Crucial Feedback and Ratings

Let’s zero in on some of the more specific areas that will help leverage your experience. Feedback and ratings is the area most commonly referenced by contractors and clients when assessing working together. Think about it, if someone tells you they had a great business experience with someone—be it a dentist, mechanic, architect, hair stylist, whomever—you’re much more likely to use their services yourself.

TOP TIPS

Being recommended by a client is different from getting a five-star rating. Both are good, but clients state whether or not they would recommend a contractor in a separate area in the feedback process.

Many people won’t work with an unknown, they’ll simply wait until they find someone recommended. It’s human nature. In these situations, we trust what people tell us and it affects our decision making.

As a client or contractor on Elance, you get to turn this fact into an advantage. By concentrating on and working on improving your personal feedback and ratings, you can build up this crucial self-advertising tool.

Ask for It

Plain and simple, if you ask for it you get it, most of the time. Contractors need to step up and ask for feedback, as do clients. It works both ways. The logic on both sides is the same, positive feedback as a contractor/client helps you get more work or more top talent.

Asking for feedback doesn’t mean to manipulate anyone or to make some kind of deal on the side. It’s the natural progression from a job well done, and it’s part of the Elance process. If you have to finagle to get good feedback, you’re not going to last long anyway. Half-hearted or downright dishonest members will eventually be outed by other members in the form of negative feedback and ratings.

Set the Example

Whether contractor or client, you can be the first one to submit feedback and set the example for the other party. As a contractor, you take on a slight risk if the client wasn’t completely happy and you’ve already said how wonderful they were. But for the most part, this is a great way to lead.

After the job is completed, the Elance system will send a reminder to both the client and contractor to submit feedback within 60 days. Consider getting a head start and being the first to type in positive remarks. Then let your client/contractor know and ask them to give you feedback, too.

What to Do with Bad Feedback

Inevitably, you will receive less than stellar feedback from someone. Personalities clashed, the job parameters needed to change, or it just didn’t flow as smoothly as everyone would have liked. It happens.

BEST PRACTICES

Don’t ever mislead with feedback. If the contractor didn’t do a great job, say so. It’s the best way to keep the Elance environment clean and of high quality. But also don’t be a nitpicker. No project goes perfectly and you shouldn’t penalize your contractor for that. Overall, did they do what they claimed they were going to do in a timely fashion? Did they stay within budget? Was the end result what you wanted? If so, give ’em the good stuff.

As a contractor, when you get negative feedback, or even if it’s less positive than you expected, you have a chance to reply and voice your side of the story. As you peruse feedback left for contractors and clients, you will periodically run across these exchanges.

One-offs are not that big a deal. Yes, they’re aggravating, especially if you feel slighted and that the feedback was unjust. After all, it does lower your overall averages. But it’s also life.

Submit your response to what the client wrote remembering to always be clear, professional, and polite. Save what you really want to say for family and friends. Online you are representing your professionalism. Yes, defend yourself, but no, don’t lower into a tit for tat.

Prospective clients will understand that issues happen and if they’re not a regular occurrence, they’re not a problem. If you’re consistently getting negative feedback, you most definitely need to look at yourself and the services you’re providing.

For clients, contractors rarely leave negative feedback unless defending themselves. Contractors are more at the mercy of feedback than clients are.