It was only earlier this year that Facebook was experimenting with changing their 5-star review scale to a 10-point scale.  We assume this was an attempt to fine-tune the customer experience scores and better reflect the business’ reputation.

Now they have done a 180 and gone the other direction giving Facebook users a binary “Yes” or “No” option.  “Do you recommend?  Yes or No?”  That is the new verbiage Facebook is using on Business pages in place of the 5-star review system we have all been using for years.

We have outlined below the new recommend dialogue box you will now see on most Facebook Business pages.

The simple yes or no recommendation is not the only change Facebook has made to their review system. A fair amount of reviews left on Facebook have no comments whatsoever, only the star rating.  In an attempt to help encourage users to leave a comment, Facebook is introducing “Rich Endorsements” in Recommendations.  These rich endorsements are simple tags that Facebook suggests using for your comment.  For example, “Great Service” or “Cozy Atmosphere” will appear allowing users to quickly select the reason for their recommendation.

Facebook wants to be helpful in prompting what to write. Not only does this help avoid blank recommendations, it hopes to provide more detailed insight into the user’s sentiment.  At this time, it appears that only restaurants, grocery stores and cafes have the rich endorsement tags, but we are certain they will be quickly rolling this feature out to all industries if it is a success.

In an email from Facebook to business page owners, they gave their explanation as to why they were making the change and how it will all be for the better.  “Going forward, the way people will review your business is with Recommendations.  Now, instead of rating your business on a 5-star scale, customers will simply answer whether they recommend your business with a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ – just as they would in regular conversation.”

Benefits of the New Recommendation System

The switch to the new recommendation system is offering more options for customers to provide their opinions about a particular business. Here are some of the benefits:

1. Increased Reach – When a Facebook user makes a recommendation about a business, this recommendation will appear in their news feed. This means there is a good chance that friends will see the recommendation they made along with their message and any images they may have uploaded.

Your business will also be easier to discover across Facebook.  When people are searching for, or talking about, your business Facebook will show first the recommendations provided by the closest friends which will empower the purchasing decisions and bring greater trust.

2. Include Photos with a Recommendation – Reviews did not provide a way for someone to easily include photos with their review. That has all changed with recommendations and Facebook users can now easily share images about their experience that will dramatically help support their recommendation.

Also, if you tag a business in the comments section when a friend asks for a recommendation, you have the options to also post gifs or photos. The best part is, that all this will be displayed in the recommendations section of the business’s Facebook Page.

3. Better Moderation for “Authentic” Recommendations – Facebook made some great updates to the way business page owners can moderate what is being said in recommendations. They only want authentic recommendations and owners will now be able to report recommendations for:

• Recommendation not relevant
• Unfair recommendation
• Nudity
• Violence
• Harassment
• Suicide or Self-injury
• Spam
• Drugs
• Hate Speech

You do not see an option to report a fake review from a disgruntled employee for example, but there is an option to report an unfair recommendation.  This is a step in the right direction.  You can probably attest to that if you have ever gone through the painful process of reporting a fake review on Google or Facebook in the past.  Should you need assistance in reporting a Facebook Recommendation, you can follow their steps provided in the Facebook Help Center.

Disadvantages of the New Recommendation System

While we are certain that Facebook will be able to iron out all the kinks in the new systems, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some that we are currently facing.  Here are some things to think about…

1. How will Facebook transition old reviews into new recommendations? Will they simply assign a 3-star or better review into a Yes recommendation? 2-star and lower is a “No”?  There doesn’t seem to be a clear answer yet and business owners are nervous they may lose some valuable reviews that could lower their rating.

2. How about Google’s rich snippet star system used in search results? Will Facebook pages now lose these since they do not follow the 5-star system?  We think this might have a dramatic effect on Facebook Business page traffic.

3. How about companies that use review management systems like ReviewTrackers, Grade.us, Birdeye, or one of the many other review systems that continue to work on a 5-star system? We have heard first-hand that many of these companies are scrambling to figure out ways to keep Facebook reviews and recommendations part of their review systems.  They too are trying to figure out how to calculate a Yes or No into a 5-star system.

Conclusion

Facebook has certainly been going through a lot of changes lately.  They recently changed the newsfeed algorithms to include more social engagement from actual friends rather than fake news and other distracting content.  These changes also mean the business pages do not get the newsfeed coverage that they used to.

Facebook is steadily working on ways to keep users and businesses equally happy.  We believe introducing Recommendations is part of that intent.  From now on, when someone recommends a business, it will appear in their news feed for their social network of friends to see.  It will be an invaluable tool for promoting a business.

It is the hope that Facebook Recommendations become the most important part of a Facebook business page by providing social proof, building trust and offering a valuable tool for customer acquisition.  It certainly will be interesting to see how this all plays out over the next few months.