A good reputation score indicates a healthy brand, pointing to a trustworthy organization that offers a solid customer experience. On the other hand, a negative reputation brings stagnation in growth and loss is revenue as inevitable byproducts.
It is difficult to understand how reputation fares without accessing sophisticated customer data. Your often biased perception of your brand has little to do with its reputation score online. Your customers have the power to bolster your brand or tear it down by sharing their experiences, online communication and opinions about the brand.
Monitoring the reputation score is essential to having significant control over your reputation. Let’s understand the meaning of reputation score and its factors in detail.
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What Is a Reputation Score?
A brand’s reputation core represents the total value of its online footprint. A lot of factors determine this value. These include the sum of positive, negative, and neutral details that appear on the Google search pages (SERPs), along with how they rank when people search you online.
In other words, the reputation score speaks a lot about what people see and think about your company once they have searched it online. From an individual reputation management perspective, the digital footprint can influence several aspects of your life, from whether you get hired for a job you are applying for to your employment history and your business' public relations.
With the world becoming more digitized than ever before, social media platforms have become integral parts of life. And brands are concerned about how to improve their online reputation. The reputation score has never been more important because of all this and many more.
Significance of an Online Reputation Score
So, what is the real significance of an online reputation score for an organization? Well, for every company, how it looks on the internet matters. That is because you are constantly being searched on the web, irrespective of who you are and what you do.
And when people search on the web, they judge your company’s character and credentials based on what shows up in your search results. When the reputation score is high, people are more likely to identify and find online assets, portraying a positive image. This way, a brand earns people’s trust and eventually paves the way for personal success.
On the other hand, if this reputation score is low, there are high chances that people will find bad reviews and everything else that looks bad for your company’s overall image.
This is also when organizations must consider implementing the best brand awareness strategies to eliminate the wrong image and make customers realize a brand’s full potential.
Key Factors in Calculating a Reputation Score
The reputation score is usually transparent. Here are some of the factors that are considered in calculating the reputation score:
Reviews – Average Star Ratings
The star rating scale goes from 1 to 5, with a strong rating closer to 5 or 5 indicating a higher quantity of positive reviews. It also implies a brand’s dedication to customer service. On the other hand, negative reviews with a low star rating will cost you more customers.
Research reveals that 70% of Americans read online reviews and consider them in their purchase decisions.
On the other hand, generating more reviews helps address a low star rating. However, just checking the star ratings is not enough. Nor does it give you a comprehensive picture of the online reputation.
That is why there are other factors and standards related to reviews that need to be taken into consideration.
Volume
Volume represents the total number of reviews, both positive and negative. The higher the volume, the higher the reputation score. This is a metric that directly impacts the local search rankings.
Recency
Another factor that matters is how recent your reviews are. Recent reviews have had a positive impact on the local search rankings. A continuous influx of reviews increases the score because it shows your engagement with the community.
Spread
Spread refers to the number of sites the customers use to post reviews about the business. The more sites and higher spreads, the higher is the score. The relevance of the site also plays a crucial role in this regard.
Length
The longer the review, the higher the reputation score. This is because longer reviews offer more detailed information about how customers experience your brand. A lengthy review indicates how much a customer cares about the brand.
Listing Accuracy
When people search for your company, they see the local business listing. This listing contains business hours, address, phone number, locations and so on. This information urges the customers to act and engage with your company.
Accurate listings make it easier for customers to connect with you, thereby increasing the lead volume. Incomplete data and inaccuracies, on the other hand, lead to the user’s frustration, often driving them to your competition. Issues in the data typically lower your reputation score while negatively affecting your traffic, revenue, and visibility.
How to Improve a Low Reputation Score Online?
A negative reputation occurs when unfavorable information is found through public records, online reviews, and social media mentions. The more the presence of such information, the higher is the likelihood of a poor reputation score.
What is, however, tricky in all this is that the report does not have to be authentic to impact your reputation score negatively. Just their existence on the web can damage your organization’s reputation.
Thankfully, there are ways in which brands can improve their low reputation score. The most obvious way is to go for white label reputation management. There are specialized agencies that carry out this task with accuracy and efficiency.
Alongside, businesses can organize the listings and employ a team whose work is to keep track of all the reviews online. This is to ensure that you know what people are talking about your business to increase the reputation score.
When you find your business has a negative review, you should reply politely to show that your business values customer satisfaction. You can even respond to them privately to resolve the issue and politely ask them to review your business once they are satisfied.
Businesses can also proactively engage happy customers to post positive reviews and then share them on the company’s social media pages and website. This increases the reputation score, especially on Google.
All of the above tasks can be executed in a more straightforward manner with review management software.
Reputation Score Takeaway
So, a brand’s consumers have the primary role in driving the business growth. They shape your brand with their opinions as much as you do, if not more.
Customers never stop talking about a particular brand online, so it is best to take control of the managing the situation and try to stay on top of the communication. While doing this, you will be able to gain insights from the reputation score to get ahead and reduce customer issues proactively.
The ultimate purpose is always to bolster your reputation and convert satisfied customers into brand loyalists.
