What is the reasoning behind private feedback?

[#1]

A client can give me 5 star rating and give me bad feedback privately to Upwork. What is the purpose of separating these feedback. Why is the client interested in telling Upwork what they would not tell me? How then am I supposed to improve? I just want to understand the logic behind this.

[#2]

Clients may not necessarily want to hurt your reputation on the platform just because they are not satisfied with your work.  Many won't leave bad feedback because they believe it will make their profile look bad and not attract quality freelancers.  Now the private feedback they can be completely honest without recourse.  

[#3]

And more generally some people who are not happy with a contractor still don't want to impede contractor's future success. When asked privately however, they will share their dissatisfaction with Upwork. Probably not knowing that this will have a negative effect on the contractor's success through the JSS.

[#4]

How does it not impede the freelancer's future success if the private reviews DO affect the Job Success Score?

If the private review were only for the freelancer's private feedback, what you say would be true. But that is not the case. The clients can use the public review to throw out meaningless 5 star reviews to more easily attract freelancers, then judge the work or experience disproportionately in the "private review". 

Personally why not have total transparency and a rating system that has more specificity to specific issues?

[#5]

I started Upwork about a year ago, but because I needed to work a day job, I have not been very active and have been slow to spend a lot of time fishing for contracts. I don't know if that is a factor, but it may be. My main concern here is the client satisfaction whicy I believe comes from the private review.

Is there any way someone from Upwork can look into my private reivews and give me feedback that helps, yet preserves anonymity? All of my clients, excepting the most recent one, have given me a public rating. Most of those were 5 stars and one was about 3.5-4. However when I check my stats under "Client Satisfaction" it says that '" - " would recommend me. Does that mean my none of my clients have completed the "Would you recommend" portion of the private review? My JSS score is now 67 as of March 19. 

***EDIT - I have one client that put a hold on the contract last October. and the hold still persists I contacted the other freelancer working on the project and she says she hasn't heard from the client. Could this affect my JSS? 

I've tried contacting the client several times but they never respond. 

Feedback is important. I asked and checked with every client whether or not they got what they needed. If freelancers are to improve and offer the best they can, how can they target weak areas if they do not have access to viewing all of the reviews? How do I know what to improve on if I can't see where a rating was not given or where a rating was low? I don't think "intuitiing" is the answer. For that matter why have a public rating if the private rating can be used to work against it? Why have a rating that doesn't also offer constructive feedback that is usable?

I do have to say that on 3 occassions, the one with the lower public, their was task or mission creep. On one of my recent assignments I brought this up, that what they asked for in the job posting was not what they ended up asking for once I accepted the position. 

I think I have learned that I need to ask for specificity about deliverables and online access time.

[#6]

Hi Jon,

Please, note that private feedback on jobs you accepted but where no money was paid also contributes to your Job Success score. Always make sure you know and understand all the details, terms and deadlines of the job and ready to start working before you accept client's offer. Also, if you have any contracts that have been inactive and you don't expect to work on them in the near future, you can ask clients to close them.

[#7]

Hi Valeria,

What if the clients do not respond and do not close the inactive contracts? If I close them without feedback they will hurt my JSS. What should we do in that case?

Thanks

[#8]

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@Mohammad A wrote:

Hi Valeria,

What if the clients do not respond and do not close the inactive contracts? If I close them without feedback they will hurt my JSS. What should we do in that case?

Thanks

---

 Hi Mohammed,

Once you accept a contract with a client, there's no getting around that contract affecting your JSS. 

Refund the money? They are still required to leave private feedback.

Disappear and don't close the contract? If you leave the contract open it begins to drag down your JSS.

Close the contract yourself without them leaving feedback? It affects your JSS.

So, if they disappear, you have a few choices:

1. Try to contact the client.

2. Wait until the reappear.

3. Close the contract yourself.

If you close contracts yourself, space them out over time. Closing a bunch of dead contracts all at once can also significantly drop your JSS. 

[#9]

Thanks for summing up my options, Kat. You are the best! I will follow your advice and close them one after another leaving a couple of weeks in between and hope that they will not significantly affect my JSS 🙂

[#10]

Hi Kat, I've had contracts that have been open for years. The system won't allow me to close some of them. It irritates me to see them there because I know the jobs are done ... but they haven't affected by JSS!

[#11]

There is benefit to private feedback, especially if the client or freelancer wants to inform Upwork about difficulties that aren't necessarily related specifically to performance. However, with regard to private feedback affecting JSS, it unfairly harms the freelancer while benefiting the client.

As a contractor, I avoid clients who have a history of giving bad feedback or no feedback. By giving 5 star public feedback clients attract other freelancers. It's a very one-sided and unnecessary aspect of the system.

[#12]

This is a very good point. Which now leaves me to wonder why clients do not also have JSS. We are forced to publicly leave a review to warn other freelancers of harmful clients. Our private feedback is shown to no one but Upwork.

Conversely, it is possible for a freelancer to have all 5-star reviews and still have a JSS under 90%. Because many clients do not understand what it truly means, they never click on the contractors profile to see all those great 5 star reviews. 

This system does cause me anxiety. As clients will leave a 5-star review, not provide any negative feedback or constructive criticism when asked, and you're left to wonder if they gave you a good 5 star private review so your JSS score isn't affected.

If there were greater transparency or the private feedback didn't impact JSS, it would be better. Or if clients were better educated about JSS (since it's the ONLY metric shown on the home feed), they would be better. Even further, if clients had a JSS score that came from THEIR private feedback perhaps there would be more empathy, better understanding, and more consideration when leaving private feedback.

