JSS - poor client

ervalex · ‎07-25-2019

Good afternoon. I noticed that my JSS has dropped from 100% to 79% in a matter of weeks. If I had to guess, it is due to a project I refunded 100% to the client. Honestly, the client was a poor client to work with as it was impossible to get required information from the client to complete the project.

We decided to stop the project after the client changed the scope of the work and was not willing to accept my new terms. For previous work leading up to this point, I agreed and gave the client a 100% refund. I left feedback on the client and expected feedback from them, but I no longer see the job listed in my past work. I also cannot find the client within Upwork so I believe they deleted their account. I'm not sure.

My stats page shows "Clients who would recommend you 100%"

As freelancers, are we this significantly punished for one refunded job? Do we have an opportunity to challenge a client's feedback?

Also, I read some other freelancer's posts and see that they get attacked for challenging the validity of the JSS. I have read the Help pages on JSS. I'm trying to figure out a way to better handle difficult clients in the future as to not negatively affect my JSS.

joansands · ‎07-25-2019

I learned the hard way that giving a client a refund and then having a contract with nothing paid when it is early in an Upwork career is very damaging to one's rating. The only thing to do is to keep adding jobs and hoping that you do well with them.

petra_r · ‎07-25-2019

Montie B wrote:
Good afternoon. I noticed that my JSS has dropped from 100% to 79% in a matter of weeks. If I had to guess, it is due to a project I refunded 100% to the client.

Ask yourself: Would you classify this as a contract with a great outcome? It wasn't, was it? So yes, with only a handful of closed contracts every one will have a significant effect on your JSS. The good news is that with so few outcomes, every great feedback will also have a significant impact.

Montie B wrote:
My stats page shows "Clients who would recommend you 100%"

That metric does not update after every job, only after every x jobs (not sure about the exact number.) But as it only includes outcomes where the client actually did leave private feedback, if this client did not, it only includes the contracts where your clients were happy.

Montie B wrote:
I left feedback on the client and expected feedback from them, but I no longer see the job listed in my past work.

No, contracts which lead to no earnings or are fully refunded do not show on your profile, so you can't see any feedback. If you closed the contract then chances are the client did not leave any feedback at all.

Montie B wrote:
I also cannot find the client within Upwork so I believe they deleted their account. I'm not sure.

Clients don't have profiles, so you would not find anything anyway.

Montie B wrote:
Do we have an opportunity to challenge a client's feedback?

There is nothing to challenge.

Montie B wrote:
I'm trying to figure out a way to better handle difficult clients in the future as to not negatively affect my JSS.

The time to "handle" difficult clients is before you accept a contract and the way to deal with them is to not work with them at all.

WAIT - don't shoot me 😉 - it is true. Can we totally always avoid them? No. But we can avoid them a lot of the time by choosing very carefully who we work with and making sure that expectations and scope are nailed down and communicated right from before we even accept a contract. Then manage your client-relationship every step of the way.

The reason I am so careful about who I work with isn't even because of my JSS, but simply because I freelance because I want to work with great people, and life's too short for stressful contracts with people we don't get along with.