5 Ways to Monitor Online Reputation of Your Practice
Online reputation is crucial for the growth of your practice. Today, a patient does not just jump to a practice but performs online research of the doctor, reads reviews, visits the website and then decides to make a physical visit to the practice. So, you need online reputation monitoring, and here is how:
- Keep your listings updated: Your practice can get listed on any and many review sites and business directories. You need to continuously monitor your online reputation on various sites. First, check if all your business details mentioned such as name, address and contact number are correct. Inconsistent details can make existing and potential patients confused and unhappy. This can even land you in trouble as Google can penalize you for an inconsistent phone number. Second, you need to monitor the reviews received for your practice. Reviewers expect some response to their reviews, so you should thank your patients for posting reviews whether positive or negative.
- Learn to respond in a timely manner: Be proactive when it comes to responding to reviews. As discussed in the earlier point, you need to respond to every review. Make sure that your response is HIPAA-compliant. That means not disclosing customers’ details or specifics of their ailments. It is easy to give positive feedback with thanks and assuring them of having an even better experience on their next visit. For negative reviews, remember to reply professionally and not take things personally. Here are some tips to manage the bad reviews:
Don’t make it public: Reach out directly to the reviewer and take the discussion offline. Listen to the reviewer’s issue, apologize for the negative experience and assure the patient of the solution. This will help you turn an unhappy patient into a happy one.
Increase positive count: To counter your negative image, it is better to increase the number of positive reviews you receive. So, build a larger group of loyal patients to support you online at such times. It leaves a great impact on a reviewer or searcher to hear from existing patients rather than to hear from you.
No instant replies: It is good to respond to negative reviews. But it is advised to take your time to understand the issue, stay cool and then sit down to reply. Otherwise, you are likely to damage your existing reputation.
Eliminate fake reviews: Another important element of review monitoring and dealing with bad reviews is checking for fake reviews. It is necessary to keep your reputation unaffected by this malicious activity where negative reviews are posted by your competitors or ex-employees who hold grudges and want your practice reputation to fall. It is a must to identify them and get removed from review websites before they destroy your patients’ trust and affect your Google ranking.
- Understand patients’ perceptions: Monitoring allows you to know what people are saying about your practice online. This will provide great insights into how patients are being treated at your practice, what worries them and what delights them. You will also get to know if your staff is considerate enough or not. You should check and try to immediately resolve issues that are expressed many times.
- Stand out from the competition: Growing competition in the healthcare industry is no news to you. Here, online reputation monitoring helps you identify your strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. Compare it with that of your competitors to know them inside out. This will help you stop your patients from switching to other doctors. Also, you can adapt the successful marketing and reputation building techniques used by your competitors.
- Update your practice website: For online reputation monitoring, you need to have an engaging practice website that’s updated regularly. The valuable information on your website and testimonials will help you achieve a stellar online reputation. To enhance your presence, you need to have good SEO for your website. Don’t forget to add a patient portal. This will allow your patients to book an appointment, check test results, etc.