Healthcare Reputation Management: Your 2024 Handbook to Mastering ORM
In this digital landscape, where information is at your fingertips, your online reputation definitely precedes you, so as a healthcare provider, managing and maintaining your healthcare reputation cannot be emphasized enough. With information flowing from one social media platform to another, one must leverage the power of positive online reviews to build credibility and a strong patient base.
If you're a healthcare provider, 2024 should be all about adopting and equipping yourself with patient acquisition strategies to foster a strong patient-provider relationship for the success of your practice.
Online Reputation? What's That?
Your practice's online reputation is an online mirror that reflects how your patients look at you with respect to the quality of treatment and services you provide. Maintaining a positive online reputation is the key to building a strong patient base, as it builds trust among them and influences their decision-making.
Why Do You Need To Value Online Reviews?
Online reviews are real-life experiences offering a brief yet impactful glimpse into the expertise and credibility of the healthcare provider. With 98% of consumers relying on online reviews to make decisions about local businesses, including healthcare services, it's a no-brainer that it's an indispensable factor in shaping consumer behavior. Now you know the critical role your online reputation plays in the overall success of your practice.
While choosing a healthcare provider, patients will look at multiple online reviews. According to our company's Patient Review Survey in 2022, about 60% of patients looked at over 19 reviews before narrowing down to one doctor. Other than the number of reviews, the recency of reviews also plays a major role, as 87% of patients believe that a review's credibility is influenced by its recency. Learning? Online reputation and consistency in providing good healthcare services go hand in hand.
Role of Online Reviews in Healthcare Decision-Making
About 94% of patients rely on online reviews to evaluate a healthcare provider. This highlights the significance of online reviews in patient's decision-making. So, working towards enriching patient experience to maximize patient satisfaction can win you positive reviews and trust, which will go a long way in the success of your practice; to crack that code, we must first decode the ingredients of a good online review.
Healthcare Review Platforms You Cannot Miss
While providing patients with quality care and treatment remains the top priority for any healthcare provider, getting featured on a trusted healthcare review platform can tip the scale in your favor. Among a sea of healthcare review platforms, three are the most trusted, according to our company's Patient Review Survey, 2022. They are:
These websites feature reliable and detailed information about healthcare providers, making them patients' go-to review platforms.
Establish a Strong Online Reputation With These Tactics
Now that we've established that online reputation is a key that can open doors to a bigger, stronger, and more loyal patient base, your next step should be learning the ropes of building a solid online reputation. Follow these tactics to boost your practice's online image:
1. Maintaining Accuracy Across All Online Review Listings
List your practice on significant and trusted review websites like Google, WebMD, Yelp, etc. Maintain consistency of information like name, address, and phone number (NAP) across all platforms.
2. Monitor Your Reviews
Turn on notification settings for all review platforms to get informed when a new review pops up. Analyze these reviews (positive or negative) to understand the pattern to help you identify loopholes and make improvements accordingly.
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3. Encourage Feedback
Train your staff to request and collect reviews from happy patients. Keep the review process as simple as possible, a simple form or a QR code that can direct the patients to the review panel.
You can also integrate an automated reputation management platform to make review handling and replying easier.
4. Know Your Patient Sentiment Through NPS Survey
Identify your Promoters and Detractors and get actionable insights on the hits and the misses through the Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey. You can identify loyal patients who can advocate for your practice and pinpoint areas that need improvement.
5. Be Responsive
Your patients keep a close watch on how prompt you are with your responses. Replying to a review (positive or negative) can affirm your dedication toward patient satisfaction.
6. Make the Most of Your Testimonials
Have a dedicated testimonial page featuring patient stories on your website, and add positive customer reviews on your homepage to boost patient morale.
Final Thoughts
Your online reputation should speak highly about your healthcare practice, and the way to do that is by maintaining a consistent online presence, monitoring it, and being responsive.
Encourage your happy patients to drop reviews, identify and glorify your advocates by featuring their stories and reviews on your webpage, and analyze patient grievances to address the loopholes to improve your services.
Remember, you don't need to be a marketing mogul to boost your online presence and reputation; planning strategies, implementation, maintaining consistency, and course correction when needed will tip the quality scales in your favor.
Image Source: Freepik
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