Do you have an accurate picture of your company’s online reputation?

You can get a general idea by listening to what customers say, checking your reviews and star ratings and tracking business growth. However, truly quantifying reputation isn’t quite that easy. If you can’t quantify reputation and understand what factors go into it, how can you take steps to improve it?

Reputation Score is a sophisticated, real-time calculation created by Reputation that provides a number from one to 1,000 measuring how customers perceive your brand. More than just a number, Reputation Score offers insights and helps you understand what you’re doing right and where there are opportunities for improvement.

What is a Reputation Score?

Reputation Score is multidimensional. Factors that influence the Reputation Score include:

• Listing and directory presence
• Online reviews
• Social media presence
• Surveys
• Customer experience management

The score doesn’t just tell you whether or not your business has a good reputation; it also tells you why.

The following table summarizes some of the insights you can gain from the factors that go into your online Reputation Score.

Data Sources and Data Processing

Data sources tapped for Reputation Score calculation include rankings, maps, web traffic, reviews and more. The extensive data collected for calculating the Reputation Score is processed through proprietary machine learning algorithms, statistical analysis and stochastic modeling. These calculations produce a single, informative number.

Related: Reputation Score: The Power of Positive Feedback (with Examples)

Additionally, Reputation Score breaks down the components, letting you know, for example, that your social media engagement is good, but that there is room for improvement. With this knowledge, you can work with your social media team to increase social engagement through better monitoring or more frequent posting. You also learn how well your company performs in terms of star average, reviews, search impressions and listing accuracy.

Reputation Score vs. Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score (NPS) can be a good starting point for understanding reputation because it lets you know how likely people are to recommend your brand. However, Reputation Score presents you with nuts-and-bolts information that you can act upon immediately.

Suppose your Reputation Score indicates that your business listings are not 100 percent accurate. You can immediately determine where the discrepancies lie so you can correct them and begin improving your reputation quickly.

With Reputation Score, you can benchmark and track your reputation over time, against competitors or amongst retail locations of the same business. If you determine that one retail location is outperforming the rest, you can learn what it’s doing right and extend those practices to your other locations. Our Reputation Score infographic can tell you more.

Why You Need Online Reputation Management

Online reputation management requires a multifaceted approach. Monitoring star ratings, responding to reviews, managing your social media presence, using surveys strategically and using best SEO practices are all necessary for building and maintaining a strong online reputation. Reputation Score reflects these best practices.

Related: The 6 Pillars of Online Reputation Management

With your Reputation Score, you can not only gauge customer sentiment, but also the precise factors that are currently influencing it. With this information, you put yourself in a prime position to improve your online reputation even further by addressing the specific dimensions of online reputation that will make the most difference.

To learn more about Reputation Score and online reputation management, download our free ebook: Getting Started with Online Reputation Management today.