 200k, what are you so worried about? Any potential client with half a brain will see that you do a good job, and if they are put off by ONE potentially negative feedback, you don't want to work with them anyways.

The best thing you can do on this site once you know you're succeeding is to stop caring about feedback so much. Do your best, continue treating clients the way you clearly have been in order to keep getting good reviews, and everything will be fine.

In addition, be more clear on your policy with yourself. I ask when I can expect to hear back from them, if they tell me, I follow up then. If two or three communications pass and they still have not delivered, I inform them I am closing the contract if I don't hear back by such and such a date, and we can resume on a new contract whenever they are ready. I have never had a negative experience with this; in fact most of the time if I end a contract myself the client doesn't even bother taking the time to leave feedback anyway, which no longer hurts your score.