Rate a company: Reviews Category – Glassdoor

Опубликовано: May 24, 2020 в 11:12 am

Автор: alexxlab

Категории: Miscellaneous

Top IT Companies and Service Providers: Reviews, Ratings of Tech Firms (2022)

Top IT Services Companies in 2022

Out extensive catalog with top IT service companies in the world will help you find reliable partners and discover promising IT companies that are able to offer quality online services for various business spheres.

At iTRate, we never stop researching and exploring the market to find quality data and reliable service providers. On our website, you can find insights, technology news, and precise IT company ratings from reputable resources.

As ITRate grows, we focus on providing valuable information in more categories, adding more reliable IT service providers, and sharing information about the best IT companies in the world, new business improvement techniques, and tech service firms with our readers.

iTRate has dozens of IT directories with evidence-based guides, company comparisons & reviews, as well as other quality content for whatever project you may have. Explore our website to make a well-balanced decision and hire top IT services companies that best fit your business goals. iTRate will help you grow your business and stay up to date with the latest trends. Check our reviews and find the best IT services company on iTRate.co!

What you will find in our catalog

Digital Marketing

Emerging digital marketing trends are rapidly obscuring traditional advertising. And the number of IT companies is increasing every month. The more channels used to attract potential customers, the stronger the effect.

Digital marketing includes almost all types of Internet promotion: SEO, PPC, SMM, B2B Marketing, Email Marketing, Content Marketing, etc. Digital advertising, in its turn, represents all the ways of paid promotion that you see on the Web.

You can order online marketing services and solutions from a digital marketing agency. Such companies have teams of specialists and provide any kind of online promotion services, from implementing targeted campaigns to developing full-fledged strategies.

ITRate has a list of IT business companies that can help your project succeed and grow fast. Choose the best option from the top IT service companies in the world. We have plenty of tech company reviews and industry-leading digital marketing companies with great solutions for every business!

Web Design

Web design is about balancing beauty, logic, and features. A web designer has to make a project beautiful, but there’s so much more to it than that. First and foremost, a professional designer is a planner and an analyst who creates simple and understandable solutions based on user behavior analysis.

The word “design” now means not how a firm’s website looks but rather how it works and how easy it is for users to reach their goal. Creativity and art in design have been relegated to the back burner. For business tasks, a web designer works to attract the visitors’ attention, deliver the information they want, and increase engagement.

ITRate can help you find the best IT companies for quality web design. We have a list of top IT services companies with professional designers ready to take on your project. Choose a provider from the list below and hire reliable experts that will build a unique and efficient website for your business!

IT Consulting, SI & Managed Services

IT consulting is the creation and launching of innovative solutions for a business, as well as determining the necessary level of technical support. Before starting a project to implement IT solutions, you have to determine which tasks are to be solved: brand awareness increase and promotion, marketing campaigns for effective product/service promotion, sales channel setup, or business process automation. In each case, IT consulting and IT service providers will be required.

The best IT consulting companies, which also provide SI and managed services, are waiting for you on itrate. Reliable companies on the list below have experienced IT consultants that will save your business years and hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars, suggest successful solutions, and quickly improve your company’s performance.

When choosing a consultant company, we considered its ratings on reputable reviewing and rating websites. We have also explored feedback from previous customers, other IT services companies, and asked for exclusive opinions from our business partners. This is why we can proudly tell you that we have chosen top IT companies, i.e. the most proactive and psychologically comfortable professionals with rich experience.

Custom Software Development

If you are searching for the best contractor in the custom software development sphere, you’ve come to the right place. We have a constantly growing list of the best players on the market! The firms below provide top custom software developers that will definitely satisfy even the most demanding customer. We can assure you that these tech service companies will surprise you with a rich list of software development services and additional features.

Customized software solutions are designed to make your business genuinely effective and allow you to run it smoothly. If you choose the right software development firm, you will be able to stand out among your competitors and run your business smoothly and effectively, just how you want to run it.

We all know that today, trusting a random company is risky, and far not all of them provide high-quality software products and top services. However, the companies from the list below have experienced software developers that continuously develop their skills and stay up to date with new technologies. They are never tired of learning new programming languages and exploring new horizons to provide the best solutions for customers all over the world. Go ahead and pick a company that best fits your business software needs and budget today!

Artificial Intelligence Development

The use of artificial intelligence is gradually becoming a necessity in all sectors of business. The only question is who will implement modern technologies first and get fast results, and who will struggle to catch up to remain in the market. ITRate invites you to make the right decision and hire the best AI development company for your business.

Whatever project you may have that’s related to machine learning (ML) or data learning (DL), we can offer the best firms that are well aware of the latest trends in the AI sphere. We have chosen the companies below based on customer IT company reviews, online IT company ratings, and customer support. Now you can feel free to choose the best one that will take your business to the next level!

Web Development

The main goal of a web development company is to create an application or website that will provide you with the opportunity to develop your business using modern technology and the experience of web development professionals. Such companies usually offer handy administration tools, simplicity, and automation. Everything so that you can focus only on what’s important: attracting new customers and increasing sales.

The experts from the companies on our list below develop web pages, online stores, corporate sites, services, catalog sites, IT company directories, and others. We have carefully selected the best representatives from different branches of the IT industry so that you can find the best contractor for your business. With these web development companies, in addition to website building, you can also order revision, correction, or improvement of your existing site. Decide on your perfect company with itRate and order an application or “turnkey” website development today!

IoT Development

The Internet of Things is a network that includes all objects around us, from household appliances to industrial machines. The main task of the IoT is to make human life comfortable and safe. The Internet of Things accompanies all user actions and is result-oriented. In the future, most cities will become “SMART.” Namely, 600 cities by 2025. Two-thirds of global GDP will be produced in these cities.

New technology allows businesses to become more competitive: reduce costs, conserve resources, and save on maintenance and service. The companies on the list below are proven vendors that offer quality services in the IoT sphere. These technologies will benefit every modern business, from small to large. Businesses that have already started to adopt new technology will reach a new level of development. The rest will have to adapt later or exit the market.

With ITRate, you can keep up with the pace and hire the best IoT development company for your business today!

Mobile App Development

Choosing the best mobile app developer for your next project can be challenging. Especially, when you have to choose from hundreds of different companies. And if you’re on a low budget, you may simply not be able to afford to assess every app development firm available on the market. So what do you do?

No worries! ITRate has your back covered! We’re here to help you find the best mobile app development company that will make an absolutely fabulous and unique app. Such an app will not only meet your business requirements but will also make you stand out among your competitors.

Check our top mobile application development companies below. You can also use filters for an even more accurate search and a better hiring decision!

Blockchain

Blockchain is a technology that allows transactions between equal members of a single network (a P2P network). Transactions of this type imply that each member of the network can conduct a transaction directly with any other member of the network without involving a third-party intermediary.

Blockchain is effective in those systems where authorship of any action and reliable data synchronization are important. These are banks, traditional exchanges, logistics, notaries, certification centers, insurance companies, business rating agencies, contests, and lotteries.

Blockchain technology protects data from tampering, whether it’s election results, winning a lottery, apartment ownership, or an insurance claim. Blockchain also lays the foundation for a robot economy. Thus, you can directly pay for a ride in an unmanned cab, and the money will be spent on a routine maintenance checkup.

If you are looking for a reliable blockchain development company with experienced developers, you’re in the right place! IT Rate has a list of the leading firms in the IoT development industry. We recommend you check the list of companies below and find the best contractor for your business idea.

Improve Your Online Presence!

If you’re in B2B, you can submit your company information to it Rate and take an honorable place among the leaders of the industry in our IT business directories. This will help you build your online presence and get noticed fast. Simply fill out the form and we will add your company to our business listing directory!

32 Customer Review Sites for Collecting Business & Product Reviews

We (and the rest of the internet for the past decade) have already spent some time convincing you of the importance of acquiring online customer reviews for your business. (Did you know that in a recent HubSpot Research survey, 1/3 of respondents said review sites played an important role in their purchasing decision-making process?)

But if you’re new to customer reviews or not sure where to find them, let’s brush up on some basics and highlight why they’re relevant for your business.

In a bit of a time crunch? Use the jump links below to navigate to the exact content you’re looking for.

Customer Reviews & Their Benefits
Best Customer and Product Review Sites
Customer Review Sites for B2C Companies
Customer Review Sites for B2B Companies
Customer Review Sites for Both B2B & B2C Companies
Other Places for Consumer Reviews

Customer Reviews

Customer reviews are pieces of feedback given to a business based on a customer’s experience with the organization. These reviews can be public or private and are collected by either the company or third-party review sites. By obtaining and analyzing customer reviews, businesses can measure customer satisfaction and improve their customer relations.

Benefits of Customer Reviews

There are two major reasons why customer reviews are important.

1. Customer reviews are a learning opportunity for your business.

Negative or neutral reviews provide your company with an opportunity to learn and develop. You can see exactly where your business is failing to meet customer needs and remove common roadblocks in the customer journey.

For particularly poor reviews, reps can follow up with these customers and prevent potential churn. They can highlight specific pain points and craft personalized responses geared to specific problems. This makes your customer service team appear more invested in your customers’ goals, which results in fewer negative reviews and increased customer retention.

2. Customer reviews are marketing and sales tools for your business.

The other major reason for obtaining reviews is the opportunity to share them with potential customers. Positive reviews can be used as customer testimonials during lead acquisition and can help you add more contacts to your CRM. In fact, 91% of consumers read at least one review before purchasing a product. So, don’t just pat yourself on the back the next time you get a five-star review; Make sure everyone knows how good a job your company is doing.

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With that in mind, it’s not safe to assume we all know where to track down those positive customer reviews. I mean, we might all be able to rattle off one or two sites (“Yelp! And I think you can get them to show up in Google Maps, too?”), but we don’t exactly have a laundry list of options at our disposal

Check out our list of the best product review websites for B2B and B2C companies. Keep in mind that every industry has niche sites, too. For instance, those in the restaurant industry may want to be on UrbanSpoon or OpenTable. This blog post won’t get into sites that are specific to one industry, but it will provide review sites that apply to businesses in almost any industry.

Customer Review Sites for B2C Companies

1.

Amazon Customer Reviews

Amazon was one of the first online stores to allow consumers to post reviews of products in 1995, and it remains one of the most important resources for consumers looking to make informed purchase decisions. Even if people can and do buy a product elsewhere, if it’s sold on Amazon.com — unless it’s gasoline or drug paraphernalia, that is — then many people will look up its Amazon review before they decide to buy.

What’s going to separate your product from one that looks just like it? Those shiny gold stars and good customer reviews. Products are rated on a five-star rating scale, which is broken down by the percentage of reviews per star, followed by most helpful customer reviews and most recent customer reviews.

Benefits of Amazon Customer Reviews:

Amazon has over 300 million users who can see your review.
Amazon’s rating system is straightforward and easy to understand.
Amazon offers a product ranking feature that rates your product’s popularity.
Amazon users are loyal — 22% won’t look at competitors if they discovered the product on Amazon.

