Frequently Asked Questions
- What is Vanno?
Vanno is a corporate reputation tracking service that follows the most talked about companies on the Web. We analyze online stories and commentary and rank the top 250 companies based on how they treat their customers, employees, communities, the environment and society in general
- How does Vanno work?
Vanno tracks online news sites, blogs, microblogs and forums for stories and commentary about companies. We do this using software supervised by human editors. For the 250 most talked-about companies, we analyze the stories and commentary that have the most influence on an aspect or aspects of company reputation, i.e. customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, community involvement, the environment and society responsibility. We then use a proprietary algorithm to calculate reputation scores, rankings and trends.
- How do you measure company reputation?
We measure company reputation by tracking and quantifying online stories, analysis and commentary on how companies treat their customers, employees, communities, the environment and society in general. We track five specific aspects of reputation:
* Community Involvement, including charitable giving, support for the arts and education, volunteering and country or region of origin.
* Customer Satisfaction, including product quality, customer service, value & price and product quality.
* Employee Satisfaction, including compensation, co-workers, diversity, job satisfaction and management.
* Social Responsibility, including avoidance of controversial business, fair trade, good corporate governance and human and animal rights.
* Environment, including anti-pollution, recycling, clean & renewable energy, conservation, preservation, and sustainability.
- Why don't you include financial performance in your definition of company reputation?
We built Vanno to address those aspects of company reputation - customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, community involvement, the environment and social responsibility - that are more subjective and thus harder to measure as accurately as financial performance.
At a minimum, our Reputation Index is a much-needed complement to the many sources of company financial information that already exist. At best, it may prove to be a powerful leading indicator of company financial performance.
- What do I get when I subscribe to Vanno?
Vanno subscription services include access to a feed of influential stories, the Company Reputation Index and Company Reputation Trends.
- What is the Vanno Company Reputation Index?
The Vanno Company Reputation Index ranks companies relative to their peers in a business category, and relative to the 250 companies presently in the Vanno Index. Rankings are based on scores calculated for each aspect of reputation that we track. Rankings are updated daily, and subscribers can easily create custom rankings for any business category and any combination of aspects of reputation.
- What are Vanno Company Reputation Trends?
Vanno Company Reputation Trends lets subscribers to follow changes in company reputations over time. Subscribers can see how individual stories affect reputation scores and company rankings, and how changes in specific aspects of reputation contribute to overall trends. Subscribers can also compare and contrast trends for multiple companies.
- What do you mean by "most talked-bout companies"?
Rather than select companies based on size, sales, market capitalization or other conventional metrics, Vanno monitors the overall level of interest and activity in companies on leading blogs, microblogs and news sites. Companies considered for the Vanno Reputation Index are, quite simply, those that talked-about most by the people and organizations who publish and credibly comment online about how companies treat their customers, employees, communities, the environment and society in general.
- How does Vanno's scoring algorithm work?
The Vanno scoring algorithm is based on Bayesian belief-revision principles. It weighs the influence (positive or negative) of each story or commentary as it is received, and adjusts the accumulated belief base about the company's reputation over time.
- How does a company get listed in the Vanno Company Reputation Index?
For a company to appear in the Vanno Reputation Index, our editors must first deem it sufficiently talked-about on blogs, microblogs and news sites. Then a sufficient number of the stories and commentary about that company must exist that are relevant to all five aspects of reputation that we track.
The size of the Index is presently set at 250 companies, and will likely grow in increments over time.
- What if company is not listed in the Vanno Company Reputation Index?
If you can't find a particular company, it's likely not talked about enough online to cross our thresholds. If you feel we've missed stories or commentary about a company that would warrant its inclusion in our Index, please use the "Suggest a Story" link that is found on every page on the site.
- I disagree with a particular ranking in the Vanno Reputation Index. What can I do?
If you disagree with a score or rank in the Reputation Index for a particular company, please feel free to use the "Suggest a Story" link on any page on the site to tell us why, and suggest stories and commentary that support your perspective.
- How is Vanno different from online brand and reputation monitoring services?
Most Web monitoring services and tools use keyword or semantic search methods to find and organize online information about any topic of interest. Vanno uses similar techniques in conjunction with proprietary scoring methods to focus on a very specific problem - producing rankings of companies whose treatment of their customers, employees, communities, the environment and society in general is widely discussed on the Web.
- How is the Vanno Company Reputation Index different from other company indexes?
The Vanno Company Reputation Index is based on the level of online interest in how a company treats its customers, employees, communities, the environment and society in general. As such, it is designed to be a complement more conventional indexes that are based on company size, market value, sales, profitability, etc.