Without metrics, digital reputation management feels like a guessing game. But with a reputation score, this task gets a lot less blurry.
But what is a reputation score? In a nutshell, it’s a way to quantify how well your reputation is doing. Think of it as your North Star for online reputation management. It serves as a benchmark to track your progress and help you make decisions about where to invest your time and resources.
In this article, you’ll learn the following:
- What Is a Reputation Score?
- Other Reputation Metrics To Look Out For
- Four Factors Influencing Your Reputation Score
- Why You Need a High Reputation Score
- Three Strategies To Score Higher in Reputation
What Is a Reputation Score?
This is a common question for companies new to reputation monitoring and management.
Your digital reputation score is a numerical value that represents the overall health of your online reputation.
According to Tim Clarke, Rize’s Senior Reputation Manager, this “is not a score, such as A-F, that you’d find on a school report card but a number” calculated by looking at different elements of online presence, such as:
- Review volumes
- Customer ratings
- The recency of your reviews
- General online sentiment
Here’s an example of a reputation score overview from Rize’s reputation tools:
Since social media presence and online visibility are unquantifiable metrics, reputation management tools take a look at these other factors to determine the steps you must take when managing online reputation.
For instance, since the business in the above example only scored 24 out of 100, it has much room for improvement. The next movie is to conduct review generation activities, raise its customer ratings and assess the recency of its reviews in order to increase its reputation score.
Without the insight that reputation management tools provide, it can be difficult to manage your online presence and determine how to improve it.
Other Reputation Metrics
There are other online reputation management tools you can use to have a more granular view of your brand’s health. For instance, you can use metrics gained from customer surveys to improve your overall score while gaining valuable insights.
Net Promoter Score
The net promoter score (NPS) is a scale of 0-10 that asks customers how likely they are to recommend your business or product. This score is divided into three categories:
- Promoters
- Passives
- Detractors
A higher net promoter score indicates a strong reputation with customers who are more likely to refer you to other clients.
This score is perfect for measuring customer perception since a higher score indicates better word-of-mouth while a lower score means a need for improving:
- Customer experience
- Service quality
- Brand awareness
It’s possible to have a different NPS for each location, too. All of which is managed via one dashboard:
NPS dashboards are used to have a high-level view of NPS scores for multiple locations, which is great for ensuring a consistent service quality level across your stores.
Customer Satisfaction Score
Another digital reputation management metric is customer satisfaction score (CSAT). This score represents customer experience with a product or service after purchasing.
The CSAT score is also great at measuring your reputation since people are more likely to give reviews after testing your product post-purchase.
Customer Effort Score
Unlike CSAT and NPS, the customer effort score (CES) measures how easy it is to perform a task or reach out for help. If customers are having difficulty with a product or service, they are more likely to seek assistance from your competitors.
CES helps you identify any weak points in your customer’s journey and can be used to improve customer experience and satisfaction.
4 Factors Influencing Your Reputation Score
Now that we’ve answered what is customer satisfaction score and other crucial metrics, let’s now discuss the factors affecting them. While each provider looks at various factors, we compiled the most quantifiable ones to align with the goal of having a clear measurement of your online reputation.
1. Review Volume
Your review volume score is calculated by considering the total number of customer reviews you have received versus your closest competitors across different listings.
Look at this report below:
Since the business had fewer reviews than its competitors with only one listing, it only scored 1 out of 30 which meant it had a dismal performance compared to its competitors.
2. Ratings
Customer ratings are telltale signs of what is customer satisfaction score and reputation score’s health. However, it’s really just one component (albeit a very important one) in the reputation score puzzle.
The higher your customer ratings, the better your score will be. Since the business in the example scored a three-star average rating, it only scored 18 out of 30, which means it’s somewhere in the middle when it comes to ratings.
3. Review Recency
Robust digital reputation management tools also measure your recent reviews. Reviews under three months old are categorized as recent reviews, so the more you have them, the higher your recency score will be.