2. Angie’s List

Geared toward U.S.-based service businesses, Angie’s List is a “higher-end” review site, because users actually have to pay for membership. But you get what you pay for. The reviews, given on an A–F scale, are typically very well-thought-out — not a lot of that ranting and raving that’s more common on free review sites. The reviews can’t be anonymous, which helps cut down on fake or misrepresentative reviews, and companies are allowed to respond to the reviews posted about them, too.

It’s free to set up a page for your company. Once you have yours, encourage your customers who are on Angie’s List to leave reviews there — members are the only ones allowed to do it!

Benefits of Angie’s List:

Reviews on Angie’s List are typically of high-quality since users need to pay to use the site and can’t post anonymously.
Even though this is a paid subscription service, it’s free to list your company on Angie’s List.
If a customer has a bad experience with a recommended provider, Angie’s List will work with both the customer and the company to resolve the issue.

3. Choice

Have customers working in academia? Better yet, are they located in Australia? Choice is a member-funded review website based in Australia. It independently evaluates academic resources — like libraries — and provides detailed reviews to its members.

The bulk of its work involves reading academic writing, creating comparisons for each resource, and writing buying guides for customers. In addition, it allow members to rate and discuss specific resources and libraries with other Choice members. If you have customers in Australia, we recommend encouraging those who are on CHOICE to leave reviews there.

Benefits of Choice:

Choice posts over 200,000 reviews each year and serves about 2,400 institutions worldwide.
Since Choice evaluates academic resources independently, its reviews are unbiased.
Choice offers a “Review of the Day” feature that reviews one academic resource per day. You can read it even if you are not a Choice member.
Choice has a “Choice Picks” page where you can see the best products that it recommends.

4. Trustpilot

Trustpilot is a fast-growing, community-driven consumer review platform based in Denmark, although it has expanded out of Europe into 65 countries, including the U.S. The platform for businesses helps companies from all over the world proactively collect customer reviews. It’s the customers who write both product and seller reviews, keeping it third-party verified.

While there is a basic version for free (this lets you create a profile page and collect customer reviews), the paid versions let you create customizable review invitations, share ratings and reviews on social media, and link review data to your internal business systems.

Benefits of Trustpilot:

Over 500,000 websites are rated on Trustpilot.
Trustpilot uses its own review system to rate its website. Based on about 136,000 reviews, Trustpilot is rated four stars out of five.
Trustpilot has advanced SEO features that help your website rank higher on SERPs when customers leave reviews for your company.
Trustpilot can be integrated with Shopify, Magento, and MailChimp.

5. TestFreaks

Similar to TrustPilot, the Swedish-based TestFreaks helps companies proactively collect customer reviews and write seller reviews to complement them.

Another cool addition? Its question and answer feature, which lets prospective customers post questions and receive answers directly from your customer service team.

Benefits of TestFreaks:

TestFreaks has 100 million crawled reviews from over 15,000 sources.
TestFreaks provides a content moderation team that analyzes content in over 20 languages.
TestFreaks has an import feature where you can upload external customer reviews into its website.

6. Which?

Which? is an independent consumer review organization that tests and reviews products and then writes about them. Unlike Angie’s List, it’s the folks at Which? who write the reviews — not the customers. They don’t accept submissions for product testing or survey inclusion, but they do encourage people to let them know about their products and services by emailing [email protected].

While this leaves less room for you to influence whether your products end up on their site, it’s still worth knowing about and checking in on this popular site, especially if you have customers in the U.K. The website has product reviews for everything from dishwashers and tablets to cars and credit cards. It tests and reviews all these products, and then writes about both its methodologies and results. It also surveys customers for things like the best and worst firms for customer service.

A lot of its content is free, but customers can become members for £10. 75 per month to get access to a “Best Buys” and “Don’t Buy” list, the latest reviews of products from its test labs, and access to its consumer legal advice service.

Benefits of Which?:

Which? offers more than 8,000 free reviews.
Which? tests and reviews more than 3,600 new products every year.
To prove that it’s impartial, Which? provides a video that shows users how it tests and reviews each product.
Which? is 100% independent. It doesn’t accept freebies from product manufactures or retailers so its reviews remain unbiased.
Which? offers a “Safety Alert” feature that notifies users when a product is deemed unsafe. There’s also a “Brand Alert” feature that lets you know if a brand has a history of creating unsafe products.

7. Consumer Reports

A nonprofit organization, Consumer Reports is an independent product-testing organization that runs unbiased tests to rate and recommend products. It has reviewed over 7.7 million products, accept no advertising, and pay for all products that it tests. (Fun fact: The company buys and tests 80 cars each year!) This is about as legitimate as it gets. As such, there’s not much you can do here “except” if you sell a product, make sure it’s really, really good.

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If nothing else, you could take this website as a lesson in excellent content creation. For each product it reviews, it provides the review criteria, product overviews, a buying guide, and social sharing buttons. It’s all quite comprehensive and, well, helpful. Pretty much the key to great content, am I right?

Benefits of Consumer Reports:

Consumer Reports has over 63 testing facilities — including its 327-acre auto test center.
Consumer Reports has spent over $30 million on testing and rating products.
The company plans to test more than 8,500 new products in 2021.
There are over eight product categories to choose from — each having several subcategories within them.
Consumer Reports provides an overall score for each product, so you know exactly how it compares to other products in its category.

8. Consumer Affairs

Consumer Affairs is a for-profit organization that reviews companies using an “overall satisfaction rating.” This average is scored on a one to five-star scale that’s updated every time a new review is submitted. Each company’s page provides a list of all its reviews, which includes the consumer’s star rating as well as a short explanation for its score.

Consumer Affairs also allows users to submit review recordings, which are two-minute videos where people talk about their experience with a brand. This makes the review much more compelling because you can actually see the person talk and express their genuine feelings about the company.

Benefits of Consumer Affairs:

Consumer Affairs offers a “trending” section where you can view its lastest and most popular reviews.
Consumer Affairs provides a demo for brands looking to buy a subscription to its service.
The “Review Feed” feature allows you to research all of your customer reviews in one, scrolling feed.
Consumer Affairs has a “Video Review” option where customers can record themselves giving a review.

9. TripAdvisor

If you’re in the travel, hotel, airline, entertainment, or restaurant industries, you’ll want to check out the reviews on the popular website, TripAdvisor. As the largest travel site in the world, it has over 225 million reviews, opinions, and photos taken by travelers. It also has some awesome content on low airfares, travel guides, rental listings, and advice forums for pretty much every location in the world you could possibly imagine. A lot of people look there before booking a trip.

The key to a successful profile on TripAdvisor is making it as close to the top of the popularity index as possible, so that people searching for information in a specific place see your listing. According to TripAdvisor, the popularity ranking algorithm is based on three key components: quantity, quality, and recency of reviews. Here’s an excerpt of the advice they give businesses looking to improve their ranking:

“Quantity: Ask your guests to write reviews, and use our management center tools to remind them after they check out. Offering incentives for reviews is against the rules, though — take a look at our policy to make sure you understand what is and isn’t okay.

Quality: Guests who enjoyed first class hospitality and a memorable experience are more likely to write positive reviews. Monitor what previous reviewers have written to see what worked and did not work best for your property so you can maintain and improve your service.

Recency: Recent reviews factor more strongly on your popularity rankings and older reviews have less impact on a hotel’s ranking over time. Once again, encourage guests to write reviews to keep fresh content rolling in. “

Benefits of TripAdvisor:

TripAdvisor has collected over 887 million reviews for eight million companies.
TripAdvisor Plus gives you access to discount hotel pricing for over 100,000 locations.
The average TripAdvisor Plus member saves about $350 the first time they use their membership.
TripAdvisor Business Advantage showcases your company’s best reviews so customers see them first when reviewing your profile.

10. Yelp

Yelp is a free review site that lets consumers rate businesses on a five-star scale. Any business can set up a profile on Yelp for free, and users can set up their own free profiles to review a business. You’re free to respond to reviewers, too, but we recommend taking a balanced and polite approach to any negative reviews you receive, as Yelpers are in a pretty tight-knit community.

Yelp has also come under fire over the past few years for some slightly shady practices, like incentivizing businesses to advertise with them in exchange for gaming the search results for their business (“Pay us money and we’ll push bad reviews down!”). Savvier consumers have learned to look at Yelp reviews as a whole and with the reviewer’s clout in mind, instead of getting turned off by a business because of one bad listing.

That being said, it’s still to your benefit to get a constant stream of positive online reviews coming to your business’ Yelp account so happy customers are always at the top of your review feed — especially if you’re a location-based business. Yelp profile information contains things like store hours and location information, so your profile will often turn up when people Google your business.

Benefits of Yelp:

Yelp has roughly 184 million monthly users worldwide.
Anyone can sign up for Yelp and it’s fairly easy for customers to leave a review — making it a good source of customer feedback.
Yelp users are a tight-knit community. Active users will provide a lot of detailed feedback for your business.
Research shows an increase of one star in your Yelp rating can increase revenue by 5-9%.

11. Citysearch

Citysearch has all of the functionality as the other review sites in this category, but what makes it unique is its “best of” winners that you can search for in each city. For example, if you’re a french fry lover like myself, you can search for “the best french fries in Boston,” and Citysearch will give you a list of restaurants with excellent fries.

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Benefits of Citysearch:

Citysearch uses a bi-modal, thumbs up/thumbs down rating system. This is calculated based on the percentage of users/scouts that have recommended the business.
Cityseach has over 20 categories to browse through. Each one shows results filtered to the location that you specify.
Users can write only one review per business. This prevents fake or unfair reviews and keeps ratings accurate.

12. Google My Business

You know those reviews that show up when you search Google for a business? Yeah, those things are on this list in a big way.

Google’s Pigeon algorithm update uses distance and location ranking parameters to deliver improved local search results. So, in order for your business’ website to be properly optimized for search, you’ll want to set up verified accounts with local directories — especially Google’s, called “Google My Business.” Getting reviews, comments, pictures, and so on, especially on Google, can give you a boost in search. Only verified local Google+ pages can respond to reviews.

An added bonus? Google Maps pulls that information and those reviews into the app, so having a lot of content in there will make your business look more reputable.

Benefits of Google My Business:

Google is the world’s largest search engine and controls over 90% of the search engine marketshare.
Google can localize your review search, meaning it will only show results for businesses located in the area that you searched.
It’s free to create and customize your Google Business Profile. Setting up only takes a few minutes.
Nearly 10% of Google’s search algorithm is influenced by Google Reviews. The more positive reviews that you have, the higher your business will rank on SERPs.

13. Yahoo! Localworks

Similar to Google My Business reviews, Yahoo! Local reviews let users post reviews of businesses with a five-star rating system. Here’s what the results might look like:

According to Statista, Yahoo! still receives about 3% of search engine share. So while you might not want to invest time figuring out the intricacies of Yahoo!’s algorithm, obtaining some favorable reviews on the Yahoo! Localworks sure couldn’t hurt for that 3%.

