Nowadays, reputation and patient feedback are essential for clinics and hospitals. When searching for the most suitable medical clinic, the majority of patients will turn to Google. They will type in the keywords they are searching for and see the most appropriate results.

Is it enough for them? Definitely not. They will continue with web surfing because they are interested in more details. Many patients perceive reviews as the really important decision factor. It is important to underline, that consumers read an average of 7 reviews before trusting a business. The patient usually leaves or reads reviews on Google, Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, Yellow Page or GCR.org.

Indeed, 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, therefore it is really essential to think about the online reputation. Moreover, 72% of clients agreed that positive reviews make them trust a local business more.

Now, you certainly understand the importance of online reviews. But what will happen if you receive the bad review? Should you ignore it, delete it or should you have a fight with the unsatisfied patient? We prepared for you 5 steps on how to deal with a bad review.

5 steps on how to deal with the bad review

1.) Collect reviews

First of all, it is really important to collect reviews. You should definitely try to create a process or a project focused on the patient feedback. This project should be assigned to someone from your team because it requires a considerable amount of work.

Once you start with review collection, work with more platforms like Google, Trustpilot, Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, GCR.org etc. Moreover, some platform is able to synchronize with other platforms, so the feedback from Facebook or Trustpilot will be visible also in Google.

The person responsible for the patient feedback should check the patient reviews regularly, to solve the appearing problems or handle negative reviews really quickly. Furthermore, this person can come up with new ideas on how to boost the review collection. One of the best ideas, which can increase the number of your reviews may be the small present (like coupon or toothbrush). Companies giving these small incentives experienced a huge boost of the review volume.

Do you want to attract more patients? Learn more in this practical article.

2.) Respond in the right way

Primarily, it is important to stay cool and don’t let anger and frustration take over you. Sometimes, the negative reviews are not that bad as we tend to perceive it and in some cases, the bad review can even help us. Indeed, a few negative reviews are the real proof that your reviews are not a fake.

Once you need to solve the issue with your unsatisfied patient, you need to cool down. Be polite, objective a solution-oriented and apologize if it is needed. You should not be afraid to solve the problem publicly, because people are very curious about the whole progress and the result of the discussion.

Nevertheless, giving the good review to your clinic takes some time and therefore, you should definitely appreciate it, at least with the Like or some nice comment.

3.) Be quick!

When leaving a bad review, over 40 per cent of customers expects to have an answer within an hour. For this reason, make sure that you have someone responsible for reviewing the patient feedback through different channels. Sometimes you can even get some question from potential customers, and when they do not get an answer, they will find some other clinic.

Moreover, 57% of respondents expect that the same response time will be during the day or at night and they do not differentiate between business hours or weekends.

4.) Embrace feedback as the way to grow

First of all, you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself and your team for receiving the negative review. Don’t take it too personally. It is perfectly ok, that not everyone loves your business and not everything is perfect, especially when your clinic is young, doesn’t have so much experience or has room for improvements in multiple departments.

On the other hand, listening to your customers and understanding the issue from the different angles is really important for the growth of your business. Thanks to the bad review, you can see the issues within your clinic you haven’t seen before and you can improve it.

Nevertheless, not every patient feedback is beneficial for your clinic. Taking each and every review into consideration can actually harm the clinic. Once you go through your reviews, try to find the words or phrases which are repeating and there you can find the real issues.

Based on the determined issue, you can sit down with your team, brainstorm the different solutions and apply the best ones. And of course, do not forget to have someone responsible for implementation and execution of this solution.

5.) Is bad review really bad?

Indeed, there are lot more positive sides of the negative review. First of all, the fact that you have also bad reviews means that you have nothing to hide and your reviews are not a fake. It underlines the fact that there were some unhappy customers but of course, there are plenty of those, who were really satisfied.

Furthermore, the study by Harvard Business School presented that the majority of consumers trust reviews more when the reviews are mixed from the good & bad ones. And do not forget, negative attention is still attention 🙂

Did you read these great learnings from clinics from all around the world?

If you’ll have any positive or surprising results from following these steps, share those with us at contact@gcr.org or on your social media channels using #gcrtips