All You Need to Know About Rating Algorithms of smart.reviews

There is no doubt that online reviews are a major contribution to a firm’s reputation. The reviews usually get the first rows in the online search engines. How the influencing numbers are calculated, and what you need to know about rating algorithms? Read to find out!

Bad reviews can damage sales, especially during an era of shifting to online shopping. Famous online ratings providers are obsolete and don’t paint the clear picture- was the customer’s review about the quality, the long delivery times, or about customer support?

How It Was Done Before?

Almost every rating platform, be it movie reviews, products or restaurants uses the Bayesian Average. This average takes into account more than just the ratings for a particular business. Instead, it takes into account the pre-existing information. This means that if the business (or a movie) has very few ratings, the methodology balances the low number of reviews and substitutes with the average for the industry. The competing reviews services also privileges the most recent reviews.

That is it. At the first glance, it might look sufficient in order to review the business. However, when you think about real-life situations, you will understand that this completely distorts the picture. Take, for example, customers who encountered a rude waiter in the restaurant. The one start rating will probably appear on the restaurant’s reviewing page soon. The overall rating will decrease, despite an excellent cuisine at the restaurant.

Tagging

The potential customer, on the other hand, wants to know about the quality of the food served in that particular restaurant and finds the review about the staff irrelevant. There are plenty of similar examples. The negative feedback about the unwelcoming waiter of course is essential. However, modern technology is capable of guessing the category the potential customer wants to read about. With smart.reviews the reviewer has an option to choose among several tags the topic of their testimonial, so the potential customer can quickly filter the desired feedback.

When the reviews websites are getting in search engines above the actual business’s websites, this is very risky to keep the status quo. Smart.reviews have been created equally with businesses and customers in mind. With a mission to remove the threat posed by unreliable reviews tactics. Smart.reviews have developed its own rating algorithm. It aims to provide clear and honest picture to potential customers who read reviews and a tool for businesses to manage their reputation properly.

Proprietary Algorithm

Very often businesses come across a situation when the overall rating is different from the average of their individual reviews. Why does this happen?

The rating algorithm of smart.reviews is a little more sophisticated than the online reviews industry is has ever seen. We have built our proprietary rating algorithm on four pillars- the review, social, featured, and technical criteria. We can’t disclose the details and how much weight is allocated to each criterion, but we can give you a sneak peek at what we are looking at.

The Pillars

The part which is similar to the existing services is “the review” pillar- where customer’s feedback is taken into account. This also depends on the number of verified reviews (NB. The algorithm deletes fake reviews automatically). The user testimonial is monumental to any reviews platform. However, this is not the only variable that can tell the potential customer state of affair in the particular company.

The “social pillar” like presence in social networks, activity, followers, generating content on platforms like YouTube are an important indicator of the business’s existence, proactivity, and a sign the business is actively interacting with users.

The third pillar- “featured” goes hand in hand with digital marketing and analyses the backlinks and rates them according to their authority and popularity. The more there are backlinks from reputable sources, the better.

The fourth is the “technical” criteria to analyze everything there is to do with the technical characteristics of the website and domain.

Finally, the most recent reviews are getting priority over the old ones. The algorithm works in such a way that it is trying to portray the current situation. This is intuitive, as for example, once the company has just opened, it might have experienced problems in getting up to speed with the orders. Or the business fired the unprofessional customer support manager and hired a more customer-oriented person instread. The reviews are better now! This means that there is hope for businesses if their rating is low. Do your homework, fix the mistakes and the happy customer will drive your score up, by leaving satisfied online reviews.

How Can a Business Improve Its Rating?

Smart.reviews is based on a revolutionary rating algorithm allowing us to distinguish the reviews into categories (tagging) and rate businesses according to many other factors described above. Sometimes businesses come across a lower rating than they have anticipated. Selling a good product and providing superior customer support is key. However, there are other intuitive ways to improve it too.

One of the first steps in the “to-do list” for managing a reputation is to claim your business profile on smart.reviews. This will let you interact with reviewers, leave replies, and suggest a problem-solving plan of action. Don’t worry if you have come across a very negative online review. There are various studies suggesting that the unhappy customers, who have been given solutions to their problems are the ones who later become the most loyal customers.

Also, it is vital to have a presence in social media for modern times and is considered a must for the modern generation. This is no longer an option, only for youth-oriented businesses but is applicable to all generational cohorts. Also, having backlinks on reputable sources means your business is legitimate and the products you sell get attention.

Communication is a Key

Overall, it is important to understand that any review- negative or positive is a way for customers to communicate back in the online space. Good feedback is great for increasing your sales. While negative feedback allows businesses to improve their product offering, service, or spot the problems that otherwise would go unnoticed. Getting a view from outside of the business is very valuable and allows companies to perfect themselves.

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