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gianco82
Community Member

Unresponsive Client

Hello, my client is not responding to my messages since 3 days. In his last message he said he was thinking about what to change in my final draft of the work (it's video editing) and he was showing the work to his team. I sent him messages but got no answer. What Can I Do? Ending contract? It's hourly paid contract, i don't know if waiting is not good for statistics on Upwork and it could be bad to me to get other works. Thanks. G.

11 REPLIES 11
filip_knezevic
Community Member

Hi,

 

If you end the contract and the client doesn't leave a feddback it should reflect on your JSS. Leaving the contract open becuase of unresponsive client will, utimately, have the same/similar result.

You can wait for a few more days and send a message or two, politely warning the client that inactive contracts can hurt your score, and that you will close the contract if he doesn't reply back. At least it's what I do.

But I'm not sure it would be a good advise for you.

You are just starting and your jSS is very fragile now, due to low number of  jobs and hours, etc.

I have seen freelancers with 100 JSS and inactive contract for years. 

Best now is to lay low and search for other jobs. If the client is still unresponsive, wait until you accumulate more feedback, jobs and hours and then close the contract. 

Good luck.


Filip K wrote:

If you end the contract and the client doesn't leave a feddback it should reflect on your JSS. Leaving the contract open becuase of unresponsive client will, utimately, have the same/similar result..


Not true. Provided he's been paid and doesn't have a huuuuge number of such jobs, it has no effect whatsoever.

 


Filip K wrote:

You can wait for a few more days and send a message or two, politely warning the client that inactive contracts can hurt your score,


No. That is entirely unprofessional. Apart from that, it's been "a few days" for crying out loud. Nothing affects anything after a few days or even a few weeks.

 

The OP should leave the client alone, then, in a few weeks, send a friendly "Hey, did you get a chance to .....? I trust all is well? If you have a minute, I would appreciate it if you could close the contract."

 

It's an hourly job, so he'll get paid for the hours he worked. There is no need to do anything at all at this stage.


Not true. Provided he's been paid and doesn't have a huuuuge number of such jobs, it has no effect whatsoever.

I hope you are right about this.

Not sure if Upwork staff would confirm this, as they specifically told me the opposite in chat. Every job that you close, and the clients leave no feedback, will count negatively towards the score.

 

Why do you think it's unprofessional to be concerned about your score when dealing with a client? If they don't understand we do care about it, we will close the job ourselves eventually...

Many clients have no idea about the meaning of feedback to the freelancers, and I have had good results with the 'unprofessional' method.  Many times, I received a feedback only because I was annoying enough. I do send up to three reminders of this sort, then I will just close the job.


Filip K wrote:

Every job that you close, and the clients leave no feedback, will count negatively towards the score.

There are people with more than half their jobs closed without feedback and 100% JSS.

The highest I've seen was over 80% "No feedback given" and 100% JSS - you yourself have 25 of them.... They obviously don't hurt.

 


Filip K wrote:Why do you think it's unprofessional to be concerned about your score when dealing with a client?

Because your score isn't the client's problem and it's not true anyway. 

Especially not after a few days. 

 


Filip K wrote:

Many times, I received a feedback only because I was annoying enough. 

Well, you keep being annoying enough... I avoid annoying my client. Each to their own. I send one reminder after a few weeks, then close the contract or leave it open. That's never hurt my JSS in any way AND I didn't have to annoy my clients or tell them stuff that isn't true to guilt them into doing what I want.

 

I have seen clients leave annoyed feedback after freelancers "annoyed them enough" to close the contract.

08c2680d
Community Member

I think freelancers should not be penalized if the client don't want to leave feedback. Even if freelancers are having a lot of those contracts. It's up to the client . I worked with a lot of clients and some of them dissappear and never reply to anyone even Upwork's support team. Why is it considered bad by not having a feedback?! 
I see it unprofessional to beg clients to close contracts and leave feedback to avoid hurting the JSS.

wescowley
Community Member

Be patient. Three days is nothing.

 

It won't hurt your score to leave it open or to close it yourself, but there's no need to be in a rush to close it yourself. I have dormant contracts that have been open over a year with no activity, and I have a bunch of recently closed contracts with no feedback, because I started closing out stragglers a few months ago. I also have a 100% score.

 

What will hurt your score? Pissing off your client by harassing them to close the contract. Follow up once after a reasonable period of time (a week or two). After that, let it go and move on. Close it or leave it open, it doesn't really matter that much. I think I read in this thread that it's hourly. If that's the case, you might want to leave the contract open for a while in case they come back with more work. 

Hm, harrasing the client is not really what Im doing. 

Why is harassing someone to politely ask if they can leave the feedback? That makes no sense.

But if what Petra is saying really true, and no feedback jobs really don't count, I will stop 'harrasing' my clients in the future.

Although, I do firmly believe if I was there every time they needed me, and they can't  do five mouse clicks later, they are 

**Edited for Community Guidelines** of persons and should be harrassed (which I don't do, of course) 🙂 


Filip K wrote:

Hm, harrasing the client is not really what Im doing.  


Let me remind you what you said:

 

Filip K wrote: Many times, I received a feedback only because I was annoying enough. 

Filip K wrote:

But if what Petra is saying really true, and no feedback jobs really don't count, I will stop 'harrasing' my clients in the future.

 


You just don't want to have too many of them. If you encourage clients to close the contract in your "project wrap-up" communication, you don't have to chase them later. There is never any need to mention feedback at all, that's just tacky in my opinion.

Clients can't end contracts without leaving feedback, so the "close the contract" bit is all that ever needs to be said.

Petra, it was more of a joke actually.

If I notice a client is an **Edited for Community Guidelines**, I will not get on top of their head, for sure. 

With clients that I had a good relationship with, during the project, yes I believe I can remind them friendly as they probably forgot about it. 

Notice how I typed harrasing as 'harrasing'? It is because I never used the word harrasing. I used the word annoying in a more light and comical way. 

After all, I do have a 99% JSS after dealing with more than 150 clients, so I believe I can still handle (harass/annoy) clents properly.

 


Clients can't end contracts without leaving feedback, so the "close the contract" bit is all that ever needs to be said.


That is true if you are OK with leaving XXX opened jobs (or 25 in my case). If they don't affect our score, we can just leave it and that's fine. 

Personally, it bothers me when I have opened jobs that are not active, but I'm just a freak about those things, so I guess it's only me.

gianco82
Community Member

He answered. Thanks everybody.

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