Benefits of Yahoo! Local Listings:

Yahoo! Localworks integrates other popular review sites into your business profile. That way, you can see all of your customer reviews in one place rather than having to log into separate accounts.
When you update your business information in Localworks, it updates your company profile on all of the customer review sites that you have linked to your account.
Yahoo! Localworks triggers a notification every time a customer leaves a review, making it easier to respond quicker to negative reviews.

14. Influenster

If you sell consumer products, Influenster is a review site you’ll want to make sure you’ve covered.

Influenster features customer reviews and news about consumer products — primarily skincare, beauty, makeup, hair, and other health and body products. Visitors can search the site by brand name or by a specific product they’re looking for, and Influenster links to websites where visitors can buy the products.

The reviews are comprehensive and feature lots of detail and images to accompany them. So if you’re in the beauty business, consider directing your shoppers to review your products on Influenster to help attract new customers, too.

Benefits of Influenster:

There are over six million users who are actively leaving reviews on Influenster.
Influenster users have left over 50 million organic reviews on the website.
Influenster sends its users “VoxBoxes” where they can test out new products for free.
Influenster helps businesses create “sampling campaigns” where you send users a sample of your product then follow up afterwards to sell them the complete version.

Review Websites for B2B Companies

15. HubSpot’s App Marketplace

HubSpot’s App Marketplace is a space where businesses can browse through extensions, tools, and apps that connect to their HubSpot account. Some apps are built by HubSpot, while others were designed by partners and third-party organizations. Offering all of these tools in one place makes it easier for HubSpot users to add new features to their accounts that may not be included with their subscription.

The nice part about this customer review site is that it’s categorized based on the product you’re looking to install. There’s individual sections for Marketing, Sales, and Service tools, as well as other sections like finance, workflow integrations, popular apps, and more.

Reviews are rated on a five-star scale and customers have to answer questions like, “What did you like about this product? What did you dislike about it?” and “What problem did this product solve?” These questions provide more context into the review so you know exactly why a customer rated a business or product the way they did.

Benefits of HubSpot App Marketplace:

There are more than 500 apps featured in HubSpot’s App Marketplace.
Product pages not only list reviews, but also pricing info, notable features, and account requirements for downloading each tool.
Customers have the option to upvote reviews that they find helpful.
The reviews on this site provide “quality ratings” for features like ease of use, functionality, purchase value, and customer support.

16. FinancesOnline

FinancesOnline is one of the fastest-growing platforms for B2B & SaaS software reviews, with more than 2,800,000 visitors every month.

It gathers thousands of user reviews every month, with each reviewer authenticated via LinkedIn to ensure only actual users share their experience with the community. User reviews are based on detailed surveys, which offer a really in-depth look at each tool. Algorithmic analysis is also a foundation for quarterly reports in the most popular categories.

To balance the user perspectives, each review also includes a detailed analysis prepared by the internal team of B2B software experts, who analyze key usability factors such as features, integrations, mobile support, etc. This evaluation is then combined into the unique SmartScore™ system, which gives readers an easy reference on what the experts’ community thinks about each business solution.

As an added bonus, the product pages rank high in Google, so getting a few positive user reviews on their site could be beneficial for your brand recognition.

Benefits of FinancesOnline:

FinancesOnline has roughly three million visitors to its site every month and over ten thousand detailed company reviews.
The SmartScore system grades products on several factors including functionality, collaboration features, customization, ease of use, and more.
FinancesOnline uses a customer satisfaction algorithm that calculates an overall score for a business based on reviews, comments, and opinions that are posted on various social media channels.
The “Verified Quality Seal” let’s users know that a business or product is reliable and trustworthy.

17. Compare Camp

Compare Camp is a B2B review site that deals primarily with business software. If you’re looking to introduce a new tool or system to your company, Compare Camp can help you pinpoint the exact software that’s right for you. Not only does this site show you how other people feel about a specific product, but it also lays out the key benefits of the product as well as any new trends that may be occurring in that particular industry.

When you first navigate to the site, Compare Camp provides you with a list of software categories to choose from. After you select a section, it gives you a description of the category along with a detailed list of product and company options. Compare Camp also explains any varying types of products within that section as well as the top features you should look for when buying that software. It’s a very handy guide to have especially when you’re considering a product that you haven’t purchased before.

Benefits of Compare Camp:

Over 100,000 companies use Compare Camp every month.
There are over 25 product categories to choose from, including CRM Software, Sales Software, eCommerce Software, and more.
Each category provides a “Top 10” list of the best software available in that section.
If you’re not familiar with a product, each category provides a brief description of what the software is and why you might want it.

18. G2 Crowd

If your business sells software, you’ll want to be sure you have a presence on G2 Crowd. Every month, more than 5 million people looking to buy software read the 1+ million user reviews on this website so they can make better purchasing decisions.

G2 Crowd operates kind of like Yelp, but in a specific niche. Companies are reviewed on a five-star scale, and reviews cover everything from setup and ease of use to security and support. Reviewers answer questions like “What do you like best?”; “What do you dislike?”‘; and “Recommendations to others considered the product.” Also, you can upvote and downvote others’ reviews.

Benefits of G2 Crowd:

There are nearly 1.4 million reviews featured on G2 Crowd.
G2 Crowd offers a video review option where users can record themselves leaving a review.
When a customer leaves a review, you can see whether the customer is a verified user and how active they are on the platform.
G2 Crowd allows businesses to request reviews from customers. This helps you build a pool of customer reviews for your company.

19. TrustRadius

Like G2 Crowd, TrustRadius is an online review site for software businesses. Reviewers on the site are authenticated via LinkedIn to make sure they’re users (although the reviews themselves can still be anonymous), which allows users to see what their LinkedIn connections are saying about particular pieces of software on TrustRadius. This adds a layer of trust for someone reading the site.

You can use the site to browse reviews of individual companies, or compare two companies side-by-side to compare their five-star ratings, screenshots of their products, pricing details, and user comments from reviewers.

In addition to the company reviews, TrustRadius has put together a whole bunch of buyer guides for categories including talent management software, business intelligence software, core HR software, social media, and A/B testing to help people find the right product for them based on hundreds of reviews and user ratings.

Benefits of TrustRadius:

There are over 300,000 customer reviews posted on TrustRadius.
TrustRadius does not sell leads or ad placement. This keeps reviews unbiased and vendors can’t skew results.
TrustRadius reviews are more in-depth. On average, each review has more than 400 words.
Each customer review is vetted by TrustRadius’ research team and is evaluated for quality, depth, and detail.

20. GoodFirms

GoodFirms is a B2B research and review platform that focuses on connecting service seekers with the right software and service providers.

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GoodFirms analyzes the top-performing companies and software solutions based on three important pieces of criteria: Quality, Reliability, and Ability. These metrics are further segmented into authentic feedback by customers, a portfolio of the company, its market penetration, years of experience, and serviceability. The companies are then ranked based on their cumulative research scores. GoodFirms offers quick filters to sort the service providers by their hourly rate, location, and number of employees.

Benefits of GoodFirms:

GoodFirms has over 30,000 customer reviews and 60,000 business profiles on its website.
GoodFirms offers a discussion platform where customers can form an online community and talk about specific products and brands.
GoodFirms provides over one thousand unique case studies that outline new trends and technology emerging in your industry.
When searching for a specific company or product, customer reviews can be filtered by device, location, and industry.

21. Salesforce AppExchange

Have an app on the Salesforce AppExchange? Then you’ll want to keep track of your app’s ratings and reviews there.

Reviews are based on a five-star rating system, and each app has reviews listed with the most helpful positive review and most helpful negative reviews first, followed by all reviews, from which users can filter by rating, date, and helpfulness. This customer review site has embraced transparency, letting users access thousands of reviews and see the number of downloads with just a few clicks.

Benefits of Salesforce AppExchange:

There are over five thousand products that are listed in Salesforce AppExchange.
This site features a live chat option where you can speak with someone if you have questions about a business, product, or review.
Users in Salesforce AppExchange can comment, like, and report other customer reviews.

Customer Review Sites for Both B2B & B2C Companies

22.

Better Business Bureau

A nonprofit site, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) evaluates all types of businesses against a set of best practices for how businesses should treat the public. It doesn’t directly recommend or endorse any businesses, products, or services; it simply provides the public with information about businesses, and whether they have met the BBB’s accreditation standards. It will also review both accredited and non-accredited businesses.

A business’ profile listing on the BBB contains general overview information, like a short company bio and the company’s accreditation status, a history of any complaints made about the business and whether they were resolved, customer reviews, and the BBB’s A – F rating of the business.

Benefits of the Better Business Bureau:

There are more than 5.4 million business profiles listed on the Better Business Bureau.
As a government-sponsored organization, you can trust that its reviews are unbiased.
Attaining your BBB accreditation shows that your business is reliable and trustworthy.
Last year in the United States, BBB reviews were accessed more than 120 million times.
85% of consumers prefer to do business with a company that is BBB accredited.

23. Glassdoor

Glassdoor is an employee review site that helps anyone — from prospective employees to prospective customers to investors — get an idea of what a company is really like from the inside. In other words, it helps measure the more qualitative factors of things like valuation.

Employees can share what it’s like to interview and work at their companies, and the site shows visitors which companies are rated highest by their employees. Many employers use it to build their employment brand so they can target and recruit candidates, but you can also use the reviews to share ideas internally for improvement among your management team.

Creating an employer account is free, and it’s easy to track and respond to reviews. For example, you can set up alerts so you get an email each time a new review is posted so you can acknowledge and respond to each one.

Benefits of Glassdoor:

There are about 90 million reviews, salaries, and insights listed on Glassdoor.
Over 60 million people use Glassdoor every month to research a company or provider.
Reviews are left by employees who have experience working with that company.
When a company responds to a review, it shows you the name of the employee as well as their job title.

24. Manta

Manta is a customer review site that primarily features small- to medium-sized businesses. Rather than displaying the top customer reviews right away, Manta organizes search results based on the relevance of your keyword. Then it displays the list of companies with their contact information, so users can quickly connect with a business.

Manta is different than most review sites because it focuses more on connecting people than it does on reviewing products and services. To find customer reviews, you need to select a business, go to their individual listing page, and scroll past their features and products before seeing a review. That way, customers use the reviews as one of the final selling points for purchasing a product or service.

On Manta, the goal is to rank your business as high as possible for each relevant keyword that users can search. So long as your company is in the top search results, you’ll have a higher chance of connecting with leads using this site.

Benefits of Manta:

Manta has data on 35 million businesses spanning across 149 countries.
Every month, Manta adds 14,000 new listings to its website.
It’s easy to leave reviews on Manta. You just fill out a star rating and write a short description justifying your rating.

25. Capterra

If you’re a SaaS business, Capterra is a review site that evaluates software sold by B2C and B2B companies. It has an easy-to-use internal search engine which lets users search for software based on industry, company, or software type. Once a search processes, Capterra displays a list of companies relevant to your keyword and a brief summary describing their product(s).

