what should I do if the client did not end the contract?

[#1]

what should I do if the client did not end the contract?

Recently I finished one fixed price project. The client has already approved it. But somehow he did not close the contract.
I sent one message to him to remind him to close it. But he did not reply. It has been around one week since I sent him the message.
Here I got some questions regarding to this issue:
1. I can send another message to remind him, but if he still did not reply, how could I do? should I leave it there or I close it?
2. If I close the contract after client approved it&I got the fund, how will it affect me(I heard it will affect JSS, but I did not have JSS yet)?
3. I found some of my clients are also new on upwork, somehow they do not know they should end the contract after they approved the project.
What is the good way to communicate to the client beforehand to avoid this issue(the client did not close the contract)?
Thanks.

[#2]

Jian,

Do not bother your client about closing the contract. If you want to close it on your own, you can. Having open contracts with earnings on them does not appear to affect JSS. As you are trying to build JSS, I understand why you want to get a review, but as a client myself, if you nagged me for a review, I would most certainly leave a bad one, just from being annoyed at you for bothering me so many times. 

Closed contracts with earnings but no feedback, according to the JSS experts, seem to only have a negative impact on your JSS if you have a high percentage of them. We've also seen it's better to close these one at time with space between them, if you have a number of old contracts with earnings still open. But you don't, this is just one. 

It's never a guarantee with JSS what will happen with any action you take. 

I would wait a bit, and then just close it. The client will be notified it's been closed and given a chance to leave a review. But DO NOT bother your client about it again. 

[#3]

you would leave someone a bad review, something that directly affects their livelihood, because you arbitrarily decided them asking you to close the contract was annoying? when that has nothing to do with their ability to complete work in a satisfactory manner?

[#4]

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Edward D wrote:

you would leave someone a bad review, something that directly affects their livelihood, because you arbitrarily decided them asking you to close the contract was annoying? when that has nothing to do with their ability to complete work in a satisfactory manner?

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First of all, I close my contracts when I'm done with freelancers so this is all hypothetical. Yes, a freelancer repeatedly annoying me to leave them feedback would impact what kind of review I left. It's unprofessional and wasting my time. If I wanted to leave a review I would have. It's not arbitrary to determine that a freelancer sending multiple messages asking you to leave a review is annoying. It's a pretty common sentiment - not arbitrary at all. When you annoy a client you put them in the mood to be much more critical about whatever work was completed, and yes, you risk a worse review. Ask once at the end of the work and be done with it. 

[#5]

The client should also be responsible. He/She should understand that reviews matter a lot in freelancing, be it a client or a freelancer. Atleast you should specify the freelancer about the review. But if you specified the freelancer that you don't want to drop a review and he/she stills nags you, then giving a bad review for his unprofessional behaviour is understood . You chose the freelance for your work, he/she did your work and now you say that you don't have 5 minutes worth of time for dropping a review over the span of several weeks, that is unprofessional behaviour shown by client. Neither a client nor a freelancer should go cold on each other when they are in a contract. 

That's my view. 

[#6]

Thank you for saying this. 👏 Unfortunately, I'm experiencing a similar situation these days (hence, was browsing and found your comment). I wish clients were a bit more considerate.

[#7 · Accepted solution]

Hi Jian, 

A lot of freelancers in the Community would recommend that you send one gentle reminder to the client to close the contract. If you don't hear back after one or two weeks, you may want to close the contract yourself. As noted in this help article - "...Contracts with a history of earnings but no feedback, whether closed or not, are mostly excluded from your JSS. However, if you have many contracts where no feedback has been given, it can impact your score (a little) negatively because it indicates some of your clients were dissatisfied."

[#8]

Hi Avery,

I have a similar problem. But one of my clients does not close our contract for six months. I asked them to do it twice, but have not received any response. The problem is that I have a couple of other similar contracts. They are not so old ... However, I suspect this situation negatively affected my JSS. A month ago it was 100%, then it dropped to 97%, and, now, it is 91%.

What would you recommend in this situation?

Thank you in advance.

[#9]

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Vadim S wrote:

 However, I suspect this situation negatively affected my JSS. A month ago it was 100%, then it dropped to 97%, and, now, it is 91%.

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No, that situation didn't affect your JSS. Why don't you simply close the contract yourself?

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Vadim S wrote:

What would you recommend in this situation?

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Close the contract and move on.

Edward D wrote:

when that has nothing to do with their ability to complete work in a satisfactory manner?

---

It's unprofessional. It's one of the things that irritates the hell out of clients. It's ok to send one message (2, at the VERY most) to encourage a client to close the contract, without mentioning feedback. No more, Anything in excess is bordering on, or actual harassment.

[#10]

It also indicate that client is irresponsible, totally biased system of upwork. Not good!

Client gets satisfied with the work but don’t end the project on time, how can It negatively impact the freelancer who has given his all to do creative work. I don’t support upwork on this.

[#11]

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Imran B wrote:
how can It negatively impact the freelancer who has given his all to do creative work. I don’t support upwork on this.

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What are you talking about? It doesn't "negatively impact the freelancer" if the client doesn't end the contract. The freelancer can just close the contract themselves and be done with it.