[#13]

I'm failry new to UpWork, and I've only used the service a few times. Although my client feedback has been a perfect 5.0, I just received my first Job Success Score... 50%. 

I contacted customer support and was informed of the "private" feedback feature. This doesn't make sense. I've completed work for only three clients, and two have continue to offer me new gigs. If they are providing negative feedback in private, it doesn't make sense for them to provide me new contracts.

Furthermore, why even bother with a public feedback rating if a Job Success Score carries more weight and is calculated using data unavailable to the freelancer?

I'm afraid that after completing my current workflow, I must delete my account. I earn my living exclusively as a freelance writer, and I cannot afford for arbitrary statistics to damage my reputaton.

[#14]

Wow, David, your experience is scary. If it was something around 80%, well, it happens, and it wouldn't be the first time I’m seeing situations like that on Upwork. However, a JSS that low, with great public 5-star feedbacks- it's ridiculous. I just can't imagine that all of your clients took the time to write you a great review and then completely destroyed you in private feedback. They still haven't switched me to JSS (reasons unknown), but I must say, when I read stuff like this, I'm in no hurry to get it.
Maybe some of the mods here could give you some insight on your situation because it certainly isn’t a standard one.

[#15]

David, have you refunded any clients? Though a client who hasn't paid you (or whose whole payment has been refunded) can't leave public feedback, my understanding is that they can still impact JSS.

[#16]

+1 @ the comments from Tiffany and Rene (Click for Kudos button ain't working).

IMHO, providers should be privy to 'private feedback' as it would help people to improve the negatives as well as be aware of specific strengths.  One way for U. to do this would be to send it to contractors in a private message.

[#17]

David, your situation really does not make sense.  Not only have all your clients given you five star ratings, they have all added compliments about your work.  Seems unbelievable they would then give a low private rating.

I'd query that JSS score with Upwork if I were you.

[#18]

I've made several attempts to resolve or understand my 50% Job Success Score, and my assigned customer service agent responds only with slightly-varied iterations of this message:

I hope that this message finds you well.

Please be advised that the link provided are tips on how you can increase or boost your Job Success Score.

As for your Job Success Score, there are several factors that affect the Job Success score. The Upwork system takes snapshots of your six-, 12- and 24-month history in the marketplace and calculates a score for each. The best score out of these moving time windows is displayed on your profile and updated about every two weeks. It’s important to note that any movement in this score, either up or down, reflects both recent activity and activity over a longer period of time (up to 24 months).

The snapshots we take to determine your best Job Success score are a rolling window, which means sometimes a contract can slip out of your best calculation. This can cause your score to change significantly without recent activity. For instance, your Contract will no longer be counted in your six-month window once it is six months and one day old.

Sadly, the exact method on how your Job Success Score cannot be revealed/provided. Doing so would make it easier for some users to artificially boost their scores. We need to maintain some privacy with this metric to ensure fairness and accuracy.

Should you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact Upwork Support and we will be happy to assist you.

Of course, this tells me nothing. How am I failing in jobs that have produced 100% positive feedback with flattering comments and repeat business?

It's not that I need UpWork. It's that I trusted this platform and they've inflicted harm to my otherwise sterling reputation as a freelance writer. I've not experienced anything similar to this on any other platform -- and certainly not from the many clients I work with privately. 

[#19]

I currently do not have any
accepted jobs that remain unpaid.

[#20]

Jon,

I was referring not only to open contracts but also to past contracts that were closed without any payment or work done. Private feedback on such contracts is included in freelancers' JSS.

[#21]

Some general opinion, not related to any specific case that was discussed here.

It happens, sometimes, that freelancers refund money to clients when a job takes a wrong start, when for some reason it doesn't go as well as expected, when they realize that they can't do it, or when they messed up plain and simple. There may be many different reasons for freelancers for not wanting the outcome of a job on their profile.

Indeed, when no money is exchanged, the public feedback is not visible on the freelancer's profile, which is a good thing if the client is pissed up.

However, in those cases the private feedback, which is basically Upwork asking each party: "So, how it went?" is recorded and counts in the calculation of the freelancer's Job Success Score.

In the hypothetical case where a freelancer is frequently unable to make their clients happy and use this strategy to keep their profile clean, it backfires. This strategy may work on other platforms that use only star-based ratings. But not here. Because of the JSS that was invented for this very purpose.

[#22]

Client that gives excellent public feedback but bad private is EXTREMELY COMMON, I am working with recurring clients I completed at least 8 contracts with 5 stars but my job success is still not improving (worse it is lower). 

I am completely CLUELESS which of my recurring clients is just joking my job success rate.

[#23]

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@Ramon L wrote:

Client that gives excellent public feedback but bad private is EXTREMELY COMMON, I am working with recurring clients I completed at least 8 contracts with 5 stars but my job success is still not improving (worse it is lower). 

I am completely CLUELESS which of my recurring clients is just joking my job success rate.

---

 Between October and December you had one really bad rating and three jobs with no feedback. In a couple of months when those drop out of your 6-month window you will probably see a significant improvement.

[#24]

Everytime, I completed a project at least I completed 2 projects (in average) per two weeks for this recent months, instead of going up it is going down. 

Those projects have 5-star rating.

I really hate private feedback, I don't know whose client is joking my job success rate, since I have many recurring clients.

[#25]

It's unlikely that it's going down because of your current projects with ongoing clients. it's more likely that it's going down because some good ratings from the past are dropping out of the time period that's considered for JSS.