Users can also compare products on the site. Capterra has a “compare to” feature which lets you select up to four companies and displays the benefits of each side-by-side. You can see everything from ease-of-use to the quality of their customer support, all in one comprehensive view. This makes it easy and efficient for users to find software that best fits their needs.

Benefits of Capterra:

There are over 1.5 million validated customer reviews posted on Capterra.
Capterra provides 800 categories to choose from as well as reviews for over 50 thousand products.
Before clicking into a review, Capterra provides a brief overview of the company, its products, and its mission.
Capterra provides a pros and cons list for each business profile. This gives users a snapshot of the best and worst features for each company.

26. HundredX

HundredX is a review site and a customer service tool. Businesses create an account on the website and ask customers to leave feedback after working with them. HundredX streamlines the process by providing tools that automatically send out surveys and collect feedback on behalf of the business. With this site, customer services teams don’t have to manually seek out reviews or scan third-party sites to obtain customer feedback.

The benefit of signing up for HundredX is the reviews are private. If you get a bad review, leads can’t see that feedback and be influenced by the negative comments. This gives your company a chance to correct your mistake before losing potential customers.

Benefits of HundredX:

HundredX provides profiles for over 1,600 businesses spanning across more than 60 unique industries.
HundredX offers incentives for users to leave reviews. Roughly 90% of its users participate on a regular basis.
HundredX’s tools helps you create an automated system for creating surveys and collecting customer reviews. This provides an ongoing stream of feedback as you continue to grow your customer base.

Other Places for Consumer Reviews

Online reviews also exist on sites that aren’t necessarily built just to publish online reviews. Some businesses use their social presence and website to encourage online reviews … and some brands just get them unsolicited, for better or for worse.

Here are some sites that, if you choose to (please, choose to) can serve as additional hubs for online reviews. And they’re awesome, because they have enormous reach, and you have some — if not entire — control over these properties.

27. Facebook Ratings & Reviews

Did you know there’s a place on Facebook for fans to leave ratings and reviews of your business? There sure is … it’s named, aptly, Facebook Ratings & Reviews. It appears on the left-hand side of your Facebook Page, and you can’t move or remove it like you can other parts of your Page.

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Anyone logged into Facebook can post a rating or review of a business. All they have to do is go to the Reviews section of your Page, click the grey stars to choose a rating, and then write an optional review. They can make that review public, visible to friends, or visible only to them.

Benefits of Facebook Ratings & Reviews:

There are more than 2.7 billion users who are active on Facebook each month.
To collect reviews on Facebook, all you need to do is set up a Facebook Business Profile.
2/3 of Facebook users visit a local business’s Facebook Profile at least once a week.
Facebook is a platform designed for communication. This increases the chance of having productive conversations with those who leave a review for your business.

28. Twitter

The ridiculously fast-paced nature of Twitter makes it seem like a weird place to try to accumulate reviews. But while users might not always search for reviews directly on Twitter (unless you started some kind of review hashtag, perhaps), tweets are still indexed in search results. That means a user’s tweet, whether complimentary or less-than, could pop up in the SERPs when someone’s searching for reviews on your business.

Not only that — there are things you can actively do with the positive tweets coming at you. For instance, we tested the element of social proof on conversions here at HubSpot, attaching three tweets that gave positive reviews on an ebook we were promoting at the time. Guess what happened? The CTA with the three tweets converted better than the CTA with no tweets. If you start to “Favorite” tweets that could serve as positive reviews in the future, it’ll be easier to find them when you want to use them in your marketing.

Benefits of Twitter:

There are over 186 million daily active users on Twitter.
Twitter lets you communicate both publicly and privately with users. This means you can respond to customers on your feed, but also move the conversation to direct messaging if needed.
Feedback on Twitter is very immediate. When customers want to voice an opinion about your business, they can do it almost instantly on Twitter.
Twitter reviews are qualitative. You don’t have to worry about an overall rating or satisfaction score when customers leave reviews.

29. Foursquare

Yes, people still use Foursquare. In fact, a ton of people are still using it: In January, Foursquare was racking up 55 million monthly active users (MAUs).

Not only can you check-in to different locations and businesses using the app, you can also leave reviews on Foursquare — making it another interesting platform where your brand or business could be discovered by potential customers looking for suggestions — and five-star reviews.

If your business depends on walk-in foot traffic — restaurants, coffee shops, shopping boutiques, etc. — make sure your Foursquare business profile is filled out and updated so people can find you when they go to check-in — and then ask your visitors to review you there.

Benefits of Foursquare:

There are over 55 million monthly active users on Foursquare.
Over two million businesses are using Foursquare to connect with customers.
Foursquare provides marketing tools for your business. You can give special promotions and discounts to existing customers as well as provide tips for new users who are visiting your business for the first time.

30. Superpages

Superpages lets you search for businesses based on their distance from you, overall rating, industry subcategory, online videos, and even promotional coupons.

Once you find a company that you like, this site shows you where the business is on the map as well as a review summary outlining all of the reviews left for the organization. Visitors can quickly assess what other users are saying about the business and use the coupon links to get the same deals as other customers.

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Benefits of Superpages:

Customers primarily use the map/location features to search for businesses. This is ideal for small- to medium-sized businesses that many only be located in a few areas.
Each company profile has a “view services” tab that explains exactly what the organization has to offer.
Superpages provides a service that evaluates your brand’s online reputation for free.
Superpages is centered around local participation. So, you can trust that reviews left for your business are coming from customers in your area.

31. Top Ten Reviews

It’s hard to resist a good top 10 list. Top Ten Reviews satisfies this craving by giving visitors a list of 10, detailed reviews for every post on the site. These posts have a wide topic range as well, touching on everything from mattresses to landscaping to laptops.

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There’s also a “trending” bar that shows you categories that are currently popular on the site. As a business owner, this can give you an idea of what consumers are buying more of at that particular moment.

Benefits of Top Ten Reviews:

Top Ten Reviews has reviews for products ranging everywhere from gas-powered lawnmowers to eyeglasses.
Each review has an “our verdict” section that summarizes the pros and cons of each product as well as whether or not the website would recommend it.
For each product, Top Ten Reviews provides the latest deals available and links users to where they can find them.
Top Ten Reviews are very detailed. They have sections outlining the product’s features, its specs, overall performance, user testimonials, and more.

32. Your Own Website

Finally, the one place where you have total and utter control: your website. It’s an excellent place to publicize reviews you receive (perhaps embed some of those tweets you favorited?).

You could carve out a section of your website dedicated just to reviews and testimonials, and even include a form so happy customers can submit their unsolicited reviews.

But if you’re actively campaigning for positive online reviews and you encounter happy customers who want to leave you a positive review but don’t have accounts on sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, or Google, it’s handy to have a place on your website to publish their kind words. Consider adding testimonials to landing pages and product pages, too.

Benefits of your own website:

You have complete control over the format and rating system for your reviews.
You can dictate which reviews you want to publish on your website.
Having reviews on your website is timely. People browsing your site can read your positive reviews as they’re shopping for your products.

Which customer review site is best?

The easy answer is all of them. The right answer is a little more subjective.

The best customer review site for your business will be whichever one(s) your customers are using most. The more reviews you obtain, the more you’ll learn about your business and how customers feel about you.

Choose a handful from the list above and get started collecting reviews that can help improve and grow your business.

Topics:

Customer Reviews and Testimonials

Customer Service Tracking Software

Don’t forget to share this post!

The Best Yelp Alternatives for Business Reviews

Business review websites collect customer reviews about the companies they do business with, sharing honest feedback.
Yelp is considered the top review site, particularly for local business marketing, but it isn’t the only game in town.
Google Business Profile, Facebook Page reviews, Angi, the Better Business Bureau, ConsumerAffairs and Foursquare are some Yelp alternatives.
This article is for small business owners exploring review sites to receive honest feedback and improve their companies.

The modern consumer thrives on information. Before making a buying decision, customers have long sought out the opinions and experiences of others to find out whether or not a company is credible.

Today, this process is quick, easy, and accessible to anyone with a computer or smartphone and an internet connection. There are few better sources of information for consumers than business review websites.

Yelp is considered the top review site for marketing local businesses. However, it is far from the only reputable business review site. Others may even prove more beneficial for niche products or services.

These 14 review websites are worth looking into if you need honest feedback or ways to improve your business.

What are business review websites?

Business review websites collect customer reviews about the companies they do business with. These aren’t professional reviews, and they aren’t paid – they are from actual customers sharing their honest feedback.

For instance, say you recently hired a local company to install a fence in your backyard. After the service is completed, you can review that company on a business review website.

When you leave a review, you’ll often choose a letter or number rating. You’ll usually have the option to summarize your thoughts about the service you received.

By sharing your positive or negative experience, you help other potential customers decide whether or not to use that company in the future.

Tip: Another way for businesses to solicit honest consumer feedback is by conducting business surveys.

How can business review websites benefit your company?

Many businesses feel nervous at the thought of customers leaving them a review, but customer reviews can be a powerful tool for your company. Here are some of the ways business review websites can benefit you:

They create social proof. If a customer is on the fence about purchasing from your business, they’re more likely to move forward if they receive a positive recommendation from a friend or family member. Positive reviews create social proof and help new customers feel comfortable doing business with you.

They improve SEO. If you run a local business, you can’t afford to ignore business review websites. For example, receiving and responding to Google Business reviews will improve your business’s search engine visibility and increase the odds that local customers will find you.

They help you provide better customer service. Nobody wants to receive a negative review from a customer, but it isn’t always a bad thing. If you respond to negative reviews and take steps to remedy the mistake, you could build more customer loyalty over the long run. And you learn valuable information about how to improve your business in the future.

Did you know? Responding to online reviews, both positive and negative, boosts engagement and helps you steer the narrative surrounding your business.

1. Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business)

Google Business Profile, formerly called Google My Business, allows you to list your business on Google Maps and show up in local search results. It’s free to list your business and information like your business location, hours, and phone number.

You can also invite your customers to leave you a review on Google.` Collecting Google reviews and responding to them shows that you care about customer feedback; more reviews will help you rank higher in Google searches.

To get started, set up and personalize your Business Profile on Google.

2. Facebook Page reviews

If you use Facebook ads for your business, you probably already have a Facebook Business Page set up. Your Facebook Business Page is a great place to stay in touch with your customers and share helpful information about your business.

It’s also an excellent place to collect customer reviews. Take advantage of this feature by turning on the ratings and reviews setting in your Facebook Page settings. From there, invite customers to leave reviews sharing their experiences with your company.

Key takeaway: Other unexpected ways Facebook benefits businesses include helping you build an online brand, create professional bonds with competitors, and find top job candidates.

3. Angi (formerly Angie’s List)

Angi is a major name in business reviews. As a platform for accurate information about local businesses from vetted users, Angi guarantees that its reviews are legitimate.

