The best way to grow your medical practice as we enter the New Year is to develop your marketing strategy focusing on the predicted trends. The competition in the health and wellness space continues to be fierce. Still, you need to be sure you take the new best practices and industry shifts into account if you want to see solid results. That’s why building a solid marketing strategy is vital to your practice’s success.
With the 2020-2021 pandemic causing catastrophic losses across the board, some medical practices solely focus on surviving. Telehealth is here to stay, and the social media advertising platform will continue to evolve. While many parts of your marketing strategy will look different as we make our way into 2022, one thing continues to be a constant; prioritizing patient feedback is the key to success!
The value of patient feedback and effective online review management systems is unmatched. Still, you need to set your strategy straight to unlock all the benefits of delivering an exceptional patient experience. What is the best way to gather patient feedback? How can you structure your online review system to bring your practice powerful results? Let’s explore!
How to Prioritize Patient Feedback and Online Reviews for Your Marketing Success
With the healthcare industry in high demand and technology-driven changes increasing, medical practices must adapt to the new norms to survive. Patients are shifting more and more towards digital tools to interact with healthcare providers. If you want to thrive in today’s virtual world, you need to meet your patients where they spend the most time. Now, more than ever, patient feedback is a vital and valuable tool for your medical practice success.
According to statistics, nearly 94% of healthcare patients use online reviews to evaluate providers. 77% of patients use a search engine to find your practice before booking an appointment making patient feedback a powerful tool for continued practice growth. That means the success of your marketing strategy relies heavily on your online presence. This goes beyond a robust search engine ranking and a user-friendly website.
Of course, the journey begins at the search engine for many patients. However, your potential patients will bring their journey to a screeching halt if patient feedback paints a poor picture of your practice. As the current state of consumer healthcare continues to get worse since the introduction of COVID-19, successful medical practices focus on the patient experience to increase satisfaction, retain current patients, and draw in new customers.
Capitalizing on Positive Patient Experiences
With a shortage of healthcare workers and a record level of stress across the industry, it is no surprise that the state of the patient experience is terrible. Unfortunately, it’s expected to get worse before it gets better. That’s why now is the perfect time to invest in improving the patient experience at your practice and gather quality patient feedback to enhance your brand reputation.
According to statistics, an alarming 81% of consumers are dissatisfied with their healthcare experience. Providers need to take a hard look at whether the patient experience they deliver meets consumer expectations. Closing the quality gap in consumer experience versus expectation can drive more meaningful operational efficiency while improving the patient experience.
By delivering what other practices are lacking in quality throughout the industry, you have the opportunity to increase your marketing success substantially. Once you foster an environment of consistent practice growth and higher retention rates through a quality patient experience, the next step is to move out of survival mode and watch your business truly thrive.
Take Advantage of Patient Feedback to Bring Your Practice to the Next Level
Now that patients are satisfied with your services, it’s time to leverage that satisfaction to bring in new consumers. What’s even better is that continually gathering patient feedback benefits your practice ten-fold. Even negative feedback can lead to growth if you know how to handle poor reviews correctly.
Since online reviews are often your first impression for most of your patients, this timeless tool can help establish you as a trusted provider. Nearly 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. With new review platforms popping up at every turn, you’ll need to focus on maintaining a positive image on online review platforms across the board.
Patients feel more comfortable writing reviews than giving you an in-person opinion, which is advantageous to medical practices that encourage patient feedback online. As we enter 2022, healthcare practices need to continue taking a proactive approach to online reviews. Before patients go online independently to leave a review, request their feedback in a way that works for your marketing strategy. Here’s how:
1. Use a review management system to request, organize, and generate feedback reporting.
An effective review management system doesn’t simply help protect your brand reputation online. It also helps improve your business operations, customer relationships, and marketing strategy. Whether you are looking for them or not, patients will write reviews about your practice at some point. One bad review can snowball into a series of adverse opinions that threaten the integrity of your business.
Integrating a review management system into your marketing strategy allows you to minimize the impact of bad reviews and highlight the value of good ones. The system should automatically request reviews from patients once their appointment is complete. Reviews are then organized and filtered based on their quality.
You’ll have an opportunity to provide a timely response to negative reviews, showing patients that you hear them and are dedicated to making their experience better. A little effort goes a long way when it comes to the overall image of your practice. While patients shouldn’t expect you to be perfect, they place significant value on healthcare providers who own their shortcomings and try to fix their mistakes.
Monthly feedback reporting allows you to closely look at how your practice is stacking up against your patient expectations. Plus, it all filters back to enhance provider/patient relationships and build a strong reputation of trust amongst your current customers.
2. Stick with a system that requests feedback from all patients.
When it comes to patient feedback, you don’t want to cherry-pick certain patients. You want a system that requests input from all patients across the board. When it comes to your overall star rating online, the more reviews you get, the easier it is to maintain a positive reputation. That’s because it’s all in the numbers.
Here’s a quick example of how that works. Let’s say you only have five online reviews. Even with four five-star reviews, a single one-star review can drop your overall rating substantially. That’s because each review accounts for 20% of your overall rating. On the other hand, say you have 100 online reviews. Even if you were to get five one-star reviews, they would only account for 5% of your overall rating. Therefore, the more reviews you have online, the easier it is to manage the negative impact of a poor review.
3. Use feedback to process operational issues.
Patient feedback isn’t only valuable in creating a positive online reputation and bringing in new patients. It is also a useful tool for your overall business success. Online reviews are an opportunity for patients to be vulnerable and honest as they share insights into their experience with your practice. This gives you valuable information to enhance your operational processes.
Try a different approach rather than looking at negative reviews as a damaging blow to your business. Use negative reviews to gather feedback on what needs improvement in your daily business operations. You can find out what works and doesn’t and tweak your operational strategy to increase overall patient satisfaction. Constructive criticism is part of any business.
Listening to your patient’s complaints or suggestions is an excellent way to transform your medical practice into a 10! Negative feedback opens your eyes to minor details that can be changed to make a big difference for your patients.
4. Use feedback on your website and social media.
Another easy way to take advantage of patient feedback is to highlight patients’ positive reviews on your website and social media. In addition to online review sites, patients undoubtedly research your practice by scrolling through reviews left on your website and social media pages.
Highlighting a positive review is the perfect opportunity to brag about what you’re doing right. While you don’t want to spend a ton of time doing this, occasionally, taking a well-written, thoughtful review that praises your practice can increase brand awareness and spark patient interest. Make sure your website and social media testimonials are up-to-date and relevant to get the best results.
Request Patient Feedback with an Effective Reputation Management Service
Your reputation is the lifeblood of your practice, and there’s no better way to enhance your reputation than an effective reputation management service. Whether you want to improve your current strategy or build a new marketing strategy, Net One Click is here to help you start the New Year right. Start your free trial today and discover how our online review management systems can bring your practice to the next level of growth and success.