By JOHN SINGLETON, Red Fang Marketing
Looking around you'll probably notice most people's gaze affixed to their smartphone or tablet. This is a fact of society that can no longer be ignored. With this fixation on technology, trends are emerging. Approximately 95% of consumers search for businesses and services online when they are trying to figure out where to spend their income. Retail giants, such as Amazon, have by and large trained the consumer space on the importance and reliance of reading reviews. This behavior has bled over into the rest of the consumer space, and impacts all businesses online from dentists to lawyers, and doctors to surgeons.
According to a study conducted by Bright Local, and online business listing service, nearly 85% of consumers today now trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation from a family member or friend. These statistics should be eye opening. Consumers now have the choice to read reviews online from unending sources. Major review platforms are Google, Facebook, and Yelp. Other important platforms include websites such as Citysearch, Judysbook, and Foursquare, as well as other tried and true establishments such as the Better Business Bureau. Drilling down further, there are now a plethora of specialty review sites based on specific industries. These are ever-present in the medical community and include sites such as WebMD, Vitals, Zocdoc, Healthgrades, RateMDs, and so on. In total, there are at least 16 medical specific review sites where patients can go to learn of the reputation of the physician they've been referred to or are now having to choose from due to an insurance change. This doesn't just stop at the medical industry. There are also four dentist specific review sites and six specific eldercare review sites.
What does this all mean for you?
It means that patients, more than ever before, can learn about what their community at large thinks about a practice before ever picking up the phone to schedule an appointment, or step foot in a waiting room. As mentioned above, if 85% of those patients are treating these reviews with equal weight as a family or friend referral, then every medical practice needs to make sure they manage how they are being perceived by the public.
How it really works.
Most business owners believe that whatever advertising and marketing they are doing results in patients walking through the door after responding to an advertisement. The same for those family or friends that have told people they know about how great a time they have had at a facility. What really happens, though, is that those advertisements and word of mouth referrals take a detour to online review sites first. If a company's reputation is stellar or reputable, things end with an appointment being scheduled. When the reputation is mediocre or poor? Well, then those hard-spent marketing dollars and/or goodwill has resulted in people choosing a competitor at worst, or perhaps doing nothing at all.
Key Review Factors
When looking at reviews, there are a number of factors that must be taken into account. The first and most obvious is the average star rating. After that, consumers look at how many reviews a business has. A 5-star rating is nice, but few reviews hold less weight than others with a large volume of reviews. Other factors that go unnoticed but are just as critical are the frequency at which reviews are being posted. Is a business only getting a new review once or twice a year? They look irrelevant. Does a business have plenty of reviews, but that last one is older than three months? Well, that too, is a factor. 73% of consumers think that reviews older than three months aren't relevant. Does a business respond to negative reviews? If yes, then that's a positive thing. If no, then that just shows further apathy and gives the impression that a business just doesn't care what their customers think.
You've already tried everything?
Many business owners feel like they have done all that they can to get reviews, but nothing is working. They ask their customers for reviews and even ask friends and family to help, but nothing works. There is a reason for that, in fact there are three reasons. Most people don't leave reviews because they simply forgot, didn't have time, or didn't know how to properly leave one.
Can this be fixed?
The short answer is yes. Thankfully there are companies and services out there that can help businesses get a handle on their online reputation, and bolster it where needed, or repair it if it's in poor shape. Much like getting a poor grade in school, negative reviews take longer to overcome as you need 10 "A's" to overcome that "F" that came through.
With the right service in place, business owners now have the ability to reach out to their customers and prompt them for reviews when the time is convenient for the customer to leave one. Through email and text campaigns, now you can reach your audience on their time and ask them to tell their community at large about the great service they were provided. For medical practices, this is just as important as businesses at large. One key factor the healthcare industry is PHI information. This has already been accounted for, and services, such as the one Orlando Medical News is offering, is fully PHI compliant. This critical factor allows medical practices and medical related services to have peace of mind when implementing a review service.
Interested in solidifying your online reputation?
Contact John Kelly and his staff. John can be reached at jkelly@orlandomedicalnews.com or by calling 407-701-7424
John Singleton founded Red Fang Marketing in 2015 while in the midst of a highly successful corporate marketing career for multiple household brands including The Home Depot, Dish Network, and New York Life. Red Fang Marketing was born out of the desire to bring high caliber marketing strategies and techniques to everyday business owners, giving them an edge in their marketplace and helping them achieve their goals and dreams. Visit redfangmarketing.com
