Corporate Reputation Factors

Many factors can influence a company’s reputation.

This post was originally published on October 14, 2017.

As you can see from this video brief of the Harris Poll 2017 Reputation Quotient Ratings, many factors can influence a company’s reputation, including:

• Consistent excellent customer service,

• Vision and leadership within a market,

• Corporate scandal or wrongdoing,

• Even how companies react to cultural or political changes.

While automotive companies that have been forced to recall vehicles or were caught fraudulently reporting emissions have dropped in rankings and Wells Fargo suffered a historic drop due to its fake accounts scandal, we will likely see technology companies drop in next year’s rankings due to the use of their platforms to influence our political system by Russia.

The Harris Poll Reputation Quotient measures public perceptions across 20 attributes, classified into six dimensions of corporate reputation. Those six dimensions are:

1. Social Responsibility

2. Vision & Leadership

3. Financial Performance

4. Products & Services

5. Emotional Appeal

6. Workplace Environment

Industry Reputation Rankings

The technology industry continues to have the best reputation of any sector in the US, according to the latest annual Harris Poll Reputation Quotient (RQ). But a breakdown of the different facets of corporate reputation reveals that consumer products companies tend to outperform tech companies in the various individual factors involved.

Looking first at overall perceptions of corporate reputation, the report finds that technology leads once again, as it has for several years. Some 78% of general population respondents feel that the technology industry has a positive reputation, giving it a rating between 5 and 7 on a 7-point scale (where 7 is “very good”).

Trailing tech are retail (63%) and consumer products (61%), with automotive (56%) the only other industry to get a positive rating from a majority of respondents. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.