We’ve all been there. Your staff calls in the sick, patients are late, and surgery is running long. Patients in the waiting room are growing uncomfortable, and the complaints start rolling in. Before social media, we could try and resolve the situation in the waiting room, or hope everything smooth’s over before the patient begins to make a fuss. Now, with Facebook, Yelp, Google, Healthgrades, etc. patients can leave your office without making a sound, and share their experience with millions of other users, just for you to feel defenseless.
There is hope. By following these simple strategies, you can take control of these negative comments/reviews and improve your online reputation all at the same time.
- Respond fast and say you are sorry. The worst thing you can do is nothing. On Facebook you can certainly delete a negative comment or review, but other social media platforms, those comments live there forever. Respond fast and apologize for the problem that patient felt.
- Extra Tip! Set alerts to notify you of anyone commenting on your social media platforms so you can respond without major delay.
- Pivot to marketing. Remember your response is more powerful than this isolated incident. You are not just talking to a single patient, but a much wider audience that is looking for positive reinforcement to choose your practice. Ex. “We are so sorry to hear that you are unhappy with your vision. We have thousands of patients that are so thrilled with their vision years later, so we want to make sure we can do everything we can for you.”
- Take charge. The patient needs to see valued and that you are going to make things right and look into their complaint. Leave a direct line or email in the comment, and ask the patient to contact you directly to further discuss the issue. You do not want to go back and forth, airing the dirty laundry on social media. Respond promptly and talk to the customer directly to resolve and try to get them to remove the bad post or at least post positive again.