Users pay a membership fee to access the site and write reviews, which come in the form of a letter grade. Businesses that sign up for Angi can interact with members, establish a profile, and respond to reviews about their company. The highest-rated businesses can also earn advertising for deals and discounts.

To list your business or claim a business profile created by a consumer, sign up through Angi Ads.

4. Better Business Bureau

The Better Business Bureau is one of the most trusted names in business ratings and reviews. The BBB grades businesses from A+ to F based on several factors, including reviews, complaints, and business responses to reviews and complaints.

As the BBB is a trusted organization, its ratings could significantly impact a small business. The accreditation process ensures that a business makes a good-faith effort to resolve customer complaints and respond to inquiries.

This effort makes a business more trustworthy in consumers’ eyes. With accreditation (and its fee), a business can receive increased exposure online, access to workshops and webinars, and much more.

Visit the BBB accreditation site to get started.

5. ConsumerAffairs

Collecting reviews for a business is just one service ConsumerAffairs for Brands offers. When a business signs up, it receives access to all kinds of resources.

This includes articles on how reviews and a strong reputation can increase revenue, how to find brand ambassadors, and how to convert negative customer experiences into positive ones.

Sign up for a ConsumerAffairs account using one of your business’s social media logins (Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, etc.) or an email address.

Tip: If you’re concerned about your brand’s online reputation, the best online reputation management providers can manage your social media, perform online monitoring and reporting, and more.

6. Foursquare

While Foursquare is best known for its check-in feature, businesses that claim their listings also give customers the ability to leave ratings and tips (reviews) for other customers.

If you sign up for Foursquare for Business, you’ll be able to access user analytics, add your own tips, and offer customer rewards.

7. Glassdoor

The unique thing about Glassdoor is that it provides a way for current and past employees to rate the companies they work for. It is a vital tool for job searching, letting job seekers learn as much about a company as possible.

With Glassdoor for Employers, you can read reviews of your company as a workplace and find quality candidates for a position.

8. HomeAdvisor

This site is similar to Angi, helping customers find and review professionals for home improvement projects. All reviews are verified and go through an extensive screening process.

If you are a professional offering home improvement services, HomeAdvisor Pro allows you to connect with other HomeAdviser users in your area in search of a specific service.

9. Judy’s Book

While it’s not free to add or claim your business on this site, the perks of Judy’s Book for Business are worth it. It’s free for customers to review your business directly on the site, but if you receive other testimonials through social media, email, letters or other sources, Judy’s Book allows you to post them on your business page at no extra charge.

With a membership, business owners also get a free mobile listing, competitor tracking, a higher search engine ranking and much more.

Visit Judy’s Book Business Center to sign up and try it free for 30 days.

Tip: Expand your social media marketing efforts beyond reviews by using social media marketing solutions to streamline your campaigns and manage your posts and accounts.

10. Manta

Manta is a small business directory that helps local American businesses connect with consumers and each other. While customer reviews are not the site’s primary function, they are one of the site’s features.

11. MerchantCircle

MerchantCircle aims to connect customers with deals, advice and price quotes from local small businesses. Its search functions are structured primarily by city and business category. By default, it ranks the listings from highest-rated and most frequently reviewed, working its way down.

The MerchantCircle Help Center has various links to articles to help new businesses get set up.

12. OpenTable

Although OpenTable was once just for making restaurant reservations, customers can now leave reviews and star ratings. When you search for restaurants, a list based on your search criteria pops up.

One of the first things you’ll notice is the star rating under the restaurant name, the number of reviews, and the percentage of reviewers who recommend the restaurant.

If you are starting a restaurant or want to get an established restaurant on OpenTable, sign up on the OpenTable for Restaurants page to start collecting reviews and increasing your reservations.

13. PlanetRate

Unlike most other review sites, PlanetRate isn’t tied to a specific category or service. So, whether your business is a restaurant, hotel, boutique or anything else, you can register it and begin collecting reviews.

This site also allows users to write in-depth reviews specific to your business’s category, making it easier for potential customers to find the review and, therefore, your business.

14. VendOp

VendOp‘s goal is to connect people with vendors that best match their needs. A potential customer can search for vendors based on their needs and be presented only with vendors that provide those services, streamlining the search process.

The site also offers a community of real customers who share their experiences with vendors, so potential customers can gain a better understanding of who they’re working with while helping other vendors improve their services.

Jamie Johnson and Jennifer Post contributed to the writing and research in this article.

Pay Agreements

Pay Agreements

Contents

Index

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Top 10 Tips

Disclaimer

Federal and state laws leave it largely up to employers and employees to work out what the pay or compensation agreement will be. Employers must take care to stick to what the employees have been promised in the way of pay methods and pay rates. A wage agreement can be established by both verbal and written evidence, so all oral and written communications to employees regarding pay should be carefully expressed. Since state payday laws are enforced according to the terms of the wage agreement, employers need to ensure that they say what they mean and mean what they say. Wage agreements that are ambiguous, i.e., can be understood in two or more different ways by reasonable people, will usually be resolved against the employer, since the employer was presumably in charge of how the agreement was reached and is responsible for expressing its intent clearly.

Do not worry about a written wage agreement interfering with an at-will employment relationship. Courts seem to be unanimous that unless an agreement shows a clear intent to create a definite term or duration of employment, the presumption will remain that the employment is intended to be of indefinite duration, i.e., terminable at will by either party. For added security, though, it is a good idea to include a standard employment at will disclaimer in a compensation agreement (note: this is only an example. You should consult your own employment law attorney about this type of disclaimer before implementing it in any form of agreement):

Employment at Will Disclaimer

I understand that this agreement concerning my compensation and benefits does not modify the at will employment relationship between myself and ABC Company; does not constitute a commitment by ABC Company to employ me for any particular length of time; does not commit me to remain with ABC Company for any particular length of time; and does not restrict either ABC Company or myself from ending the employment relationship at any time for any reason, with or without notice.

Under the general common law, an employer must pay an employee according to the wage agreement that was in effect when the work was performed. This general rule finds expression to one degree or another in the Fair Labor Standards Act and in almost every state wage payment statute. If there is no written agreement, agencies and courts will use some variation of the “best evidence” rule to determine what the employer and employee “agreed” to when the employment relationship was formed. Whoever has the best evidence of the rate of pay and the method of pay will usually prevail on those points. In Texas, the common-law rule is known as quantum meruit. If a worker performs services for an individual or company, but there is no clear agreement on the rate of pay, method of pay, and so on, the law presumes that the employer agreed to pay a reasonable rate of pay for the type of work performed, and “reasonable” would be up to a judge or jury to decide (see the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Colbert v. Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank, 136 Tex. 268, 150 S.W.2d 771, 773 (Tex. 1941)).

Reductions in the pay rate are legal, but should never be retroactive (see below). Remember that pay cuts of 20% or more may give an employee good cause connected with the work to quit and qualify for unemployment benefits. Notice of any changes in the pay rate should always be in writing, for the company’s own protection, in order to minimize disputes over the rate of pay.

Some companies have employees sign policies providing for a complete forfeiture of pay for the final pay period if the employee violates an employment agreement or a particular policy. That would not be legal – an employee is not allowed to waive his or her right to minimum wage or overtime pay. It is generally permissible to have the employee agree that in the event of a violation of an agreement or policy, his or her pay rate for the final pay period will be a lower rate (it can be no lower than minimum wage). However, agreements like this are largely untested before the agency and in the courts. While the author has not seen an employer lose with a suitably-worded agreement, some attorneys at TWC have commented that such agreements are suspect from the standpoint that an employee does not know when such a provision might affect his pay because he does not know when to expect a discharge. However, an employer can take a lot of the ambiguity out of such an agreement by making the lower pay rate apply only to work occurring after the violation by the employee. That way, the company can argue that the employee knows when to expect lower pay because the timing of the violation was arguably within his power to control. For suggestions on wage agreement language to address specific problems, see the topics “Frequency of Pay” and “Final Pay” in this book.

Company signatures on pay agreements are not absolutely required, but are generally a good idea. Such agreements are valid without signatures by a company representative, but without the signatures, it can be easier for a former employee to disavow their own signature and claim that their signature was forged. Also, courts often indicate that counter-signed documents show that the company intended for the document to be mutually binding, which is something that generally works in favor of enforceability of whatever agreements are at issue. Accordingly, try to have any such agreement counter-signed by a company representative who is likely to be available to serve as a witness in case the authenticity of the employee’s signature ever becomes an issue.

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How to Determine a Realistic Growth Rate for a Company

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By Nick Kraakman

Value investors like Warren Buffett have only two goals: 1) find excellent businesses and 2) determine what they are worth. But in order to determine what a company is worth, you will have to predict how fast the business will be able to grow its earnings in the future. 10) while company B will only be earning $16.3 million.

So while both companies started out from the exact same position, I’m pretty sure you would rather own company A than company B. This goes to show how much impact the growth rate has on the value of a company. And it is exactly because the growth rate is so important that we have to be extra careful when inputting one into our calculations. So how can you determine a realistic growth rate for the company you are analyzing?

Analyst Estimates

By far the easiest way to come up with a growth rate is to see what analysts are saying. Analysts are employees of financial institutions who sniff through every available piece of information that is known about a company and then make a prediction about how well they expect the company to perform in the next few years. For example, on Yahoo Finance you can find out that, on average, analysts expect that Apple (AAPL) will grow its earnings at a rate of 12.24% per year for the coming 5 years.

Seems like a great plan to listen to what these analysts are saying, because they are the experts, rights? They studied for years and then had to pass a host of brutal tests and interviews to finally become a recognized financial analyst. Still, research by McKinsey & Co.concluded that Wall Street analysts are as good as always too optimistic.

But what is too optimistic? Well, the authors state that “on average, analysts’ forecasts have been almost 100 percent too high.” 100%!! So if analysts say they expect a company to grow its earnings at 10% a year, the actual growth will most likely be closer to 5% a year. This is an embarrassingly big difference which will render your valuations wholly inaccurate. So while you could use analysts estimates, take them with a grain of salt. Although a bag of salt might be more appropriate.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-chart-shows-why-wall-street-stock-ratings-are-a-joke-2012-2#ixzz3AAuNrhZy

The sheer lack of sell ratings and the consistently too-high target prices in the above chart further highlight the general over-optimism of Wall Street analysts. 1/10).

So over the last 10 years Google has, on average, grown its EPS with 38.8% a year. Now ask yourself, is it realistic to expect that Google will keep growing at that rate for the coming 10 years? Keep in mind that this means Google will have to earn 26 times more in ten years time than the $13.2 billion they are earning today! This seems highly unlikely. Even our over-optimistic analyst friends agree and expect a 16.7% growth rate, which is still really good, but not nearly as high as the historical growth rate of 38.8%!

“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

Warren Buffett

You just can’t extrapolate historical earnings growth into the future, because as a company becomes bigger and bigger, it becomes harder and harder to keep up a high growth rate. This phenomenon is called the Law of Large Numbers. So expect growth rates to shrink over time and don’t blindly apply historical growth rates to the future.

