Your online reputation is one of your most important assets. Prospective patients and people thinking of referring you will go online to view you before making appointments. With a bad rep, you might as well hang up your white coat and stethoscope, turn the lights out, and lock the door behind you.
One way to protect your reputation, is to respond to online reviews on Facebook, Yelp, and Google. Management of negative reviews is extremely important but you want to respond to good reviews as well.
Build relationships with your patients by responding to them on social media.
Response to all positive and negative reviews
Your patients are sharing feedback in reviews about your practice online. Thank happy reviewers for their positive feedback. Use your unique voice to thank and congratulate your patient.
Don’t ignore the bad ones! If the feedback is valid, use the opportunity to change what was wrong. Then reach out to the disgruntled reviewers and have them discuss the problems at your office. Use the reviewer’s name and confront the issue head on.
Never go into a tirade or try to defend yourself online. It merely perpetuates the negativity. Instead, apologize for the problem online and mention that you would like to rectify the problem in realtime. This will make your patients feel heard and appreciated as well as showing your willingness to be flexible and compassionate. It immediately puts a positive spin on the review.
Reviews are listed with the most recent ones on top. If you get all your loyal, content patients to write reviews, it buries the bad one. You cannot have them removed and you can’t pay review sites to remove reviews you feel are unjust.
The good news about removal of bad reviews, is that if you can show with inaccuracies that the inflammatory remarks violate the site’s guidelines, you do stand a chance. Check the site’s guidelines to see if that review might go against them. When you flag the review, mention the guideline the review might be violating. Verify the site’s guidelines to look for violations. When you flag the review, mention the guideline the review might be violating.
When a review is mediocre with both positive and negative comments, let your reviewer know you’re listening and thank them for taking the time for their feedback. It’s a further chance to win them over.
Your actions to both positive and negative reviews are not only for the reviewer but for the benefit of anyone visiting your page. Nearly 80% of U.S. consumers read reviews before making a decision. You’ll want to show these reviewers the same good service online that you would in your practice.
Facebook recommendations are considered reviews as well. Respond to all of them to protect your reputation and let viewers know you’re listening.
“Recommendations help customers learn more about your business and may make your Page easier to find in Facebook search.” –Facebook
Responding is a great way to engage with your online community. You will see the recommendations by going to your Facebook page and navigating to your rating on the right hand side.
What you respond matters, even when it’s to an old comment. In fact, 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as friends. And, responding to reviews is more important than ever: 30% of consumers consider review responses to be essential when deciding whether or not to visit a business.
No Time?
No worries! When you feel ready to tackle social media reviews, let’s craft a personalized response to the reviews for your practice together ( or we can do it for you)
Call 516-647-3002 and we’ll get right on it!
