Most patients visit online doctor review sites before making a physical visit to your practice. This creates the first impression of your practice in front of your new patients, and you would never want it to be a negative one. In addition to quality, there are numerous other things about reviews that can affect your online reputation. Let’s understand them in detail.
Age of reviews
Patients search for your services online and want to see more reviews of your practice. Your reviews speak to your credibility and strengthen your online presence. But it’s not the quality or quantity; rather, it’s the frequency of reviews that can save your online reputation. A too-old review will not engage your potential patients. According to a survey by BrightLocal, the percentage of people relying on recent reviews has increased from 69 percent to 73 percent. A sudden break in reviews looks suspicious to potential patients.
No reviews or negative reviews
Lack of reviews can hit your practice reputation badly just like negative reviews. At least negative comments talk about your presence, but no reviews mean zero credibility or presence on the Internet. This gives automatic preference to your competitors as your prospective patients will want to read about your competitors. And the same goes for too many negative reviews of your practice. Reading only bad things about you, your patients will refrain from visiting your practice and lower your ranking in search engine results with fewer click-through rates.
All 5-star ratings
Too many 5-star ratings make a patient skeptical about your practice and doubt the credibility of perfect reviews. Most people consider these as fake or spam reviews. Soon, your patients will move on and won’t bother to learn more about your practice. Since they won’t spend time on research, they will probably never visit your website or know about your services. This will make your competitors appear reliable and trustworthy.
Reviews are a glimpse of treatment and care offered by your practice. Since you cannot delight every patient, it is normal to have some negative reviews. So, only 5-star reviews are viewed skeptically by most people.
Inconsistent listings
Patients visit different review platforms to learn more about your practice. So you should have consistent information about your practice on all such platforms. Inconsistent information can confuse your patients and affect your online reputation. The possible errors can be a changed email address, location, or phone number. You need to perform an update of information on all review sites. This is likely to increase your conversion rate. For successful citations, remember to have a consistent NAP (name, address, phone number) wherever you are present online.
No response to reviews
Lastly, you cannot ignore patient reviews. Irrespective of the review type, whether negative or positive, you should respond to reviews. You should thank your reviewers and make them feel valued. Even negative reviews, when acknowledged tactfully and professionally, have the power to convert your haters into lovers. Responding to negative reviews assures the reviewer that they are being listened to. This is also appreciated by the potential patients researching about your practice. Most patients believe that a doctor should post a response to a review. Also, you need to remember that reviews are the building blocks for a strong online reputation.
Undoubtedly, you have a tiring and hectic job where finding time to respond to all reviews on numerous sites won’t be easy. So you can take help from a reputation management company such as myPracticeReputation and make your practice grow online.