What is a video quality score: VQS meaning and how it is calculated
A video quality score is a number given to a sent video by rating it against a written list of criteria, so that videos can be compared across a team and tracked over time. Often shortened to VQS. It turns "that was a good one" into something two different managers can agree on.
That is the promise. Whether it holds depends entirely on what got put on the list.
What does a video quality score measure?
A typical scoring sheet for a customer facing video covers five or six criteria:
- Identification. Customer named, rep named, reason for the video stated early.
- Subject clarity. The car, the part or the document is actually visible and in focus.
- Audio. Intelligible over workshop or forecourt noise.
- Content completeness. The required points covered: the measurement, the consequence, the mileage, whatever the situation demands.
- Next step. A specific action named, with a time frame.
- Tone. Sounds like one person talking to one person.
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How is a video quality score calculated?
The standard form is a weighted percentage:
Video quality score = (points awarded across all criteria / total points available) x 100
Each criterion is scored on a small scale, usually 0 to 4, because scales wider than that invite false precision. Weighting is optional and worth applying only where one criterion genuinely outweighs the rest, such as content completeness on a service approval video.
Video quality score explained: a worked calculation
Six criteria, each scored 0 to 4, so 24 points are available. A service approval video scores 4 for identification, 4 for subject clarity, 2 for audio because a compressor is running, 3 for completeness because the price was given but the consequence of waiting was not, 3 for next step, and 4 for tone. That totals 20.
20 divided by 24, multiplied by 100, gives a video quality score of 83 percent. The number is not the useful part. The two dropped points on completeness are, because that is a specific and fixable instruction for the next video.
What not to score
This is where scoring systems do real damage, and it is worth being blunt about it. Score the wrong criteria and the team gets measurably better at the wrong things, because people optimise for whatever is on the sheet.
Two criteria to be very careful with:
- Length. Easy to measure, tempting to score, and mostly noise. Scoring against a target length teaches reps to pad a 30 second message to hit 60, or to rush a complicated explanation. Length is an output of covering the right points, not an input.
- Polish. Steady framing, no stumbles, tidy background, good lighting. Score this and you push a team toward videos that look produced, which is exactly what makes a personalised video read as marketing. The slightly rough video filmed next to the actual car outperforms the tidy one filmed at a desk.
The test for any criterion: would a customer's decision plausibly change if this were done better? If not, it does not belong on the sheet, however easy it is to count.
How to keep scoring consistent
A score is only worth having if the criteria are written down and applied the same way by every reviewer. Three things make that hold:
- A written definition per score point. What a 2 on audio means, in a sentence, not left to the reviewer's ear.
- Calibration. Two managers score the same five videos independently, then compare. If they are more than one point apart on any criterion, the definition is too vague.
- Anchor examples. One saved video per department that everyone agrees is a 4, and one that everyone agrees is a 2.
Do the calibration before publishing any scores. Reps spot inconsistent scoring immediately, and once they decide the number is arbitrary, it stops carrying any coaching weight.
Where scoring goes wrong
- Scores used for ranking rather than coaching. A leaderboard on quality scores encourages people to send fewer, safer videos.
- Scoring everything. A sample is enough. Scoring every send turns a manager into a full time reviewer.
- Automated scoring taken literally. Software can reliably check length, resolution, audio levels and whether a face appeared, which are the least important criteria. Whether the consequence of waiting was explained still needs a person, or at minimum a person confirming the machine.
- The score never changing anything. If nobody acts on a low score, the exercise is theatre.
Some platforms build the scoring in rather than leaving it on a spreadsheet. VentaVid includes a video quality scoring tool on its higher plans, used alongside its performance dashboards to identify top performers and coach the rest of the team. Whichever route a team takes, the score is an input to video coaching, not a substitute for it, and it should be read next to the video template it was sent under, since a low score often means the template is asking for the wrong things. For the wider format, see personalized video.
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