Imagine Toothpick Inc., a company selling, as you might have guessed, toothpicks. They collect $20 million from investors to manufacture their initial batch of toothpicks. This money shows up on their balance sheet as Shareholders’ Equity. With this $20 million they are able to generate $5 million in net income, which results in a Return on Equity (ROE) of 25% ($5 million / $20 million).

Toothpick Inc. now has $20 million in equity and $5 million in earnings. In theory, they could reinvest all of these earnings into the company (such earnings are called Retained Earnings) which would increase their Shareholders’ Equity to $25 million. In this case, they grow their Shareholders’ Equity by 25% ($25 million – $20 million / $20 million), which is equal to their ROE. The next year they earn a 25% ROE over their now bigger pile of equity, which is why the ROE can be seen as a growth rate.

However, using the ROE as a growth rate would be a severe oversimplification of how things work in the real world. For example, some of the earnings might not be reinvested but paid out as a dividend instead, and some of the earnings might be needed for maintenance and replacement of equipment and will therefore not directly contribute to the growth of the business. Let’s look at how we can tweak this ROE ratio to provide us with a more realistic growth rate.

There exists something called the Sustainable Growth Rate. The name suggests that this is exactly what we need, so let’s take a closer look.

The Sustainable Growth Rate is the maximum rate at which a company can grow without taking on additional debt. This is good, because we want to invest in companies which are able to fund their growth with their own earnings. The Sustainable Growth Rate is calculated as follows:

ROE x (1 – dividend payout ratio)

It takes the ROE ratio and adjusts it for any dividends that are paid out, because only Retained Earnings (Net Income – Dividends) can be used to grow the business. If Toothpick Inc. would pay out 40% of its Net Income as dividends, their Sustainable Growth Rate would be 15% (25% x 60%). This indicates that Toothpick Inc. should be able to grow at a maximum rate of 15% per year without having to take on additional debt.

A Realistic Growth Rate

However, what we are looking for is a realistic rate at which we can expect a company to grow over the coming years, not a maximum rate. This makes the Sustainable Growth Rate far from perfect. If, for example, the company decides to take on $10 million in Long-Term Debt to generate more earnings, the amount of Shareholders’ Equity would remain the same, but the ROE figure would nevertheless rise because of the higher earnings. So ROE is flawed because it does not take debt into account and because ROE is a key input for the Sustainable Growth Rate, it too is flawed. In addition, some of the Retained Earnings will have to be used for the maintenance and replacement of machines, and will therefore not directly result in growth.

So how do we fix this? Well, we could add Long-Term Debt to Shareholders’ Equity before calculating the return, which essentially means we are no longer using the Return on Equity but the Return on Capital. This way we take debt into account. Also, we could use Depreciation & Amortization expenses as a proxy of maintenance and replacement costs of machines, and therefore subtract this from retained earnings to get a more accurate view of the amount of money that can be used to grow the business. Let’s call this the Sustainable Growth Rate+, which is also what I have implemented in the Intrinsic Value models of the brand-new PREMIUM Value Spreadsheet.

The formula could be written as follows:

(Net Income – Dividends – Depreciation & Amortization) / (Shareholders’ Equity + Long-Term Debt)

So is this then the perfect formula for growth? Not quite. We are still basing this formula on a lot of assumptions. That is why I suggest you compare this rate to the analyst expectations and historical EPS growth rate to make sure you are not being overly optimistic. Also, look at how consistent the earnings of the company have been over the past ten years. If earnings have been steadily increasing year after year, you can have a certain amount of confidence in your growth rate. If, however, earnings fluctuate wildly, an accurate prediction is as good as impossible to make and you should use a considerable Margin of Safety in your calculations. Finally, compute the Sustainable Growth Rate+ for the last couple of years to see if it is relatively stable or highly volatile.

Conclusion

In this article I have tried to highlight the importance of growth rates in calculating the value of a company, as well as showing you that it is not an easy task. The key lesson is that there isn’t one perfect way to determine a growth rate, but by combining several sources and by being conservative, you should be able to make a realistic estimate of future growth as long as the company has shown consistent, stable earnings. Good luck guys!

Written by

Nick Kraakman

I’m a value investing expert, serial entrepreneur, and educator. For over 10 years I’ve
been studying the strategies of the world’s best investors, and in 2013 I started this website to help other
investors consistently grow their wealth. I’ve already trained 20.000+ people through my best-selling investing
course.
Read my full story…

Company Growth Rate – Baremetrics

According to Paul Graham, VC and co-founder of Y-combinator, if there is one metric every founder should know, it is the company growth rate. The growth rate is the measure of a company’s increase in revenue and potential to expand over a set period.

Because it is one of the main metrics for assessing the potential of startup companies and is a measure of the percentage increase in revenue for a company. In other words, a company’s growth rate is an indicator of company profitability and sustainability. This percentage is an indicator of how rapidly a company grows and its projected growth over time.

The growth rate can be given as a weekly, monthly, or annual rate depending upon the company’s industry and stage of growth. It can be calculated at any stage of growth given the correct data by the company or by investors wanting to understand the future of a startup.

There are various ways to calculate the growth rate depending upon which industry the company is involved in, the current capabilities of the company, the current funding phase, and the age of the company, among other factors.

While there are a number of options, this simple formula can be used to calculate revenue growth rate on a monthly basis:

**{[(Second Month Revenue)-(First Month Revenue)]/(First Month Revenue)}* 100%**

There different approaches and several other considerations that can be taken into account when calculating growth rates of a company. For example, experts suggest starting the math with a company’s expenses and checking “key ratios” such as the operating profit margin and the “headcount per client” (i.e., the number of employees per client).

Other rules of thumb include doubling cost estimations for advertising and tripling estimations for legal and insurance costs, as these categories often incur hidden expenses or vary from provider to provider. In addition, you can monitor customer service time to give a starting point for estimating future labor costs as the business grows. It is also suggested that you calculate a conservative growth rate and an aggressive growth rate to provide to investors.

Other considerations that should be taken into account when determining a growth rate include the retention rate, marketing techniques and their efficacy, product seasonality, and the stage of company expansion. Any one of these, or a combination thereof, could affect the growth rate.

It is also important to keep in mind that…

Businesses built from the ground up will tend to have greater growth rates, as zero to any amount of revenue is a large increase.

Growth rates will vary for different industries.

Factors like setup times, adoption speed, sales cycles and market opportunities will also vary based on the stage of growth.

A company can use its growth rate for the following purposes:

To secure funding from investors or lenders, who use the metric to evaluate the startup’s current and potential growth.

To develop operational and staffing plans that will best benefit the future of the company. Since the growth rate can be calculated on a weekly, monthly, or longer basis, it is easy to see how small alterations in pricing, staffing, or other day-to-day minutiae can have a very dramatic impact on outcomes.

To determine how best to allocate resources. If the business grows too quickly and initial resources are used up without a plan or it grows too slowly and resources are wasted, costing money, then a company can be negatively affected or shut down.

Investors also use the growth rate metric to forecast growth and get an idea of the potential return on investment. So, for startups, it is imperative to show investors both short-term and long-term growth rates.

Why? Because, a new business may not generate revenues that considerably affect its financials in the first year. However, the business may project to see growth during that time and begin to show a return on investment within two or more years.

Growth rates vary from industry to industry. For example, in industries that are currently billed as the “hottest” for startup companies and expansion, some examples of average growth rates include:

2.4% annually for fitness companies

30.4% annually for drone companies

24.6% annually for fraud detection companies

However, as a general benchmark companies should have on average between 15% and 45% of year-over-year growth. According to a SaaS survey, companies with less than $2 million annually tend to have higher growth rates.

Growth rates are the measure of a company’s increase in revenue and potential to expand over a set period. Therefore, your growth rate should be a key focus in your business. After all, you will need it to help plan resource use for the future and to possibly draw in investors looking for startups with potential.

While growth rates vary by industry, there are several growth strategies that can grow your revenues significantly. Tools like the revenue forecaster and revenue dashboard can also help you keep an eye on this vital metric.

How to value a business using three approaches?

How to value a business
using three approaches?

Business valuation – calculation of the value of a company or a share in it, in which an expert analyzes the company’s performance in three approaches. In the article, we will analyze approaches to assessing a share in a business using the example of the tea bag manufacturer Chaika.

Why the company is valued

With a valuation report, it is not scary to sell the company cheap or invest in an unsuccessful project. Company rating needed for:

buying or selling a business and an interest in it;

mergers with other firms;

decisions to issue or sell securities;

preparing or updating a business plan;

optimization or restructuring of an enterprise;

comparison of the investment attractiveness of the project with other options for investing money.

Business valuation uses: income, comparative and cost approaches. Each of the approaches has assessment methods that differ in the way information is collected and analyzed. The choice of method depends on the goals of business valuation and the state of the company.

The company “Chaika” produces tea bags. One of the co-founders wanted to develop another project and decided to sell a stake in the business to partners. The partner’s share is 30%, you need to estimate its cost. In yellow cells, the forecast of income and expenses for the next 5 years, in green – data for 2019. The information was provided by the company’s managers, but the appraiser can calculate the forecast on his own.

Income approach

The income approach is based on the sum of expected returns plus their time value. For the calculation, the methods of discounting the estimated cash flows and direct capitalization are used.

Discounting – evaluation of the receipt of money in the company at the discount rate. The method is based on the fact that the money and assets that the company has at the time of the assessment are worth more than the same money and assets in the future. Discounting is used in cases where the appraiser is not sure about the stability of the company’s profit, which means that profit over a period of time may differ from profit at the time of valuation.

Under the direct capitalization method, the valuation depends on the annual income of the organization, adjusted for the planned growth rate of the business. This method is suitable for stable growing companies.

Cash flows are determined based on the forecast of income and expenses, and the time value depends on the required rate of return of the object of assessment. To determine the required return, we studied the alternatives to buying out a stake in a project and the risks associated with it. For example, investors could put money in Sberbank at 6% per annum – the risk is low, the return is low. Or launch two new projects: one with a 30% return at above average risk, the other with a 22% return and below average risk. So we came to the value of 25%.

Comparative approach

In the comparative approach, the company being valued is compared with similar organizations. The accuracy of the estimate depends on the reliability of data on competitors. To evaluate a business using a comparative approach, methods of transactions, capital market and industry coefficients are used.

With the transaction method, the basis for calculation is the purchase price of a similar business in its entirety or the price of a block of shares. In the capital market method, the price of one share is calculated depending on the price of a share in a similar company. The method of industry coefficients is the ratio between the value of a business and its financial performance. To evaluate a business, you need to calculate the industry indicators of different enterprises. For example, for oil and gas companies, the coefficients are based on the ratio of the value of the company and the volume of reserves, for telecom operators – on the ratio of price and user base.

