Why Online Reviews are important for Doctors?

June 16, 2016
Healthcare, Reviews

Why Online Reviews are important for Doctors?

In this digital era where information is on the fingertips, everyone in this world has enough knowledge to consider their possible options and patients are not different from them. In the past, when a person felt bad he/she goes to their nanny or mother to ask what to do? Now the new generation goes over their laptops, smartphones and asks Google the solutions for the same problem. Time is changing so should the doctors.

Why Did Patients consider online reviews?

Patients consider reviews before choosing their doctor for two purposes:

To know the previous experience of patients with a particular doctor.
To trust or not to trust the practice of the doctor.

Online reviews nowadays are treated as the personal recommendation by patients and hence management of reviews should be taken seriously by the doctor because no matter you are aware of it or not, patients are posting online reviews out of their frustration, satisfaction, anger or any other emotions stimulated by their experience with that doctor.

88% Have Read Reviews

To Determine The Quality Of A Local Business

Survey by BrightLocal.com

Positive reviews about your medical practice increase your credibility and trust among your potential patients and attract them to contact first. On the other hand, negative reviews by your patients discourage potential patients to contact you and will harm your reputation too.

To protect your online reputation, doctors need to focus on the management of their online reviews. But there is no need to worry about it as you can use the power of online reviews in your favor too.

Online reviews can be used as a great marketing and branding tool if used with proper care and understanding of the fact that you can stimulate your existing patients to write positive reviews for you.

72% Of Consumers Say

That Positive Reviews Make Them Trust A Local Business More

Survey by BrightLocal.com

How to get more positive online reviews?

ASK for reviews from existing patients.

Your existing patients can be a great source for you to get good reviews initially. Since your patients are happy with your services and they trust you, You can leverage this opportunity by giving them a direction to post some good reviews about you either on your own website or other popular reviews and rating site such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, etc.

Offer discounts in return for positive reviews from patients.

After a few intervals of time say after a gap of every 2 or 1-month offer discounts to your patients who will post reviews for you as loyal patients. It is a great strategy because both you and your patient will be benefitted from it.

Respond to bad reviews as fast as you can.

Monitor reviews online for your clinic or your practice and have an eye on bad reviews if any, then try to respond these bad reviews on the review sites as fast as you can so that prospective patients can understand you more effectively without any negative impression.

Contact your patients directly who write bad reviews and solve their issues.

If you are getting bad reviews from a patient continuously, you can contact that patient directly and solve his/her issues. This will build a patient’s trust again in you. Also, it will encourage that patient to remove the bad review and you will earn patient loyalty.

Popular rating and review websites for doctors