Did you know?
After visiting a practice’s website internet users continue their research on such sites as Google profile, yelp.com, RateMDs.com, vitals.com, HealthGrades.com, CitySearch.com. All those websites are about your practice’s online reputation.
90% of patients review your business before making a decision
82% of patients say reviews impact their decision
Online users’ reviews have changed the way consumers decide to choose a service or buy a product. Maintaining a good. solid online reputation is a crucial component of any online strategy. Not doing so puts you at risk by giving your patients wrong impression about your practice.
So where should you start from? Have you read what your patients have written online about your practice? When was the last time you checked on your online reputation? I suggest that you try a little experiment.
1) Go to your favorite search engine and type your name.
2) Identify websites that include your name.
The results you will get should alert you alert to two main issues:
Negative reviews. Most likely, a couple of negative statements won’t damage your reputation. But if there are only a couple bad reviews and no positive reviews in yourl search engine results, you should start taking action concerning your online reputation.
2) No reviews. If no one says anything about your practice it is not a healthy sign either. You should think about encouraging your patients to share their experience with your practice online. What if your happy patients were able to influence thousands of your potential clients across the internet?
What can you do?
Manage your practice brand online. Set up social media profiles such as Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, etc.
Monitor these websites: yelp.com, RateMDs.com, vitals.com, HealthGrades.com, ZocDoc.com, avvo.com, CitySearch.com as well as Google search engine results regularly
Encourage patients to write about their positive experience. Provide an option to leave feedback on your website that leads directly to online review websites like yelp.com, Health grades, RateMDs and websites mentioned above
Some review websites will allow you to remove some bad comments. Unfortunately, most websites do not.
If there are a lot of negative reviews you should identify potential customer service issues in your practice..
Work directly with unhappy patients. Be proactive. Personally addressing a poor review would demonstrate that you do care about your patients’ experience.
Educate your staff about online reputation management for your practice.
Keep in mind that even if your website is ranked #1 on Google, prospective clients will still tend to browse review sites before making an appointment. Maintaining control of your online reputation will requires dedicating some time each week to properly check the websites mentioned earlier, including your own if you allow comments. Being a busy healthcare professional you might not have enough time for this. So in this case you can hire Tolen Studio to handle your online reputation management for you.
We will make it easy for your patients to review your medical practice by adding special tools to your website.
We will track and monitor all your reviews and prepare clear reports, so that you will have a clear view of your current online reputation.
We will develop a strategy for your practice tailored to your specific online reputation needs.