[#12]

Hi Petra,

But what about the situation when you close  a contract but the client does not leave any feedback?

It negatively affects your JSS, does not it?

Although I remember that I seemed to receive a letter from Upwork (a month or a couple of months ago) that now the lack of  feedback does not affect JSS. Is that correct? Have you received this letter?

At the same time, the information about the factors of JSS remains the same at the Upwork site: https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211063558.

The question is which information is true.???

[#13]

Hi Vadim,

I would like to clarify that contracts with no feedback will not be included in your calculation anymore. To learn more about this, check out our announcement Here. Thank you.

[#14]

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Vadim S wrote:

But what about the situation when you close  a contract but the client does not leave any feedback?

It negatively affects your JSS, does not it?

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It absolutely does not!

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Vadim S wrote:

Although I remember that I seemed to receive a letter from Upwork (a month or a couple of months ago) that now the lack of  feedback does not affect JSS. Is that correct???

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That was last year, and even before then you would have had an insanely high percentage of "no feedback" contracts for it to affect your JSS.

[#15]

Thank you. Now it is clear.

[#16]

Hello Petra,

I think the only minor downside here is that you will miss a positive feedback from a satisifed client (provided they forgot to close or doesn't know they should close the contract).

If the freelancer is the one to close the contract will it still prompt the client to give feedback in return? or does it only happen if the client closes the contract?

I understand they are not obliged to do this but it's just a missed opportunity when both sides are in great terms.

I just finished a job for a client new to upwork, They even gave a bonus and mentioned working with me again so I'm not sure if they plan to use the same contract in the future with new funded milestone or simply forgot to close. 

I would love to know your opinion on this, thank you.

[#17]

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Glenn T wrote:

Hello Petra,

I think the only minor downside here is that you will miss a positive feedback from a satisifed client (provided they forgot to close or doesn't know they should close the contract).

If the freelancer is the one to close the contract will it still prompt the client to give feedback in return? or does it only happen if the client closes the contract?

I understand they are not obliged to do this but it's just a missed opportunity when both sides are in great terms.

I just finished a job for a client new to upwork, They even gave a bonus and mentioned working with me again so I'm not sure if they plan to use the same contract in the future with new funded milestone or simply forgot to close. 

I would love to know your opinion on this, thank you.

---

Glenn, it's been a while since you posted, but in response: a client who doesn't close the contract and leave feedback right away is unlikely to come back and leave any feedback. It's better to go ahead and close it yourself. The best thing you can do is ask the client to close the contract right after you send the completed work and they are satisfied/release payment. Even if they want to work with you again, I recommend closing the contract and starting a new one. You never know when things will go sideways, and then you'd get a bad review potentially for all your work, not just the one that went sideways. 

[#18]

Hi Amanda,

Appreciate the context here - I started with Upwork several years ago (two jobs) and now I'm jumping back in. A lot has changed, so everything is still very new to me. I'm hoping you can help: I did two jobs when I first started with Upwork. Both clients were satisfied with the work. One ended the contract and gave me 100% while the other was unresponsive. After not hearing back from the unresponsive client, I ended the contract, basing my decision on a number of help responses I read. This was years later and now, a few months after ending the unresponsive contract, I'm jumping back in. The problem is, I've been told I don't meet the JSS standard to submit proposals for jobs that require at least 80%. I was at 100% before ending the one contract (out of 2 total). It doesn't seem right. I contacted the client (just once, I didn't press) but after reading several help articles I'm not even sure the client can leave feedback at this point. Any advice? Thanks so much 

[#19]

Hi Petra, I originally responded to you but Amanda left more recent comments so I moved my response to Amanda's thread ^^^ I'm hoping you all can help. Thanks!

[#20]

This is really annoying!

If client not leaving feedback its his problem, if he is unsatisfied he should leave feedback.

Why no feedback considered as negetive feedback and not other way?

I tried many freelancing platform and no one cares about us, everyone want to exploit freelancers.

slow claps

[#21]

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Ajay M wrote:

This is really annoying!

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What is?

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Ajay M wrote:

Why no feedback considered as negetive feedback and not other way?

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It isn't. "No feedback" contracts have absolutely no effect on anything.

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Ajay M wrote:

I tried many freelancing platform and no one cares about us, everyone want to exploit freelancers.

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Whatever do you mean?

[#22]

Hi Ms. Avery,

Just a follow-up question in this one. If I close the contract because the client is unresponsive for years, the contract will show "no feedback" in my profile, correct? Is there a way to hide that from my profile? I like when I see my clients' reviews in my profile and closing contracts without feedback wouldn't really look appealing.

Thanks for the help in advance!

[#23]

Hi Roan,

Thank you for your message. You cannot hide the contract or job from your profile.

Thank you,

Pradeep

[#24]

Thank you for your response. It's just frustrating that there are clients who do not respect us, freelancers, the way we respect their time and requests. Our request is to close the contract so they can provide feedback but they have been unresponsive and it is not our fault. Thanks anyway! have a good day.

[#25]

Hello,

Recently we have submitted our job and the client happily accepted it. He left a feedback for us, it shows on our profile but the work shows to be still in progress, neither the contract has ended and we cant leave a feedback for him. 

Any suggestions?

Thanks