In these days of the extensive use of the internet, every owner of medical practice has to deal with a considerable number of customer reviews online. A good number of these reviews will be encouraging, but some will definitely be outright disparaging.
Scathing reviewers typically give a more detailed account of why they are not satisfied with your medical services. You could lose your loyal customer base if you do not respond to such reviews in an effective and timely manner. So, the question is: what to do with bad reviews of your medical practice?
Determine the Consistent Factor Behind Dissatisfaction
To start with, you must understand the fact that not all negative reviews of your medical practice will be of benefit to you. When going through the negative reviews of your practice, look for the underlying issues that are constantly mentioned.
For instance, if the rating of your business is always “disappointing”, it simply means that such clients expected more quality service. So, you are able to easily determine that you need to improve on the quality of your services and staff.
Respond in Time to Negative Reviews
Most business owners use the tactic of ignoring bad online reviews. This does not help your brand at all. The best thing to do is to respond to such reviews in a timely and professional manner.
Replying such reviews in a soft, yet firm manner goes a long way towards building a good relationship with such reviewer and also portrays your practice as one that cares about and responds to patient issues on time and with professionalism. Never ignore negative reviews of your medical practice.
The key to responding to negative reviews should be in three parts:
- Acknowledge the issue/where the reviewer is coming from in a timely fashion.
- Express an apology or sorrow for their bad experience.
- Find a resolution. (Ex. “We’ll mention that to the team.” “We’ll change our process to improve that issue.” etc.)
Work Out Solutions
Having determined the reason for the bad reviews of your practice online, the next thing is to seek out solutions with your staff on the parts that need improvement.
Say, for example, the wait time at your practice is too long, work out ways you can efficiently speed up the time whilst maintaining quality, or how to engage your clients while they wait to be attended to.
Every bad review should be handled professionally and be used as a platform to improve your medical practice. These changes will improve your practice overall and will likely help you attract more new potential patients.
Use Them to Build Your Reputation
When you have only positive reviews of your practice online, people will most likely not trust your medical practice brand. Yes, positive reviews are good for business, but a few numbers of negative online reviews will portray a level of trust. However, negative reviews could make or mar your reputation online. So, be sure you attract more positive reviews of your medical practice.
You can ask your patients for reviews at a few times during their appointment. Your office staff can mention that you are soliciting patient experiences to improve experiences as that practice long term. You can also follow up their appointment with an email asking them to leave patient feedback on your review sites (be sure to link where they should leave their review!).
The more quality reviews you have to better your overall online reputation will be, even if it is a mix of positive and negative comments.
Conclusion
Medical practice owners deal with a lot of online reviews of their practice. Most reviews are glowing, while some are quite scathing. The tips above will help you know what to do with bad reviews of your medical practice and how you can learn from them as you improve your customer satisfaction ratings.