Did you know that patients many times will make a selection about whether to ask for an appointment at your practice based on the online reviews they see when they do a Google search for you. They will see Google, Yelp, Health Grades and other reviews almost at the same time they see your practice information.
You want to try to make sure those reviews are :
- Positive (4-5 stars)
- Recent (ideally within the last month)
- Plentiful (more than 10 reviews, usually the more the better)
1-800 Notify can help with a simple process that will help achieve your goals to improve your online reputation with positive, recent and plentiful reviews.
STEP 1: Setup a Online Review Request Text Message for Positive Reviews
We can help you with this, but a sample text might look like this:
STEP 2: Setup an Internal Use Only Survey to Handle Negative Feedback (optional)
2.1 Setup a brief survey for internal use only on a free site like "Survey Monkey"
(3-4 questions max.)
Smith Family Practice Patient Feedback
How would you rate your recent experience with our practice (1-5 stars)
If you were unhappy, please let us know what we could have done better: (open ended text box)
If you were happy, please let us know what you especially liked: (open ended text box)
May we contact you to discuss your feedback further? ( ) Yes ( ) No
If yes, please provide your name and phone number or email address:
Name: _______________ Email: _______________ Phone: ___________________
Thank you for your feedback. We will do our best to take your feedback seriously and work to make improvements to our practice.
Thank you,
Dr. Smith and Team
STEP 3: At the Check-out process, Ask patients "How was your Visit today?"
If the patient had a positive experience:
Your staff knows the patients the best - and can really pick and choose who you ask this question. You can also pick and choose who you ask about doing an online review.
If the patient has a positive experience and your staff thinks they would write a good review, then your staff can ask: "Would you be willing to write us a _(Yelp or Google)_ review if I sent you text later on with the links?" If yes, then confirm their mobile number and then add their name and mobile phone to the spreadsheet list for Online Review Requests.
If the patient had a negative experience: (optional)
While asking for negative feedback is optional, we recommend it to provide a balanced approach to asking for input from patients. If negative, then your staff can ask the patient if they would be willing to provide candid feedback about their experience. If yes, then add the patient's name and mobile phone to list to the Internal Use Only Survey Request to be sent later.
IMPORTANT: If you are soliciting feedback from patients with negative experiences, you have to review that feedback provided and try to respond to the feedback (and respond to the patient specifically, if they ask for a response when providing the feedback).
Tell the patient that you will be sending out a brief text at the end of the day that will have links to the online review sites (or your patient experience survey / patient feedback survey). And that you really appreciate their review or feedback.
STEP 4: At the end of the day, upload the two lists to send out the correct Text Messages.
Go ahead and send out the survey requests at the end of the day with your two lists.
STEP 5: Periodically Review the Online Sites and Your Internal Survey, Reply when Appropriate and Make Changes
This is important. If you receive constructive feedback from patients (and can do something about the suggested change), then it's important you sincerely work to make the changes in your practice.
Also, you should periodically monitor the public web review sites and make sure to respond to any feedback that patients might be providing.
Hopefully, if everything is working well, in just a few weeks or months, you should see many more recent and positive reviews to your online survey sites and received candid (but internal use only) feedback from your patients who are not happy.
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