A Thorough Insight Into The Different Rating A Review Standards

Reviews are the first-hand experiences of customers of any organisation’s products and services. The different rating and review standards help analyse the good and the bad of any company's products or services. Literally, review means to reflect on the pros and cons of any experience or service.  

Reviews and ratings are a great way to help an organisation understand its flaws and work on them. The reviews help the customer make a valid purchase decision and also save them from fraudulent services. Reviews largely influence the trust that an organisation develops with its customers.

How is rating and review standards calculated?

Most of the review forums use 1-5 star rating system to calculate their reviews. Here’s what these stars from the review sites signify-

Positive Reviews - 3.5- 5 stars

Neutral - 3-3.5 stars

Negative Reviews - 1-3 stars

Also, listed down below are some factors based on which the review and ratings are calculated.

• The total number of reviews

If a large number of reviews are there, it means that the customers are interested in providing their experience with the product or the service

• The percentage of positive, negative and neutral reviews

This percentage is a major determinant of the ratings a company gets overall.

• The time of the posting of reviews

The maximum emphasis for calculating star rating is given on the current year and less on the ratings of the past years. This is because the performance of the company services or products may change over time, and the current performance should reflect on the scorecard.

• Upvotes and downvotes to a review

Every upvote and downvote of a review is important as it correctly assesses the validity of the review posted.

Explanation of rating and review standards and how to calculate it

If there are 478 reviews out of which there are

5 star - 252

4 star - 124

3 star - 40

2 star - 29

1 star - 33

Then the average ratings would be

(5x252 + 4x124 + 3x40 + 2x29 + 1x33) / (252+124+40+29+33) = 4.11

But as more emphasis is put on recent reviews and also the upvotes and downvotes to any review posted are taken into account, the average ratings may differ.

Some companies make a review null and void if three downvotes are there to a posted review. This varies from company to company and the algorithms they employ in calculating also varies.

Google’s Business rating

Google’s business rating is not just the average of all the ratings of the customer reviews but includes a number of other signals. Google uses an algorithm which resembles more like finding a Bayesian average of the review ratings.

Parting thoughts, The companies or services, in order to serve their customer well, must cater to the reviews on different review platforms. If review resolution is taken as a primary task by the customer service, the company can easily change the perception of the consumers on the products and services over a period of time.