Overview
You may have noticed something different about the reviews section of your Facebook page. The social media giant recently replaced reviews on the site with recommendations, doing away with the 5-star sliding scale to gauge customer experiences in favor of a simple “Yes, I would recommend” or “No, I would not recommend” format. While this may seem like a major shift to some who have invested a great deal of energy into getting 5-star reviews, not much will change for CX and Reputation Managers.
What happens to the existing reviews we worked so hard for?
Existing reviews aren’t going anywhere (for the time being at least), and visitors to your Facebook page will still be able to see reviews left by previous customers. The only difference now is that all current visitors will be given the binary recommendation option instead of selecting one to five stars. Recommendations will appear in the same feed as reviews left under the previous process, but will show “recommends” or “does not recommend” in the place where star ratings used to be.
How is the recommendation score calculated?
According to Facebook, the recommendation score is based on the number of people that recommend or don’t recommend the page, as well as any previous ratings and reviews it may have.
You may have seen friends asking for recommendations in your personal Facebook feed. Facebook understands the syntax of posts asking for recommendations, and provides links to the pages of any businesses recommended by people in the comments. Recommendations in posts like these will not appear on your page, but they do impact your recommendation score. This might sound concerning at first, but not to worry. While someone can post that they do not recommend your business directly on your page, users can only positively recommend a business in “looking for recommendations” posts. This means that, while you might not be able to see them, these recommendations can only positively affect your score.
Rich Feedback
Users recommending (or not recommending) a business on their page can use text, tags, or even add photos to their recommendation to provide rich feedback to the business and other users. Tags are common themes that appear in user recommendations and let potential customers see what your business is known for. Tags have not yet been rolled out for auto dealers, but we expect that functionality to be available in the near future. You can get an idea of what this looks like by going to the page of a coffee shop in your area and navigating to the reviews section. Tags will appear in bold text at the bottom of the recommendation.
Conclusion
While this might seem like a significant change for CX and Reputation Managers who live and breathe 5-star reviews, it is really just a simplification of that process we know and love. Most reviewers in a 5-star system either leave high marks or one star with very little in between. Switching to this process has allowed Facebook to include “word of mouth” recommendations from user’s posts into your overall score, which can only help your business.
Have more questions? Be sure to check out other FAQs, feature docs, and more at www.friendemic.com. Of course, you can always reach out to your CSM or Account Executive for more information, or email us at support@friendemic.com.