The recency of your reviews will also be measured against your competitor’s average. For instance, the report indicates an eight-month competitor average for new reviews. This sets a clear goal of generating more reviews every eight to three months to achieve a higher recency score.
4. Sentiment
This part of the report is more subjective but equally important. Depending on third-party reputation tools from Google and other listings, this score measures the overall sentiment collated from all your reviews.
Good customer perception is widely influenced by review summaries, which means it’s vital to ace this portion when managing online reputation.
Why You Need a High Score in Reputation
Here’s a question many people would ask at this point: “Isn’t online visibility enough to get more leads and customers?”
Oddly enough, it’s not.
Digital reputation management allows us to improve customer perception, front-facing activities and internal processes. These scores aren’t just for recognition but actual metrics that guide you to improve your business.
Let’s briefly discuss the three benefits of a high reputation score:
Benefit 1: Improved Influencer Relationships
Having a great social media presence allows you to connect with influencers who care about the prestige and stature of the brands they work with.
A high reputation score is a number you can show them to make it easier to work with you. Also, having a good relationship with influencers often leads to extra publicity for your business, leading us to our next point.
Benefit 2: Increased Customer Confidence
This is one goal many reputation management services aim for – if you get a higher quantity of newer, higher-quality ratings, people are likely to trust you.
While your customers won’t see your reputation score, the steps you take to improve it will definitely resonate with them. If you launch campaigns to generate more reviews and leverage the best ones on your website, you establish the social proof necessary to make them buy.
Benefit 3: Better Online Visibility
An excellent social media presence with more listings and excellent reviews results in one thing: better visibility.
Whether you’re using search engine optimization (SEO) tactics or just leveraging your influencers, having the right content on the right networks significantly impacts how many people see your business online.
You’ll also be more visible when it comes to local search rankings. If you manage reviews and ratings across different platforms, your business will likely come up higher on local search engine results pages.
3 Ways To Elevate Your Reputation Score
So, how exactly do you improve your reputation score? While this is a complex process when done by yourself, Clarke offers some insights:
1. Collect More Reviews
If you’re using reputation tools like emails, chatbots and widgets, this should be an easy task for you.
Ensure that people know you’re collecting reviews, and don’t be shy about it. Also, you don’t want your customers to take too many steps when making a review. You can use reputation management services, such as:
- Reputation management software
- Custom email campaigns
- Review widgets and landing pages
All these tools make managing online reputation easier for you and your customers.
2. Strive for Excellent Customer Feedback
More reviews don’t always mean a better reputation, though. That’s why you must conduct reputation monitoring campaigns, see what people say about you and find areas where you need to improve.
It’s also vital to self-assess:
- How can you improve your service?
- What are customers missing, and how can you provide it?
- How do you keep customer service at a consistently high level?
3. Let People Feel You’re There
You’re not just an empty brand – you’re a business with real people behind it. Show it.
In your platforms, pay attention to personalizing your response and checking review authenticity.
Here’s what a multi-location residential management company did when its clients didn’t like its service. It needed a way to sympathize with its clients so readers and leads felt it actually cared about its customer experience.
Case study: Multi-Location Residential Management Company
The company acknowledges customers’ feelings and empathizes with their frustrations. Its campaign was a huge success, with four to eight review responses per week or a total of 150 review responses in six months.
Giving people personalized answers makes them feel like they matter to you, creating a positive impression of your brand.
Ace Your Reputation Score With Rize
Having solid scores and metrics is great, but let’s not forget that customer service is about genuinely connecting with people. As Clarke said, “I don’t think the [reputation] score is important, but the elements that create the score are.”
And now, you can always strive to do better and start with these tips. With a bit of vigilance and hard work, you can achieve your desired reputation score in no time.
Of course, it doesn’t end here. To stay on top of your game, you need an all-in-one reputation management solution like Rize. With us, you can quickly respond to reviews, create powerful campaigns for customer feedback and easily track your reputation score over time – all from one convenient service.
Get started today and give your business the boost it deserves.
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