How do I tell if my reputation is bad?
The clearest signs are a star rating below four, a negative result on the first page when you search your name, reviews that go unanswered, and a gap of many months since the last new review. The commercial sign is quieter: enquiries that stop after the first contact, because the customer looked you up and chose someone else without saying why.
Ratings are the obvious measure. Below four stars on Google, most customers move on to the next listing without reading further. Between four and four and a half, the individual reviews get read closely. Above that, the rating stops being the deciding factor and the number and recency of reviews take over.
The search results matter as much as the rating. If anything negative sits on the first page for your name, a complaint thread, a poor directory review, an old news story, a large share of customers will see it before they see your website. That is a bad reputation in practice even if your Google rating is fine.
Silence is a sign too. Unanswered negative reviews read as a business that does not care. No new reviews for a year reads as a business that has stopped. Both cost enquiries without ever producing a complaint you could respond to.
The most reliable test is behaviour. If quotes go quiet after you send them, if people ring and do not book, if a customer mentions they nearly did not call, look yourself up the way they did. The answer is usually on the first page.
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