You know the saying “new year new me”? Well, while this is partially true for Malt in 2023 with a very full roadmap ahead of us, we thought looking back on how we have improved our freelancers’ experience on Malt all through 2022 was also a must.
We have grouped those features together according to three main objectives:
- Improving your opportunities’ management
- Reducing the time your spend on your administrative tasks
- Making your profile updates more easily
Opportunities and projects
- Reminder emails sent to clients for inactive projects
No one likes to be ghosted, which is why we created automatic emails to follow up with clients when they haven’t replied to you.
These reminder emails had two purposes:
- Reengage the client with freelancers that have applied/interacted with them,
- or close inactive projects, as a matching opportunity that is closed automatically triggers a notification to all freelancers who have applied
- Quote approval notifications
Getting clients to answer freelancers they have contacted remains a major pain point of ours, which is why we have developed an additional feature to remedy this issue.
We have activated an automatic notification when a client accepts a quote: we now notify interested freelancers so that they can decline and archive the opportunity to move to the next project.
This rule applies for automatic opportunities: if it is the client who contacted you directly from your profile, there is no automatic notification but we push the client to warn the other freelancers in case he or she validates a quote.
- Rich-text in quote description
We’ve revamped the quote page to let you structure your quotes with titles, lists and bold texts in the description section. It makes it easier to describe your offer to your clients which in the end could help you to win more projects.
- Billing by the hour
In some jobs and countries, such as Spain or the Netherlands, it’s much more common to bill by the hour rather than by the day. We heard you! Which is why we developed a new option to send a quote with hourly billing.
This new feature makes it easier to work with clients on long-term projects that last several months by activating recurring quotes (if you are eligible) and hourly billing.
The rest of the process remains the same: at the end of each month, you confirm your activity report on Malt by entering the number of hours you wish to bill. You’ll get paid once your client approves the report.
- Increase the number of freelancers who find projects
Giving a chance to as many of our freelancers as possible is a strong value at Malt which is why we have set a limit. What do we mean by that? A freelancer cannot receive more than 7 opportunities from Malt over the course of 7 days. The opportunities referenced here are the automatic matches one gets, this does not apply to direct messages from clients using the search engine.
For each automatic opportunity, there is a maximum of 8 positive answers that a client can receive. To avoid too many freelancers receiving the same project, one opportunity can be sent in up to 3 batches: a first time to a group, then in case of negative answers (or no answer at all) to a second group, and finally to a third.
As we reduce the number of contacted freelancers, it gives you more chances to get the project (remember it is always a good idea to answer quickly even if you say no!).
- Share projects across borders
Sometimes there are not enough freelancers that match the client’s criteria when searching in a specific city. To overcome this, we now show profiles for freelancers in other cities within the same country.
And if there aren’t enough freelancers in the country, we can show freelancers that are based in neighboring countries that still match the client’s criteria and selected languages: for example, clients in Belgium will see freelancers from the Netherlands in their search results.
- Accept or decline projects faster by email
As we have mentioned previously, it is always better to decline an opportunity than leaving it unanswered in your Malt inbox.
You can now accept or decline an opportunity with one click by email, without having to go through the Malt platform. This helps you maintain a good reply rate and keep your visibility in search results.
Administrative management
- Making it easier to manage your legal documents
Legal documents and their verification are always a hassle. This is the reasons why we’ve improved the verification process of your legal documents, making it faster and easier to upload your ID and go through the steps in just a few clicks
Freelancers can now see the verification status of their legal documents on their dashboard. This is because you must have all of your business information and legal documents verified in order to be paid on Malt.
Improving your profile
- Import information from LinkedIn to fill out your Malt profile
On Malt, the more information you fill out in your profile, the higher the chances of getting new project opportunities.
Many of you have been asking for this feature and it is now finally live! You can import the information from your Linkedin profile in just a few clicks.
This option, available on the Malt profile page, is currently only available to freelancers who have not yet filled out any experience on their profile. Don’t worry – our team is hard at work to make it possible to import your Linkedin information even if you’ve already filled out your Malt profile.
- Search your conversations
It is now easier to find a past conversation thanks to a search feature available directly in the inbox. Enter any word and the messages that contains it will pop up.
While 2022 was a busy year for sure, 2023 has already been mapped out and might be our busiest year yet ! On the agenda? The Comatch merger following 2022’s buyout, the revamping of the Super Malter programm, a new expense tracker for freelancers & more!