It is difficult to find exactly the same organizations on the market, so we evaluated competitors according to suitable parameters: revenue, net profit, company value. Price to Sales – the ratio of the company’s value to revenue, Price to Earning – the ratio of the company’s value to net profit. Based on the given coefficients, we calculated the cost of “The Seagull”. Then they took the average value – 26 million and calculated the share of the partner.

Cost approach

In the cost approach, the price of a business is equal to the price of the company’s assets. It is necessary to provide the expert with accurate information about the costs of acquiring and maintaining property and valuables. For calculations, the net asset method and the salvage value method are used.

In the net asset method, the market value of each property is determined, and then debt obligations are deducted from the total assets. If the company decides to close, it is valued using the liquidation value method. Then the value of the business depends on the amount of the sale of each asset separately.

We evaluated tangible assets and inventories, and also took into account intangible assets – the company’s brand. The cost of the company’s debt was subtracted from the total assets and the resulting value was multiplied by the partner’s share in the business.

How to evaluate the value of your business

To obtain the final value of the object of assessment, you need to use the results of each approach and calculate the average value. The appraisal report will be useful if the appraiser has chosen suitable methods for calculations.

If the cost of one of the methods is very different from the other two, you need to figure it out and find the reason. Often the lowest value is obtained from the cost approach due to the difficulty in estimating the market value of assets. For example, equipment has been at the factory for a long time, depreciated, which means it costs quite low. But using old equipment, it is still possible to produce products that will bring good profits. The situation is similar with the company’s brand – by itself, it can formally cost nothing, but generate income.

When evaluating a company, you need to:

take into account the industry in which the company operates;

know the market situation;

be able to collect and analyze data.

With Finmodel.bz you don’t have to deal with financial calculations yourself. We evaluate the value of the business and prepare a report on the results. To order a business valuation, write to [email protected], call +7 915 212 2973 or fill out the form to request a call back.

Free consultation!

How to assess the value of a company – a ready-made algorithm

For many Belarusian owners, the issue of business valuation causes difficulties. Viktor Denisevich, a financial analyst at Zubr Capital, talks about the most practical valuation method and gives a formula for calculating the value of a company.

Photo from topdialog.ru

– Company valuation is like playing chess. A chess player who plays white and one who plays black can evaluate the position on the board differently. Likewise, the owner and investor are likely to have different views of the same company.

Obviously, this is because the owner and the investor have different goals. From the owner – to sell the company or part of it for the highest possible cost, from the investor – to buy a share or the entire company for the lowest possible amount.

When it comes to estimating the value of a company, there are an almost infinite number of ways to form it. But the most practical and adequate in this matter is comparative method .

Its essence is that you form an estimate, not only based on the internal resources of the company, but, first of all, based on information about the value of peer companies.

Let’s say we have a fictitious company “A”, which is engaged in the production of shoes in Poland. Let’s look at her example, how the valuation of the company is formed.

If you want to know the value of your company, the first thing to do is to start with a benchmark. That is, choose companies-analogues and analyze their value. Of course, the availability of this information depends, first of all, on the development of the stock market and the openness of the M&A market in the region.

The first difficulty that you will encounter is the almost complete lack of information about peer companies, on the basis of which you can build an assessment in our country. How to solve this problem?

There are two verified sources of information:

data from public companies around the world

information about M&A transactions not only in Belarus, but also abroad

As a result, you will receive an array of data on different companies, regions, etc. d. Now the task is to choose the correct peer companies on the basis of which you will make your assessment. To do this, you need:

1. Define a wide sample of companies according to the general criteria that characterize your company (industry, region, revenue, product or service).

Let’s look at our company “A”. Using data on public businesses, we will compile a list of companies involved in the production of shoes in Europe. Here are 11 companies that, in their main characteristics, are similar to ours.

2. The next step is to narrow down this list using niche criteria. This includes market share, level of competition, management team, growth potential, financial performance, etc.

In our example, we will adjust the sample based on financial indicators. We are interested in companies with revenues from $30 million to $ 150 million So, we have 5 companies (highlighted in dark). Revenue figures are in $ million.

The next step is to choose a multiplier based on which we will evaluate our company.

Historically there are 3 types of multipliers:

interval (determines the value of the company based on its performance and is the most common, for example, EV/EBITDA)

moment (the value is determined based on the performance of the company at the reporting date, for example, from the statement of financial position) a sample of 5 peer companies was obtained, and each of them has its own multiplier value. The next goal is to determine the value of the multiplier for your company based on the data obtained. For this you need:

1. Cut off extreme and/or unrepresentative values of the multipliers of peer companies .

After reviewing more detailed data, we found that the multiple for Fenghua SoleTech AG is not representative.

2. Weigh the interim results

After analyzing the remaining companies, we came to the conclusion that based on the region, strategy, market share, financial indicators, we should use the following weights to calculate the multiplier.

At the output, we got that the multiplier for our company “A” is 6.296.

3. Make final adjustments (for example, regional discounts).

We need to understand what fundamental relationships affect the formation of the multiplier.

This dependence is expressed by a formula that at first glance seems terribly complex.

EV/EBITDA = f(G,Ke,MARG,T) = f(G,BETA,DUM,MARG,T)

In essence, this formula answers the fundamental question: “What determines the value of your company ?

It depends on:

your business margin, i.e. net profit margin (abbreviation “MARG”)

the country in which your company operates (abbreviated “DUM”)

the industry in which you work (in our formula it is “BETA”)

from the tax rate that falls on your company (“T” – in our formula)

the company’s growth potential in the coming years (we use it as a variable “G”)

the company’s equity value (usually denoted by the symbol “Ke”)

country risks.

Each country causes certain risks for the investor.

According to the authoritative American researcher Aswat Damodaron, the table of country risks looks like this:

Similarly, industry risk is determined, which also affects the valuation of the company.

Let’s calculate the adjustments for our company “A”. Initially, our multiplier was set at 6.296. Let’s look at the risks: we can exclude some of the risks and variables, for example, the country risk, because practically all companies from Poland got into the field of our comparison.

If we assume that the profitability of our company is somewhat lower than the industry average in Poland, then we need to take into account the discount on profitability. In addition, Company A does not have audited financial statements in accordance with international standards. In this connection, it is necessary to make a discount to our calculated multiplier.

As a result, our company will be worth 5. 91 EBITDA.

Thus, in the example of the conditional company “A”, we see that the value depends on many variables and contexts that are important to consider.

You can see how different valuations can differ for the same company using the Deal simulator.

All in all, valuing a company is as exciting as playing chess.

Company valuations – Habr Career

The company rating service was launched on Habr Career in July 2018. With the help of the service, everyone can find out what their current and former employees think about the company as an employer. The task of the service is to make the labor market in IT more transparent and make it easier for employers and job seekers to find each other.

Habr Career guarantees complete anonymity of grades: they are shown only in anonymized form or aggregated with other grades.

How to rate yourself

To rate the company where you work or have worked, you need to go to its main page and click on the “Give your rating” button in the rating block.

How the score works

Each company is evaluated according to 12 criteria, for each it receives a score from 1 to 5. Based on these scores, the average score of the company as a whole is calculated .

Each company is also evaluated by how likely it is to be recommended as an employer to their friends, receiving a score from 0 to 100%. This is how 9 is calculated0103 average recommendation of companies and loyalty index of employees.

You can also talk in free form about pluses of and minuses of companies.

All assessments collected by the company are aggregated into charts, and also displayed separately in an anonymized form: the date of assessment is shown, whether this is an employee or a past employee, as well as the employee’s specialization, if he wishes to indicate it himself.

Aggregate estimates

Separate rating

Rules for collecting and displaying ratings

Any user registered on the service who has experience in the relevant company can leave a rating.

The rating becomes public and is shown to all users and guests of the service when the company reaches the required rating limit from its employees. Up to this point, the score is not visible to anyone. Valuation limits are set based on the size of companies:

huge (from 5000 employees) — 75 ratings;

large (1000-5000 employees) – 50 ratings;

medium (100-1000 employees) – 25 ratings;

small (up to 100 employees) — 10 ratings.

Company curators cannot delete ratings, but they can leave official responses to them. They can also disable the collection of new ratings and the visibility of the rating box in the company profile.

Users of Habr Career can complain about any assessment by clicking on the appropriate button and sending a complaint to the service administration indicating the reason.

Questionnaire with a rating

To rate a company, you need to complete the following survey.

Average recommendation and loyalty index

The first question measures the employee’s loyalty to the company as an employer: “How likely is it that you will recommend the company to your friends and acquaintances as an employer”?

You can give an answer from 0 – definitely do not recommend, up to 10 – definitely recommend, the question is mandatory. Based on the totality of all answers, the average recommendation of the company as an employer (as a weighted average) and the employee loyalty index eNPS (employee Net Promotion Score) are then calculated.

Scores on 12 criteria and the average score of the company

Followed by questions that evaluate the company on 12 criteria. Each can be answered from 1 – completely disagree, to 5 – completely agree, all questions are mandatory. For all answers, the average score for each of the criteria (as a weighted average) and the average score of the company (as the arithmetic mean of the scores for all criteria) are calculated.

Interesting tasks. The company solves interesting problems

Modern technologies. The company uses modern technologies

Adequate salary. Salaries in the company correspond to the professional level of employees and the complexity of the tasks they perform

Social package. The company provides a good social package and non-financial bonuses

Comfortable working conditions. The company provides comfortable working conditions (office, work schedule, workplace, places for recreation)

Professional growth. The company has the opportunity to learn and grow professionally at work

Career growth. The company has the opportunity to grow career or move between different projects

Relations with colleagues. Comfortable working atmosphere in the company in teams

Recognition of work results. In the company, the work done is always recognized by the management

Management literacy. The company has competent project and product management

Communication with top management The company has established communication between top management and employees

The company makes the world a better place. The company’s products and services really help people and make the world a better place

Three optional open-ended questions

Three optional open-ended questions end the survey:

Benefits. What are the main advantages of working for the company?

Disadvantages. What are the main disadvantages of working in a company?

General feedback. What else would you like to tell about working for the company that would be important for others to know?

Configuring the collection and display of ratings

Curators of the company can disable and enable the collection and display of ratings from their company: then no one, including them, sees the company’s ratings. The page with this rating setting is located in the company’s account.

Curators can also speed up the collection of their company grades. To do this, they just need to distribute among the employees a link that leads to the evaluation form. You can get such a link on the same page of the company ratings settings.

How to value a company by its customers

How to value a company by its customers | Big Ideas

Marketing strategy

Article published in Harvard Business Review Russia

Daniel McCarthy
, Peter Fader

In June 2019, the online clothing store Revolve Group went public. In anticipation of this event, investors unsuccessfully tried to objectively assess the value of the company. Several recent IPOs, such as taxi services Uber and Lyft, fell short of expectations. Revolve delayed going public for months due to a downturn in the stock market. Despite all the obstacles, its shares were valued at $ 1.2 billion – and on the first day of trading soared by 89%, showing perhaps the best result among all IPOs in 2019. After this jump, the company’s estimated value was about 4.5 times its revenue in the previous 12 months, five times more than other fashion retailers and close to the performance of IT companies. What happened and why didn’t investors immediately see how strong Revolve’s position was?

