A reputation score condenses six trust dimensions into one number. Here's how to read it properly. Costco sits at 77.3. ChatGPT sits at 69.6. Wells Fargo sits at 58.2. Three single numbers, each on a 0–100 scale.

None of them tell you much on their own. A reputation score only becomes useful once you know what it's built from, and where the brand sits against the field.

That's the gap most reporting leaves open. A number moves two points and gets called good news, or bad news, without anyone asking what actually shifted underneath it. This guide walks through how HarrisQuest scores reputation, what the tiers mean, and why the same overall number can hide two very different stories.

What a reputation score actually measures

A reputation score, or QRQ (reputation quotient), rolls up six dimensions of institutional standing into one composite figure, scored 0 to 100.

Those six dimensions are:

• Trust – is this a company I trust?
• Ethics – does it hold high ethical standards?
• Quality – how good are its products and services?
• Vision – does it have a clear direction?
• Relevance – does it shape today's conversations?
• Workplace – does it look like a good place to work?

Respondents answer on a 1–7 scale, and the six scores combine into the final composite. QuestRQ, the reputation module inside the HarrisQuest platform, builds on 28 years of Reputation Quotient research from The Harris Poll.

Each dimension plays a different role. Trust anchors the whole composite. It's the single strongest predictor of Quality, accounting for roughly 30.8% of the variance in how people rate a brand's products and services. Ethics sets the ceiling: no brand clears 75 on the reputation score without an Ethics rating above 71.

The five tiers, and what separates them

Once you have the composite, the number lands in one of five tiers. These bands are not arbitrary. They're drawn from where structural protection actually shows up in the data.

• Critical, below 45 – structural damage, needs leadership intervention. Example: Snapchat among Boomers, 43.5.
• Weak, 45–54 – structural vulnerability, a multi-year repair job. Example: Spirit Airlines, 52.1.
• Average, 55–64 – where most brands live. Example: Wells Fargo, 58.2.
• Strong, 65–74 – a real commercial advantage, where investment pays back. Example: ChatGPT, 69.6.
• Resilient, 75+ – pricing power, room to expand, and faster recovery from a crisis. Example: Costco, 77.3.

The gap between Strong and Resilient matters more than it looks. Below 75, a brand is still exposed to a bad news cycle. Above it, reputation starts working as a buffer rather than a risk.

Why 75 is the number that matters most

Most reputation trackers treat their scale as smooth: higher is simply better. The data doesn't support that.

Something changes structurally once a brand crosses 75. It gains what we call resilience: room to make mistakes, room to raise prices, room to recover faster after a setback. Below that line, every dip in the news cycle chips away at the composite. Above it, the composite absorbs a hit.

That threshold isn't a design choice. It's where the pattern shows up in the field of over 570 brands tracked in QuestRQ. Ethics is the gate: a brand can be well-liked, well-known, and still fall short of 75 if its Ethics score sits below 71.

One national score can hide a generational split

A single national reputation score can flatten a real fracture underneath it.

Take Mayo Clinic. It ranks third in the country on QRQ. That headline number looks resilient. But cut it by generation, and the picture changes fast: Boomers rate it 84.8, solidly Resilient. Gen Z rates it 63.3, only Average.

Healthcare brands often assume trust carries across generations. This kind of split shows it doesn't always hold. A national average can mask exactly the audience a brand most needs to understand, whether that's the generation it's losing or the one it hasn't won yet.

The lesson applies beyond healthcare. Any time a reputation score looks stable, it's worth asking which segments are propping it up, and which ones aren't.

How reputation is scored, and who gets counted

Not every brand that wants a reputation score gets one. Selectivity is part of the method, not a side effect of it.

To qualify for the full QuestRQ battery in the US, a brand needs to clear a 47.5% familiarity threshold among respondents. Below that gate, the sample of people who actually recognise the brand is too thin, and too skewed toward fans, to mean anything.

Around one in three submitted brands fail that gate at intake. Submission alone doesn't earn a score. Sub-brands and product variants are typically excluded too: Tide qualifies, Tide Pods doesn't.

That gate exists to protect the number. When familiarity is thin, the respondents who do recognise a brand tend to skew favourable, and the score ends up reflecting them rather than the country. The 570 brands that clear the bar are measured on the same consistent standard, every day.

Read your own number the same way

A reputation score is a starting point for a conversation, not the end of one. The tier tells you where a brand stands today. The six dimensions underneath tell you why, and which lever actually moves it.

If Ethics is capping the composite, that's a governance conversation for the CEO and board. If Relevance is lagging, that's a marketing problem, not a trust problem. The number alone won't tell you which one you're dealing with. The dimensions will.

Request your brand's QRQ score to see where you sit across all six dimensions, benchmarked against the full HarrisQuest field.