How Important is it to Get a Good Online Business Review?
In today’s online world, people search healthcare practices online before making a decision to become a patient there. One of the most looked-up pieces of information potential patients search for is online reviews of a practice.
How Important are Star Ratings?
This means your online star reviews are very important. With that said, you shouldn’t lose sleep over it. Rather, you should gradually work to:
Take control of your review profiles
Capture and update your profiles
What makes these profiles so important is that they actually serve as “backlinks” to your website. Backlinks are links on third party sites that link to your business website or blog. These links help you build a stronger overall digital presence. The more backlinks you have, the higher your SEO (search engine optimization) score is, which places you higher in online searches!
By taking control of your profiles on review sites, you will be able to update information as needed. You will be alerted to not only positive reviews that you can promote on your socials and website, but negative reviews as well.
Stop the Bleeding
If you are getting a bunch of negative reviews, it is important to identify why your patients are upset. Once you have identified the problems, set up a procedure to correct it. For example, if your appointments are always running behind, advise patients that there could be a wait. This can give patients the heads up that they will have an opportunity to get some work done while waiting in the lobby. (Make sure you have free WiFi for those who need to use it.) Alternatively, you could give a better estimate of the actual time a patient will be seen leading up to the appointment or you could adjust your scheduling blocks to add in some padding between appointments.
Set Up a Program to Capture Positive Reviews
The other thing you can do to take care of negative reviews is to flood them out with positive ones! Set up a way to capture positive reviews from your patients. This is as simple as providing happy patients with a QR code to share their feedback. Or if you do follow-up emails after an appointment, send your happy patients a link to submit an online review in an email or newsletter. Ultimately, the more elaborate a strategy is, the better chance you have to maximize opportunities for patients to provide a positive review, and capture unhappy patients before they post a negative review.
Here to Stay
In a perfect world, patients would treat providers fairly and practices would treat all patients with VIP service. This expectation is here to stay and that means you have to step up your efforts!
This practice can be somewhat unfair to healthcare providers due to HIPAA limitations that medical professionals must adhere to. However, showing that a practice is listening to feedback is key. Many times, patients just want to know their concerns are being heard and addressed. So at a minimum, you should respond to negative reviews and feedback.
More Strategies to Bury Negative Reviews
Once you have addressed the unhappy patient and have reached a compromise or solution, ask the patient if they would consider updating their review to a higher rating, or deleting the negative review altogether. Remember, you don’t get what you don’t ask for!
Further, you can contact the review platform (Google, Facebook, Yelp, HealthGrades, Vitals, etc.) to see if any reviews that are considered obscene, abusive, or dangerous can be removed. Oftentimes, the platform will remove reviews that conflict with their standards of use.
In the end, if an unhappy patient refuses to update or delete a negative review, or the platform will not remove a negative review, you’ll need to work to get your happy patients to flood the platform. Again, simply request that they take a moment to share their feedback, giving you plenty of genuine, highly rated reviews.
Customer Service Tools
Finally, customer service tools exist to assist you in capturing potential negative reviews internally. These tools allow individuals to share their feedback directly with the practice. While these tools do not prevent an unhappy individual from circumventing your tools by visiting platforms directly, it can help you resolve issues and flood your reviews with high ratings.
Looking for Assistance?
Need help getting your online star ratings in order? Our team is well versed on the intricacies and strategies of improving your online reviews! Contact your Physician’s Liaison representative to discuss a strategy designed for your unique needs.