Which feedback should I remove?

[lolwayoussef]

Hi people!

I just got my Top rated badge! YAY!

My JSS is 97%. I was given 5 stars on all my jobs except for two. One of them I was given 3.8 stars, and the other has no rating or feedback at all. I want to remove one of them now that I'm top rated, but I don't know which one affects my JSS more negatively. Is it worse to have low rating or no rating at all?

Thank you!

[jmlaidlaw · Accepted solution]

Your rating is 97%. Don't remove anything -- particularly given that any removal would be a guess/gamble. 97% is a fine rating. Save the removal perk for a time when your rating goes truly low (if it ever does) and you REALLY need to use it.  (Just my two cents.)

[tlsanders]

Agree with Janean. As long as your JSS is solid, why gamble? Next week, you may have some client go crazy and leave you 2 stars with some paragraph-long insanity. Save it for if/when you actually need it.

[cdstallcup]

Tiffany S suggested:  "Next week, you may have some client go crazy and leave you 2 stars with some paragraph-long insanity."

For the record, she has a point. I removed one that took up the whole first page of my profile, online. I had tons of good ratings and reviews underneath it, but that long one griping about how I changed her font (it wasn't a standard font that always transmits well) took up the whole page and was all potential clients were going to see. If I had a lot of anger toward an Upwork freelancer, I now know I'd write them a really (really) long negative review ...

[louisaj]

Hi Lolwa,

Personally, I wouldn't worry. I've completed 228 jobs and I've never used the perk of removing feedback. When I started out, I dipped down to 92% at one point, but once your jobs start rolling in, your JSS should go back up. There is nothing wrong with 97%. I was hired many times at 92%. Some clients probably don't even read the stats or know what they mean. 

If you feel your 3.8 is holding you back, remove that one, however, no one knows how the JSS works, so be prepared for different answers. 🙂

Best wishes,

Louisa 

[petra_r]

Agreeing with the others. Do not remove anything. Save your perk for when you really need it. 97% is super!

[lolwayoussef]

Thank you all!

Since everyone is agreeing that I should leave it, I will!

[sivavranagaro]

I would go for 3.8.

Now reading all the comments, a q popped up in my mind.

What if freelancer is top rated, and gets very bad rating, and jss isn't changed for the moment, like in the next week, and freelancer goes on thinking "Ok, it's just a one bad feedback, nothing has happened to my jss yet.", and then week after jss is recalculated, the feedback is counted in, now freelancer loses his top rated badge and ability to delete the feedback.

tl:dr What feedback is low enough to be deleted before it harms our jss and disables option for its removal??

[kochubei_valeria]

Vesna,

I'd just like to note that if a freelancer drops out of the Top Rated program because of a dip in JSS, they have two weeks from the status loss date to submit a feedback removal request.

[felicedellagatta]

Dear Valeria,
It happened to me but when I contacted the support to ask for feedback removal right after the drop in JSS from 100% to 89% and the loss of the top rated badge (I didn't have many contracts done at the time and that's why I thin only one private negative feedback had such an impact) the support told me that it couldn't be removed and I had to wait till I had the top rated badge again.

Anyway I contacted support again after reading your answer and sorted it out. Thanks.

[alexand3r]

@Valeria K Hi, how are you? Hope all is well 🙂

Regarding your mention of the two weeks - if my JSS goes lower than 90 and the weeks start rolling if in that two week timeframe I use Feedback removal perk and it is removed from JSS and JSS coonsequently goes up - will the feedback be removed from the rolling period as well? Meaning at the end I won't have Top Rated with 14 weeks but instead Top Rated with 16 weeks? Please advise.

[a_lipsey]

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Alexandra C wrote:

@Valeria K Hi, how are you? Hope all is well 🙂

Regarding your mention of the two weeks - if my JSS goes lower than 90 and the weeks start rolling if in that two week timeframe I use Feedback removal perk and it is removed from JSS and JSS coonsequently goes up - will the feedback be removed from the rolling period as well? Meaning at the end I won't have Top Rated with 14 weeks but instead Top Rated with 16 weeks? Please advise.

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I can answer from experience. Any time you dropped below 90% is not counted as TR weeks. So you want to use that perk ASAP so that you jump back up to 90% before 4 weeks go by and you then have to wait another 12 weeks for those 4 to cycle out of the  period so you can be TR again. I did not act fast enough and had to wait 12 whole weeks at 100% to be TR lol. 

[gilbert-phyllis]

This has been well covered but I feel compelled to add my two cents' worth. Last summer, just before I became Top Rated, I had two unhappy clients back to back. One was a situation I completely mis-read (I was able to understand in retrospect) and the other mis-characterized the scope of work and when I stuck to my guns, she was a bit vindictive. It knocked me down to around 91-92% and I fidgeted for the next two weeks until I got my TR badge. Then, however, I couldn't make up my mind which less-than-stellar review to have removed (because you can't see the private feedback, you know). Indecision led to inaction, and the next thing I knew, more new clients were rolling in and I finished up the year really well. Several new long-term projects, repeat clients, a mix of project types. And my JSS has steadily moved back up above 95%.

Treat that removal privilege like the get-out-of-jail-free card that it is, and tuck it away for when the truly deranged client crosses your path.

[felicedellagatta]

Phyllis, it always amazes me how two people can draw totally different conclusions from the same fact 🙂

In your situation, I would conclude that negative feedback is rare for you because your level of service is great. In one year you could have deleted both the feedbacks, get your JSS back to 100% and still have the perk active again for the next crazy client as you can remove one feedback every three months.

I would suggest to anybody instead to immediately remove the negative feedback because you can't have more than 1 unhappy client every three months. If you did you wouldn't even make it to the top-rated program in the first place! Plus more time passes from the feedback to you taking action and the more it will be difficult to make the decision.

[tlsanders]

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@Felice D wrote:

Phyllis, it always amazes me how two people can draw totally different conclusions from the same fact 🙂

You mean like where the fact Phyllis shared was that she had two bad outcomes back-to-back and was top-rated, and you concluded from that that "you can't have more than 1 unhappy client every three months" or you wouldn't have made it to top-rated status.

[felicedellagatta]

Tiffany, I'm sorry I didn't mean to say that at all.

Phyllis said that she was unlucky and that she successfully closed the year with many more happy clients.

I suggested that, as she has a track record of happy clients she should take the negative feedback for what it is: bad luck and remove it asap.