Survey: Amazon tops SMB Trust Index, Yelp ranks at the bottom

Local business networking site Alignable is collecting net promoter score (NPS) data on a wide range of companies serving the small business market, from accounting to listings management to payments and web hosting. It regularly asks small business users and members of the site to rate providers of various services.

Alignable then indexes all the scores in what it’s calling an SMB Trust Rating. It’s like the American Consumer Satisfaction Index for SMB service providers. The following screen offers an example of how the NPS solicitation is presented on the Alignable site.

The public index exposes star ratings, but Alignable actually maintains the NPS scores. Below is the company’s ranking of the top 10 most and least trusted brands, representing the opinions of “hundreds of thousands of business owners.”

Alignable doesn’t verify that survey respondents are actual users of the services. However, the company argues that it gets a more complete and accurate picture of a company’s reputation by allowing wide participation. It’s not clear whether or how it prevents any potential gaming of the scores — beyond having a huge volume of responses.

You can see the full list here.

About The Author

Greg Sterling

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.