Clinics, offices, and other healthcare businesses need reputation management because consumers seek out and trust online healthcare reviews. Software is available that can help your clinic gather more reviews than ever before, but you may not know where to start.
In this short guide, you’ll learn how to choose software to build a strong online reputation. You’ll want to choose one based on the right factors for healthcare businesses.
First, you’ll learn why software is helpful and necessary. Then, you’ll learn what features are available that you shouldn’t go without. Finally, you’ll learn how to implement your choice into your broader reputation management efforts.
Key Takeaways
There are serious benefits to employing a reputation software. Learn what the numbers say about how much patients care about reviews, and what other advantages are possible when you put the numbers to use.
You have your choice of software options, but there are some features you should consider more valuable than others when deciding. Learn about the features likely to make the biggest difference for healthcare businesses.
Making the most of your reputation management software means implementing some practices to get the needed reviews. Learn how to get the most out of your choice of software.
How Does My Healthcare Clinic Benefit from a Reputation Management Software?
Your healthcare clinic or office can benefit from reputation management software through more frequent reviews, improved visibility of good reviews, and clinic-improving insights you gather from advanced tracking. First, to show you how much reviews matter: approximately 90% of patients consult reviews when assessing healthcare providers.
The more reviews you collect, the more visible your location will be when those patients start their research. Positive online reviews encourage prospective patients to choose your office over competitors and improve visibility in organic and local searches. The relationship between reviews and patient acquisition is clear from here.
This increased visibility is critical for healthcare providers aiming to attract more patients and grow their practice. Software can be an effective tool for improving online reputation by generating more reviews.
As a bonus, showcasing reviews on social media builds trust. It shows that you value patient feedback. Regularly responding to all those new patient reviews improves customer perception, with 96% of consumers reading business responses.
Effectively addressing patient concerns strengthens patient-provider relationships and can lead to better patient care. With the right reputation management solution, medical practices can maintain a stellar reputation and have more satisfied patients.
You’re most likely to enjoy these benefits if you invest in a reputation management software that can meet your healthcare clinic’s needs. Next, you’ll find out what to look for.
What to Look for in Healthcare Reputation Management Software
The following features will allow you to attract more reviews, track newly created ones, and measure your success as you continue to use the tool. You should look for online reputation management software and price tiers that offer these features, based on your clinic’s needs.
| Automated Outreach/Review Reminders | One of the most basic things you can do to attract more reviews is to start asking for them (nicely). There is a right way to ask for them, but it’s still pretty awkward to keep doing. That’s why you should choose a software that includes these review requests as one of its functions. It will send you the requests and reminders, and you will start collecting new reviews regularly. Depending on the software and price tier you choose, you can send hundreds or even thousands of these requests by email or text messages each month. |
| Local listing management | Most new reviews you collect will go to one of the listings you’ve created on review sites like Google, Facebook, Healthgrades, or others. Reputation management software can help you link directly to these accounts to manage them from one place. Doing so can help you keep track of your broader reputation online. |
| Review monitoring | You want to choose reputation software that can track your reviews across hundreds of sites. Look for options that send you notifications when a new review is available. Features like this enable you to address reviews in something closer to real-time. This makes you appear more thoughtful and attentive to positive and negative reviewers. These helpful alerts can also direct your attention to serious problems that could injure your reputation, such as fake or defaming reviews. |
| Multi-location management | You may have to monitor more than one location. Fortunately, this option is available if you choose the right reputation management software or price tier. ReputationStacker includes this feature in the professional tier and even provides tools to compare locations against one another. |
| HIPAA-Compliant Security | If you manage healthcare records, you can only process some types of patient information on HIPAA-compliant platforms. You should verify that any software you choose to manage your reputation includes this security and has a HIPAA-compliant Business Associate Agreement in place. Custom user permissions can be an important part of enforcing HIPAA guidelines in your workplace. If you need the extra security, check to see if this feature is part of your reputation software. |
The Top Online Reputation Strategies for Healthcare Companies
When you have the tools ready, you should start using them. Using ReputationStacker as an example, here are some ways to start building your reputation.
Start Using Your Monitoring Features Immediately
You should immediately use your monitoring tools. Make sure that all the monitoring options you need are turned on and that you’ve connected all the listings you want to monitor. In addition, activate any alerts that help you stay on top of things.
The awareness you develop when monitoring your online reputation is valuable to all your reputation management strategy work moving forward. As you continue to follow up on reviews, you’ll get a feel for how many you’re generating and where your audience prefers to leave them.
Always Ask for Reviews
The biggest obstacle preventing most patients from leaving reviews is simply that they haven’t been asked. Merely sending a reminder to your clients can be an effective way to start attracting significant numbers of reviews.
Make sure that you’ve correctly set up the email review request feature. With ReputationStacker, you can also set up reminders to follow up if a patient doesn’t see your original message. You may have to follow some stricter rules when requesting reviews from patients under HIPAA.
Engage with Every New Review
Once you’ve followed the first two steps, you should begin to see new reviews come in. The next step in dealing with them properly is to start engaging with them all.
Make it a habit to thank patients who take the time to leave reviews. You should leave public replies thanking patients for each positive review. Other patients researching the reviews will see this, and your gratitude will reflect well on you and your clinic.
It’s important that you never get hostile with negative reviews. Even if they misrepresent the service, you’ll look better to third parties reading the reviews if you maintain a calm attitude and invite the patient to reach out to you privately.
You must be careful about replying directly if you work in healthcare. Your reply can’t contain any patient information (even information the reviewer already provided), so you should make sure that your message invites them to contact you privately.
Turn Great Reviews into Content
Great reviews with keyword-rich details or a high star rating can make amazing content for your social pages or website. By posting high-quality reviews where they are most likely to be seen, you can make sure more people hear about the positive experiences.
Reviews make great social proof of patient satisfaction wherever they are posted. You can even embed them directly from their source, so your potential patients can click on them and see that they are authentic.
There’s also SEO potential in both positive feedback and negative feedback. Either type of review can contain terms that help search engines better understand your services or role.
Start Getting More Reviews from Your Patients with ReputationStacker
Healthcare reputation management is essential for building trust and attracting new patients.
By leveraging the right software, healthcare providers can streamline their efforts, enhance patient care, and maintain a positive online presence.
The key is choosing a solution that fits your needs and offers the features necessary to manage your reputation effectively. Take control of your online reputation today and see its positive impact on your practice.
