Online reputation management for doctors is a must as their business majorly depends on the trust built in the minds of their patients. Earlier, everyone took word-of-mouth recommendations before going to a doctor. Now, word-of-mouth recommendations comes online with reviews that the doctors current or past patients must have given.
One of the major issue most doctors face is that their online reviews do not correctly showcase the past patient’s level of satisfaction with their services. Actual levels of patient satisfaction are often high but they are not converted into qualitative reviews. This reduces their prospects of getting significant number of patients in the future.
What is Online Reputation Management for Doctors?
Reputation management for doctors on the online front caters to repairing and / or revamping the image of the doctor and his clinic in the eyes of its prospects and current patients. This invariably improves patient trust and footfall at the clinic.
For example, while looking for a dentist, if I get two clinic’s information on Google search, where the first clinic’s doctor has 10 years of experience, patient reviews are 25, all 4-to-5-star reviews. Second clinic’s doctor has 5 years of experience, patient reviews are 525, all 4-to-5-star reviews, then I will choose to go for the second doctor since he has enough experience and so many people trust in his work. Let’s delve deeper into how to address these issues with online reputation management for doctors effectively.
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Strategies for Online Reputation Management for Doctors
As per research, more than 85% people search for a medical practitioner online before their first visit. This makes your online presence and your reputation on the online front more vital. The below mentioned strategies will aid in improving your online reputation:
1. Build a Website About Your Practice
A website is the first point of contact for a patient to their doctor. A physician’s website or a clinic website with the qualifications of the doctor and other informative content must be added which helps prospects in building trust. You can add content about the following which will boost your search rankings and build patients trust:
- Doctor’s Journey in his Bio
- Blog Posts about the Industry Trends (like a cardiologist will write blog posts about the trends in cardiology industry)
- Few Complicated Case Studies and How the Doctor Resolved it
- Reviews from Every Patient that Visits the Clinic
Such informative and genuine content helps prospects be genuinely interested in the doctor and does make a visit.
2. Encourage Happy Patients Reviews
First create your business listing on platforms like Google My Business, Yelp, and such directories for more visibility. Then ask all your patients to provide their genuine feedback on these sites about their experience with the service. More than 95% people who search online do check out the reviews on GMB or Yelp and such websites. When you have 100s of genuine good reviews on such platforms, you are likely to cater to that audiences.
3. Always Respond to Reviews
Once you receive feedback from your patients, be it a positive review or a negative one, do make sure that you respond to them within 48 hours. Thanking the people with the positive reviews and apologizing people for their negative reviews for their bad service experience. If possible, offer a solution then and there for the negative feedback for a better conversion rate. This way, your authenticity is proved and the trust is maintained.
4. Maintaining Your Public Social Media Profiles
Since Google accepts a wide variety of signals while ranking your website, it also considers your presence in other platforms, your activities there and your customer responses on the same. Social media is one such channel that plays a part in Google’s ranking. Also, with more than 90% people present on social media platforms, it is true that they do check out your profile and its maintenance before making a decision. So, you must keep your profile and page updated for a better customer experience.
5. Use A Digital Patient Engagement Platform
With growth in technology, nowadays, there have been a great impact on healthcare industry as well. There are apps that avail you a doctor with a click of a button, digital tools that foster greater doctor-patient relationships, calendar reminders and more.
You can perform multiple such activities for gaining customer visibility. You can register with apps that avails doctors to patients faster and gain patients there, then you can create a system where there is after sales follow up and calls to the customer for the next appointment and many more. These platforms leverage your communication and relationship with your clients.
6. Create Medical Profiles on Relevant Directories
One of the best approaches for doctors to reach out to their patients is through creating rich profiles on relevant directories that are specifically for the doctors’ niche. Directories like Yelp, WebMd, Practo and more have 1000s of physicians registered to leverage doctor-patient’s smooth communication. These directories are great for converting clicks into patients because of its authenticity and relevancy. They are one of the major resources for online reputation management for doctors.
7. Display Positive Reviews on Your Practice’s Website
When a prospect visits your website, they are likely to check out the information that most relevantly fit their requirements. This is where explanatory positive feedback will aid their requirements and build their trust towards the physician and the clinic. It is one of the effective strategies to leverage your positive reviews for your clinic to stand out in the eyes of your prospects.
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Conclusion
When you have greater online visibility, your website rank’s well on search engines like Google and you have a lot of positive feedback from your previous patients will work in your advantages in building online reputation for your clinic.