Getting patient reviews is one of the key challenges in improving your medical clinic’s online reputation and increasing new patient conversion rates.
While unhappy patients are more self-motivated to have their frustrations heard and quick to make their feelings known, happy patients will usually need a slight nudge to share their positive experiences with your practice.
But when your online reputation is one of the most valuable components of your digital presence, you shouldn’t leave this valuable tool up to the whims of your patients.
Now, we all know how important patient reviews are, we’d like to show you some interesting stats here.
Up to 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.
Customers are more likely to spend 31% more on a business with “excellent” reviews.
Displaying at least five reviews can improve the conversion rates by as much as 270%.
In this OMD TV episode, we’ll give you the eight most simple and effective ways to generate more positive reviews for your clinic, at least 20 more reviews a month if you seriously want to give this a go.
Now, the first way is to email or reach out to happy patients immediately.
One thing you need to do is ask them directly to write a review.
It’s easy, effective, and incredibly efficient.
Directly asking patients to provide an online review works.
According to BrightLocal, seven out of 10 people will provide an online review if they are asked.
One of the best ways to make sure you get reviews is to ask for them promptly.
People tend to be the happiest right after their visit.
So, they also feel most inclined to “give something back” to you, also known as the principle of reciprocity.
What if you have a complex procedure and your patients will want to spend some time with it before they give any feedback?
You’re still in a position to get a review.
Make a follow-up call to see how things are going and if your contact seems upbeat, then make a review request.
You can send a personalised follow-up email to a patient after an appointment which is an easy way to ask for an online review.
Thank the patient for coming in for an appointment, and ask if everything went well, and then include a link to your online review sites.
You can have an Email Subject: I have a favour to ask.
And then include a link to your Google listings of different clinic locations for them to click on and leave the review easily.
If possible, include detailed instructions as to how to leave a review.
And give them a $20 or $50 voucher to be used for the next appointment, and then, they need to take the screenshot of the review that they left to show you when they arrive.
So one of our clients has applied this and sent to their recent 1,000 patients and saw a 60% open rate.
Imagine if you could get 50 more positive reviews on your Google listing this month, how much higher your new patient conversion rate would be, right?
You can then use your email marketing software like Mailchimp or your existing email marketing software to send this particular email.
Now the econd way is to send out SMS review requests.
This is a pretty quick way to get reviews for your practice.
Research shows that 90% of text messages are read within the first three minutes.
In an era where consumers are conditioned to write short tweets or Instagram captions from their mobile devices, they find it a lot easier to type out a quick review from their phone and send it on its way.
The third way is to print out the instructions.
Some patients might want to share their great experiences with you, but they just aren’t tech-savvy to navigate review sites.
Printing instructions are a great way to help these patients easily post their experiences online.
Now the fourth way is to send handwritten notes to rack up reviews.
A handwritten note is a great way to make a lasting impression.
Even to this day, job seekers are still advised to do this. Why?
Simply because it shows that you’re willing to invest time and effort into a relationship.
That’s the same vibe you want when you’re asking for a review, right?
Naturally, though, it’s vital to honour your contact’s valuable time by not expecting too much of it.
Consider using a postcard instead of a paper note that has to be sent in an envelope.
A simple URL using a URL shortener or QR code can get the recipient onto a page to leave a review.
Snail mail is a fantastic way to reach patients that are used to receiving physical mail.
While it might cost a little more, it can help you better connect with your patients and can lead to a stream of new patient reviews.
Now the fifth way is to make a thank you video.
People love videos and seeing your personal visual message for them will definitely create more impact on your patients.
Try making a video to thank patients for visiting your practice and asking them to leave a review.
Remember, you just need to hit that magical 100 reviews number, you will see the incredible ripple effect for increased new patient conversion rate come after.
You can use a free video recording software called Loom with which you can record a video showing how to leave a review on a computer at the same time.
Now the sixth way is to make the call.
If your staff makes follow-up phone calls, why not encourage them to suggest that patients write an online review, right?
This method can be extremely effective with the right audiences.
They can instruct the patient right over the phone as to how to do that.
Now the seventh way is to make it part of your routine, make sure there’s a dedicated person for this campaign.
Sometimes soliciting positive reviews can be a little bit cumbersome.
However, you are going to need your staff’s support in order to make this work, so ensure that asking for online reviews is part of your office’s routine.
Even better, delegate this task to a team member and give her or him some incentive for hitting 20, 50, 70, 100 reviews mark for a month with a bonus and team recognition for their effort.
They will have much more motivation to get this done for you.
You can even create a small competition with a prize amongst your patient management and marketing staff to see who can bring in the highest number of reviews in a month, in a three-month competition.
Consider doing it at least twice a year.
We’ve advised one of our clients to do so and they managed to get to the 100 reviews mark in a month’s time.
Now finally, the eighth way which is to use online reputation management software.
Now, to finish up today, as you know we are all about finding ways to help you automate your marketing to scale your practice up, so here’s another important tip.
Check your existing booking application, email marketing software, or patient relationship management software, to see if they have an autoresponder email feature.
You can use this to automatically send patients an email asking them to complete a quick survey.
And if they rate you highly, you can trigger another email or take them to another page with instructions for leaving their review on Google and other popular third-party review sites in your country.
Asking patients to leave online reviews and managing your online reputation is a time-consuming job and we know that, and that could be better spent providing quality patient care to your patients.
Using an online reputation management software would be a key asset in easily asking your patients for more reviews, improving your patient service recovery process, and managing all of your reviews in one place.
This type of tool will allow you to review testimonials prior to upload, so you can screen out the less optimal reviews.
This allows you to contact patients for more detailed feedback, addressing these issues before they go public, which will help improve your customer relationship and protect your online reputation.
You can ask your existing CRM or Customer Relationship Management software provider to see if they have this feature on their software or look for a robust online reputation management software that assists in acquiring more positive online reviews.
No matter what strategy you choose to follow, getting more reviews and managing negative reviews is imperative for improving your online presence.
I’ll leave the list of all of these review sites and also some online reputation management tools in the show notes so you can check them out.
So if you want us to help you generate more reviews for your clinics using the above steps, we’d like to invite you to take the next step which is to book a 15-minute discovery call with us so we can learn more about you and to see if we can help you.
Thank you for listening and I hope to talk to you or see you in our discovery consult.
Bye for now.
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