How to Check A Company's Online Reputation Easily and Quickly

With the digital world advancing and consumer knowledge growing, understanding a company's online reputation is more important than ever.

Learn how to quickly and easily evaluate a company's online presence to understand what customers are saying about them and their overall reach.

In this article, we will discuss how to check a company’s reputation without any hassle. Once you have adequate knowledge on the matter, you will be easily able to find out details like what clients think of the brand, what kind of social media presence the company has, and so on.

The Importance of a Positive Company Reputation

A company’s reputation tells a lot about the kind of business ethics they follow and how those are beneficial for you. Whether you are doing business with a company, hiring them for some work, or buying their products, it always serves well to do a background check on the company’s reputation.

While the traditional way of running a check is to speak with past clients who have done business with the specific company.

However, today there are several online websites that can easily provide you with all the information you require about a company’s reputation.

Check Social Media Channels.

Social media is one of the best ways to quickly and easily evaluate a company’s online presence. Start by checking out their official social media pages – this will give you an idea of the type of marketing they're doing, what content they share, and how engaging their customer base is. 

Take an even closer look by searching for related hashtags or searching for customer reviews on each platform. 

This will reveal candid opinions and experiences regarding the company's services and products that you may have otherwise missed.

Use Specific Reputation Management Tools.

Using specific online reputation management tools can be especially beneficial for companies looking to scale their evaluation process. 

From Google Alerts to Social Listening, there is a range of options that automate the monitoring process, analyzing customer reviews and metrics like social media engagement. 

Gaining insights from these tools can save you time, providing a broader view of your company's presence online.

Evaluate Third Party Statistics and Reports.

Third-party statistics and reports relay how the online community is perceiving a company’s brand. These resources include social media analytics, news articles, and highly ranked industry-relevant blogs. 

Assessing these resources in tandem provides more insight into the standing of a company than trying each individual resource separately. 

Collecting data from surveys and customer feedback can also be useful when evaluating your company’s reputation.

Check with the “V”

This is a quick and easy way to find out whether there are any records of lawsuits against the company you are planning on doing business with. All you have to do is run a web page search by typing “v company name” and if there are any existing records, they will come up in the format “Party A-vs-Party B”.

A lawsuit itself does not direct toward criminal activities but it will provide you access to information about the company’s reputation. It is essentially a reflection of how the company has conducted itself in the past.

Run a Whois Search

What is a Whois search? It is the official registration record of the company’s website and can give you a great deal of input regarding the company’s reputation. If the records mention no contact details or even the company’s address it might mean that the domain name has not been registered. 

Another likely cause is that the company might have kept the details hidden purposely to protect the identity of the domain name.

The question that should immediately pop up in your mind is why the company feels the need to hide such crucial information. You have to consider several possibilities like if the company is a scam or simply protecting the name due to legitimate reasons. 

These are things you will have to look into at great length.

Examine Online Reviews.

Don’t take a company's online presence at face value; delve deeper by using online reviews to assess its reputation. Online review platforms like TrustPilot, Yelp, and TripAdvisor allow customers to anonymously evaluate their experiences with a firm. 

As well as providing an objective measure of customer sentiment, these reviews may reveal insights into which processes the company excels at and which areas need improvement.

Search for reviews on Yelp

Remember how useful the yellow pages were when it came to finding information regarding anything and everything under the sun? Yelp is the online equivalent of that. It will provide you with reviews on the company you are searching for, which are written by real-life visitors.

The reviews might be a mixture of both negative and positive images of the company’s reputation. You have to keep in mind that extremely negative or positive reviews must be treated with some degree of suspicion. You must investigate the points made before you arrive at a conclusion. 

Overall, Yelp reviews are a great place to find out how reliable and trustworthy a company is.

Visit Better Business Bureau

If you are wondering how to check a company’s reputation, one of your first moves should be to check the Better Business Bureau website. They offer both national and state databases. All you have to do is put in the company’s name, contact number, address, and email id. Consider it a red flag if the firm does not pop up in the search lists. 

That can potentially mean that BBB has blocked the company due to certain unethical activities.

However, it may also be that the company never registered on the platform. This is a possibility so do not be quick to judge. Try through other sources to find out if the business is a scam.

Do They Respond to Negative Feedback?

Unsatisfied customers may take to social media or review sites to express their grievances. It is important to monitor customer feedback and respond promptly with an apology, solution, or pledge of better service in the future. Even negative customer experiences can provide valuable insights into deficiencies. 

Promptly responding to the customer can also change a negative perception into a positive one. Check if the company responds to negative feedback and tries to resolve issues with its customers. 

Final Thoughts

We realize what a big step it is to partner up with a company or buy their products/services. A thorough background check is necessary to formulate a cohesive understanding of the company’s reputation. The methods mentioned in this article are only a few quick and easy ways of finding out whether or not there is anything fishy about the business. 

We hope that it helps you figure out the reality of any particular company so that you can enter a long-term relationship with it without any worry.