Your Guide to the Most Accurate Ratings of Local Companies

Specialized Rating Sources

These review sources vary greatly based on the category of company you’re looking for and where you live. Some review sources specialize in collecting customer ratings for specific types of companies, like contractors or doctors or auto shops. Others attract customers from specific demographics or personality types, like young and hip or suburban families. Combining all customer ratings from all sources gives you the whole picture, so you get a truly accurate score

Differences in Trustworthiness

The source’s methodology used for customer rating collection and presentation are key. Low-trust sources are easy to game and often littered with fake or cherry-picked ratings. Some sources seem to be set up explicitly to allow companies to suppress bad reviews. We weight each source by trustworthiness, downweighting or eliminating weak and nefarious sources.

Smarter

ONE AllRatings makes you smarter by giving you a super-composite rating optimized for accuracy and recency.

If you needed to predict how a company will perform this month for your family, would you rather see ratings from the last two years or from back in 2012? As time passes people change. They enter a new stage of life and react to external forces. Companies do, too. That’s why recent company star ratings are more predictive of the actual company performance you can expect.

Companies Change—Recency Weighting is Critical

Companies can change for the better or worse. An expert manager joins a company improving quality and customer satisfaction. An owner of a highly rated company sells and the new owner cuts corners on customers, leading to dissatisfaction. A company expands its offerings but fails to develop the service practices necessary to do good work. There’s an eternal truth to the old line “what have you done for me lately?”

Old Rating Scores Are Less Predictive

You can’t go back in time and use a company. It’s changed in some ways. You have to choose a company based on how good they are now. We weight each customer review separately by year within ONE AllRatings super-composite Star Scores. For example, ratings of a company’s work performed in the past year are weighted three times more than work performed seven years ago. This is the smartest way to calculate rating star scores.

Customers Spent Their Money

We remove rating scores from reviewers who were not customers. Many review sources count these ratings, causing a distorted, inaccurate customer satisfaction star score. When you spend your money, you want what was promised. It’s misleading to count a 5-star score from a guy who loves the paint job on a roofing van he sees parked in a neighbor’s driveway the same as a 1-star score from that same neighbor who endured delays and shoddy work on her $10,000 roof project.

Each Customer’s Rating is Weighted by Recency and Analyzed for Legitimacy

Recent company star ratings are more predictive of near-term company performance. That’s why we weight each customer’s review score by recency. For example, reviews in the past year are weighted more than reviews from seven years ago. Individual reviews are analyzed for legitimacy to downweight questionable and remove obviously fake reviews.

Our Score Penalizes the Bad Actors

The conduct of a company matters. While most are mediocre to great, there are some really bad actors who cut corners and try to game rating systems. They may buy a bunch of reviews, or be unlicensed in a field that requires one, or have a horrendous record on handling complaints. We try to uncover these signals of bad conduct. We then downweight their rating score based on the severity of their conduct. It’s a smart way to keep you safe.

Review Sites Differ in Trustworthiness

We analyze the methodology and practices of each review site source for indicators of trustworthiness. How do they deal with fake reviews? Do they allow company owners to suppress real reviews? Are owners able to publicly respond to reviews? These and other data points create a source weighting and optimize the accuracy of ONE AllRatings scores.

Report Score Indicates a Company’s Openness

It’s frustrating to call a company and get the run around. You’re trying to talk to someone with authority and they won’t even give you their name. That’s a bad way to do business. It’s why we give you a separate Report score. A high score means they believe in the customer’s right to know. They show you who the key manager is and how to contact them, what services and specialties they provide and show you job photos.

Combining Star Scores, Key Docs and Report Scores

Each company’s ONE AllRatings TOTAL SCORE uses a 100 scale and is calculated using their Star, Key Docs and Report scores. A company’s super-composite Star Score optimized for accuracy and recency represents 80% of our TOTAL SCORE value with the other 20% split evenly between their Key Docs and Report scores. You now have access to the most complete and accurate ratings available anywhere. Smart!

Outer Ring Colors Indicate Rating Levels

You can quickly identify good companies by looking at the outer ring of the ONE AllRatings symbol. No color in the outer ring means the company has a low rating with a TOTAL SCORE under 80. A silver ring indicates a high rating of over 80. Only companies that score 85+ and pass our additional certification requirements earn the gold-ringed symbol of very high rating —CERTIFIED.

Now, you can have confidence in your choice.