Online reviews by patients. Why they matter and why you must pay attention.
Would you ever eat a meal from a restaurant with bad reviews? Or what about visiting a hotel with no reviews at all? So then why do you expect patients to not judge your medical practice based on online reviews? This is the reason why your medical practice needs to focus on patient reviews online.
Introduction
One star or five stars. From
where we eat, to our cab driver, to our groceries, and even our underwear.
Today, there is a rating for everything. The proliferation of social media
platforms and the dissemination of the internet has made the web a public forum
where people can discuss everything. And what many are choosing to discuss is
how they would rate business, products, and services that they have
experienced.
While people solely used to
rely on word of mouth before choosing what products, services, or experiences
they had, today they have the reviews of billions of strangers available
through the internet. This great shift in how consumers approach and interact
with business has shifted how companies think about online reviews and ratings.
But what about the healthcare
industry? While the healthcare industry has traditionally operated on the very
back of word of mouth, customer evangelism, and goodwill marketing, how do
online reviews affect the industry?
Well, let’s just say that if
your medical practice is not paying attention to online reviews then your
business could be losing out on a lot.
Online Reviews
Adults in the US increasingly
use the internet for their every need and requirement today. And this extends
to choosing which businesses they patronize. Most adults look at the businesses
that offer the services they are interested in online to make their final
selection. After all, if the majority of your day is being spent online then
why would you not use online tools to search for businesses?
This selection is based on a
variety of factors like convenience, online reputation, location but most
importantly reviews and ratings. Reviews and ratings have the most weight when
it comes to customers making their decisions choosing whether or not to support
a business.
Why they matter for medical businesses
For the healthcare industry,
this is even more true than in other industries. If you eat a bad meal, it’s
most likely that it is a short-term poor experience. On the other hand, a bad
experience in a healthcare setting can have major consequences. It’s not really
a surprise that patients want to be completely assured of the treatment that
they are going to receive. That’s where the power of social proof in the form
of ratings and reviews comes in.
Just in case, you are
wondering if this is just something we are making up we do have some statistics
to back our claims up. Surveys have found that over 70 percent of patients use
online reviews to make a choice about their healthcare provider. Of these, over
1/3rd used Google Reviews to make a choice about medical practice. Even more
surprisingly, nearly 2/3rd of the respondents also stated that it is essential
for providers to respond publicly to online patient reviews.
With internet use only going to go up, more and more patients will make choices
about their healthcare provider based on internet reviews.
It’s very easy to see why
online reviews are so vital for the success of a healthcare practice. Bad
reviews or even a lack of reviews can sink a medical practice even if it was
doing everything else right.
But how can healthcare
practices focus on patient reviews? While that would be an entire blog on its
own we can still tell you some simple steps. Using simple email templates to
encourage patient review of doctors for
your practice can lead to more positive reviews, while simply addressing
feedback can only mitigate the effect of any negative reviews.
Conclusion
With the world turning
digital, everything has a ranking for better or worse. Patients today rely on
online reviews and ratings more than ever when it comes to choosing their
healthcare providers. If your medical practice is not trying to optimize its
ratings on online platforms, then you are definitely losing out on attracting
more patients to your business.
The healthcare industry has
long understood the power of social proof and customer evangelism for growing a
business. But despite that, they have not yet realized that today’s social
proof and patient evangelism happens on the internet. Google reviews, Yelp
ratings, and even social media mentions today form the base of the opinions of
patients that are looking at your service online.
BraveLabs helps
medical practices of all sizes optimize their reviews so that they can attract
more patients with positive word of mouth and show better social proof. Contact
us today if you want to grow your medical business through
a positive brand build.
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