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howard_simpson
Community Member

First job with an unresponsive client

I submitted rough sketches for a client to review. However, the client has been unresponsive for over 72 hours.
The support section (see link below) says, "In some cases, you may also reach out to Upwork to contact the client on your behalf" However, the chatbot doesn't do that, and I don't see how I can get this process started.


I checked the TOS, and it does not mention unresponsive clients at all.

Can someone help?

 

This is my first client on Upwork, and I would like this to end well.

 

Unresponsive-Clients 

12 REPLIES 12
AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Howard, 

I checked your account, and I see that this is a fixed-price contract. To be paid for fixed-price contracts, you must submit your work here. Once submitted, your client has 14-days to review the work submitted. If they don't come back to you with any request for revision within 14-days, the money in escrow will be paid to you. You may read more about getting paid for fixed-price contracts here. 

I hope this helps!


~ Avery
Upwork

Thank you Avery.

 

Even if I don't use the information this time. I still would like to know how I get Upwork to contact a client on my behalf for the future.

martina_plaschka
Community Member

If you are working with a client and they become unresponsive for a long period of time, it may be best to stop working on the project and wait for contact from the client. In some cases, you may also reach out to Upwork to contact the client on your behalf.

72 hours is not a long period of time. Don't treat the client like a 5 year old that needs to be scolded. They know where you are.

Martina, I'm not sure why you quoted the page I provided a link to - which means I have read it.

 

That's a pretty giant leap to accuse me of scolding the client. One, I would never do that as it's counterproductive. Two, I'm not addressing the client here. Three, this job has a very short deadline, which I would like to meet without rushing to finish it and submitting a hack job. Four, I'm asking for help. Five, this doesn't answer my question at all.

feed_my_eyes
Community Member

You have to remember that this is the client's project, not your project. You may be in a hurry to get paid and get a good review, but these are not the client's priorities. You will need to be more patient. If you send more than one follow up message - or worse yet, if you ask Upwork to pester the client on your behalf - then don't be surprised if you end up with negative feedback.

You have made assumptions, Christine. The first is that I don't remember this is the client's project. My whole post is about the client. The second is that I am in a hurry to get paid. Nowhere in my post do I mention money. This job has a very short deadline, which I would like to get done without rushing to finish it and submitting a hack job.

 

I have had clients in the past who eat up my work time by not promptly reviewing the work yet still need the job done by the deadline.

 

I'm asking for help. This response doesn't answer my question at all.

 

My first post here, and I have two people treating me like I don't know what I'm doing and yet don't answer the question about what I admit I don't know.

Sorry but you do sound like a rookie if you need Upwork to message your client for you. If it's a tight deadline, I would send one message saying,"I just wanted to follow up because I'll need feedback on my sketches no later than midnight tonight if you'd still like me to finish by tomorrow." That's all you need to do. 

 

If you insist, you can open a support ticket and have Upwork do this for you, but they might not be able to get back to you for a day or two, and they have no way of forcing a client to respond to you.

 

Howard:
Christine and Martina have provided helpful, accurate information. Nobody in this thread has anything but good intentions toward you.

 

There are things that you either were not aware of, or appeared to not be aware of.

 

But more importantly, these threads are public sources of information that are used by a wide variety of people. Most of the people who read these threads are silent and we are rarely aware of them. But they are reading this information to learn how to use Upwork effectively. So it is normal for Forum participants to include information pertinent to a thread's topic, even if that is information that may not directly answer the original poster's question.

 

I think one of the most important points here is this:
You don't want Upwork to intervene on your behalf with a client.
As freelancers, we want to manage our clients and contracts ourselves.

You said that you searched the ToS and noticed that it does not "mention unresponsive clients at all."

There is a reason for that.
A good philosophy to have is that there is no such thing as an "unresponsive client."

 

Every time I am hired to do a fixed-price contract, I have all of the information necessary to finish the task without ever needing to communicate with the client again. If I do my work and submit it, and the client does not respond, I do not regard that as an "unresponsive client." I regard that as. client who trusts me to do complete the task and is implicitly approving the release of payment to me.

 

As for deadlines?
These aren't my deadlines. These are the client's deadlines.
So if I need to get information from a client and the client doesn't respond by a certain "deadline," then that's fine. It is the client's project, not my project. The client is an intelligent person. He knows that if the next step that needs to be taken requires his input, that it is his responsibility, not mine.

I am new to Upwork, yes. I am not new to being an independent contractor. I've been doing this for over 10 years. I know how to handle clients. 

I'm sure you didn't know everything about Upwork when you first started on this platform.

 

Since Upwork makes this offer to contact the client, I wanted to know more about how that works. That's all.

Hey, it's your business and you can run it any which way you please. Just because I or any other experienced freelancer would never do what you propose, doesn't mean you shouldn't. 

In fact, I'll be getting some popcorn and will be anxiously waiting for the result of your intervention!

If I were a client and a freelancer actually went as far as chasing Upwork after me I'd be furious, which would certainly be reflected in the way that contract is concluded.

 

The client knows where you are and if they want to communicate with you, you can be assured that they will do so.

 


Howard S wrote: This is my first client on Upwork, and I would like this to end well

Then the very last thing you should even dream of considering doing is to get Upwork to write to the client over this.

 

Also, 72 hours is not "unresponsive". Some freelancer is not necessarily the main priority of a client's life.

Your points are well made Petra.

I'm new to Upwork and have to get used to how things a operate here.

 

However, Outside of Upwork I have had clients (not many) eat up all the time and approve the work the day before the deadline and still expect the work to be done. My only goal was to avoid that happening here, so I don't have to hack out the art.

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