Such a high estimated value of the company is not accidental. It is explained by powerful hidden factors that underwriters underestimated when calculating the IPO price. The strength of the company was not so much in the rapid growth of revenue, but in the ability to work with customers. In other words, Revolve not only effectively attracted customers, but also retained them over the years: thus, its long-term profit potential was higher than its revenue dynamics would suggest.

Revolve’s IPO success signaled a change in the way we invest, with consumers becoming more and more of a focus. In our study, we explain the procedure for assessing the value of companies by customers (CBCV) – that is, based on consumer metrics. This methodology involves a significant departure from the familiar but dangerous concept of “growth at any cost” towards sustainable revenue and unit economics, and also allows you to bring more accuracy, responsibility and validity to the new loyalty economy.

In this article, we will explain how CEOs and investors can apply the principles of CBCV to more accurately value a company. This method works whether the organization generates predictable, recurring revenue from subscriptions (like Netflix or Verizon) or active customers who make occasional individual orders (like Uber or Walmart). In addition, we’ll show you how a company can benefit from providing investors with more relevant customer data, and how investors can’t be fooled by pretty numbers that capture customer behavior well but don’t mean as much as they seem.

REFINED INCOME FORECASTING METHOD

The CBCV method is based on a simple principle. Most traditional financial valuation methodologies require quarterly financial projections, primarily for revenue. CBCV takes into account the fact that every dollar of revenue comes from a customer who makes a purchase, and based on the principles of accounting, the revenue forecast is made not “from above”, but “from below”. It may seem that our approach is contrary to traditional schemes, but this is not so: CBCV simply places more emphasis on the impact of individual client behavior on the final result.

What is needed to implement the CBCV method? In addition to the usual financial reporting data, two things are needed: a customer behavior model (we call it a customer base model) and the customer data that we load into it. The model consists of four interconnected sub-models that define the future behavior of each customer.

1. A customer acquisition model that predicts the influx of new customers.

2. A customer retention model that predicts how long the customer will be active.

3. A buying model that predicts the frequency of a customer’s transactions with a firm.

4. Cart size model that predicts how much a customer spends on each purchase.

Taken together, these models allow us to understand the key aspects of the interaction of each client with the company: who and when will be able to attract, how much these clients will spend in the future, etc. The sum of all the estimated expenses of clients will give us a forecast of quarterly revenue. By comparing models, you can much more accurately estimate future revenue streams—and hence the true value of the company.

This basic model is universal and applicable to companies from all industries. But its details will depend on the company’s business model – in particular, whether it is a subscription. In companies with a subscription model (such as fitness centers, telecommunications firms), executives generally know how much money customers will spend in the next month, and can directly observe the churn of customers when they cancel subscriptions and terminate contracts. This makes it easier to build hold and buy models.

Most companies, however, do not use a subscription and, due to the infrequent purchases, cannot see the churn process so clearly. Let’s say if you have an account on Amazon, but you suddenly decide to never use the services of this company again, then no one in Amazon or outside of it will immediately notice this. Marketers call this phenomenon latent churn. To account for it, a more complex model is required, but experts have already learned how to make very accurate forecasts.

HOW TO LOOK INTO THE BLACK BOX

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Methodology for company valuation and calculation of results

Each company participating in the Russian Employer Rating receives a place in accordance with the final
score.

Participation is free for companies, registration is open to all organizations with a headcount
from 100 people. Such a restriction is necessary because the company must have enough employees to
minimum sample in the study eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score).

Stage 1

HR survey

HR-specialists undergo a professional survey. Its results will allow us to evaluate the effectiveness
activities of the company’s HR team, its level of development and comparison with competitors
in branch. The data obtained form the basis of the first criterion for assessing the company –
ranking members. The value is between 0 and 100.

The assessment of HR specialists is 20% in the final score of the company participating in the Rating.

Download Sample HR Questionnaire

Stage 2

eNPS Employee Survey

Companies participating in the Rating organize an online survey of their employees.
It allows you to collect an objective opinion of the team about the current employer,
determine the level of loyalty to him and readiness to recommend him as a future
place of work for your loved ones.

Each question requires an answer-score on a scale from 0 to 10. Based on the results
research system classifies each survey participant – according to the most
popular types of ratings: promoters, neutrals or critics.

Employee eNPS survey accounts for 40% of the company’s final score —
ranking members.

Download an example of the eNPS questionnaire

Stage 3

Applicant assessment hh.ru

The assessment of the employer brand of the company participating in the Rating also involves external
respondents are applicants from hh. ru.

Each of them can take the poll and vote for only 3 companies in each
industries that are considered attractive employers. Option available for one user
hh.ru only once to ensure the purity of the results.

Applicants’ score is 40% in the final score of the company participating in the Rating.

Job seeker example

Index calculation

For each company, a normalized value is calculated (X _i ^norms) for each
indicator. Calculation formula:

X _i ^normal = 1/σ _x × (x _i –
x_cf ) ,

where:

x _i is the value of company indicator i,

σ _x – standard deviation for the indicator values of all companies,

x _avg is the arithmetic mean of the indicator values of all companies.

where:

X ₁ _i ^norms is the normalized value of the company indicator
i based on an HR questionnaire,

X ₂ _i ^normal is the normalized value of the company’s eNPS index
i,

X ₃ _i ^norms is the normalized value of the company indicator
i based on a survey of applicants.

Distribution of places in the Rating

The company’s position in the Rating is determined by the final score, which is made up of 3 independent
ratings:

Its value is the only criterion for ranking companies and determining the place
in the overall Rating and sub-ratings.

Overall ranking by number of companies

The rating is compiled based on the ranking of companies in accordance with the final
score for the organization.

Largest companies

from 5,001 people

Large companies

from 1,001 to 5,000 people

Medium-sized companies

from 251 to 1,000 people

Small companies

from 100 to 250 people

Sub-ratings according to the evaluation criteria

The final position of the company in three independent
assessments: HR questionnaire + eNPS internal assessment + external assessment of candidates.

Most highly developed
HR processes

The most loyal
employees

Most popular
with applicants

TOP-50 companies separately for each parameter.

Each rating can be filtered by industry, company and city

How to evaluate a company | Blog Irvicon

Company valuation is one of the most complex and science-intensive types of consulting services. The process of determining the value of a business requires economic, legal, technical knowledge, understanding of the specifics of enterprise management, analysis of business processes, etc.

There are standard methods for valuing a company’s assets, but the methodology used in determining the value of a particular business is in most cases individual.

Before moving on to the evaluation methodology, it is necessary to understand the basic principles of evaluation, which are fundamental and guide the entire evaluation process.

Valuation principles

Among the principles on which the assessment of the enterprise is based, the following groups are traditionally distinguished:

Principles based on user perceptions

Utility. An enterprise will have value only if it is able to meet the needs of a potential owner, i.e. useful to its owner.

Substitution. It is assumed that all market participants act in good faith and reasonably, moreover, for a reasonable purchaser, the maximum value of an asset cannot be more than the lowest price among similar objects with the same utility. Also, the cost of creating a similar company from scratch is always calculated.

Expectation. The price of the enterprise will be directly dependent on the income that a potential investor expects to receive from the acquisition.

Principles related to the characteristics of the object of assessment

Residual productivity of the land plot. The main factors of production need to be paid, and it is obvious that capital, labor and managerial forces are paid first. The land is paid according to the residual principle, that is, it has residual productivity. The most significant feature is the location, in fact, it is it that has the greatest influence on residual productivity.

Contribution. Improving or supplementing an object (inclusion of an additional asset in the system) is advisable only if, as a result of this factor, the increase in the total cost will be more than the cost of its acquisition.

Limiting productivity (recoil). As resources are added, the increase in net returns (value increase) first increases faster than the increase in costs, but then the increase in value slows down (in relation to the costs of these resources), until the point where the increase in value is less than the cost of adding resources.

Principles related to the external environment

Conformity. The company must meet the standards that are accepted in the country and the region, the prevailing expectations and requirements of the market, and the traditions of building such facilities in the region.

Addiction. Any company is dependent on a whole range of external factors: from the quality of the nearby road surface to the national composition of the region, political and economic stability in the region where it operates.

Supply and demand. The price of an object is directly determined by the level of supply and demand for similar objects.

Variability. It should be taken into account that all economic processes in the market, as well as in technological development, are mobile. Accordingly, the value of the object of assessment changes over time.

The principle of best and most efficient use.

Based on the results of the analysis of the characteristics of the enterprise, the state of the external environment, various economic factors, the most efficient use of the facility is determined, which will be economically feasible, technically feasible and not legally limited.

Classical Approaches to Valuation

Traditionally, there are three approaches to assessment:

Profitable. The most important when evaluating a company, which is explained by the fact that a potential acquirer of property is primarily focused on the amount of income that they can receive through their investments.

Costly. Evaluation occurs from the position of the volume of costs. The expert calculates the value of absolutely all the assets of the organization separately, after which the total value of the assets is determined, from which the amount of the company’s debt obligations is then subtracted.

Comparative. The appraiser searches the market for an already completed transaction, the subject of which was a company (share / block of shares), which is very similar in characteristics to the one being evaluated, and based on the data on the price of this transaction, determines the value of the company being valued.

In the assessment report, the expert describes the approaches and methods that he used during the assessment, and also characterizes the feasibility of their application.

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Customer Reviews

Benefits of Customer Reviews

1. Customer reviews are a learning opportunity for your business.

2. Customer reviews are marketing and sales tools for your business.

Best Customer and Product Review Sites

Customer Review Sites for B2C Companies

1.

2. Angie’s List

3. Choice

4. Trustpilot

5. TestFreaks

6. Which?

7. Consumer Reports

8. Consumer Affairs

9. TripAdvisor

10. Yelp

11. Citysearch

12. Google My Business

13. Yahoo! Localworks

14. Influenster

Review Websites for B2B Companies

15. HubSpot’s App Marketplace

16. FinancesOnline

17. Compare Camp

18. G2 Crowd

19. TrustRadius

20. GoodFirms

21. Salesforce AppExchange

Customer Review Sites for Both B2B & B2C Companies

22.

23. Glassdoor

24. Manta

25. Capterra

26. HundredX

Other Places for Consumer Reviews

27. Facebook Ratings & Reviews

28. Twitter

29. Foursquare

30. Superpages

31. Top Ten Reviews

32. Your Own Website

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What are business review websites?

How can business review websites benefit your company?

1. Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business)

2. Facebook Page reviews

3. Angi (formerly Angie’s List)

4. Better Business Bureau

5. ConsumerAffairs

6. Foursquare

7. Glassdoor

8. HomeAdvisor

9. Judy’s Book

10. Manta

11. MerchantCircle

12. OpenTable

13. PlanetRate

14. VendOp

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