Category: Reputation Management

When Patients Attack, Yelp! Edition

Looks like someone needs restorative dentistry

Remember the good old days when the average dissatisfied customer or patient only told nine or so people about an unpleasant experience? It seemed like a huge deal! Nine people? Today, social media has all but blown that number out of the water. If you’ve somehow angered a Yelper, you’ll be lucky if only nine hundred people read it. Online review sites are a mixed bag–incredible publicity in a hard-to-control, slightly terrifying forum. We’ve seen some dentists who hope that perhaps online reviews as a means of communication will just fall out of fashion with patient, never to be seen again.

Online Review Sites Are Here to Stay (Sorry)

The good folks at Software Advice recently shared research from their 2013 IndustryView study, which used Google Consumer Surveys to gain insights from 4,515 adult patients in the United States. A few things stand out:

Healthgrades is the most popular site for finding online reviews, although more patients trust Yelp!
When searching for a new provider, most patients begin by reading online reviews.
Patients who read online reviews are most interested in the accuracy of previous diagnoses, years of experience, and average wait times.

“She said WHAT on Yelp?!”

When you pour your heart and soul into your practice, even a single negative review amid dozens of favorable reviews can send you into a tailspin of disappointment, resentment, and even anger. In a world made increasingly transparent by social media, however, a response made in the heat of passion could spell disaster for the positive reputation you’ve worked so hard to cultivate. You need a plan of action for dealing with persnickety patient reviews. Again, I’m focusing on Yelp! reviews. The specifics for other online review sites, such as Healthgrades, Insider Pages, and Citysearch, may differ slightly.

Verify that the review does not violate the Yelp! content guidelines. For example, a review that relays secondhand information, constitutes harassment, or contains offensive language is in violation of the site’s rules.
Review the complaints made in the review to determine what action, if any, could have been taken by you or your staff to avoid the problem.
If possible, determine the identity of the patient who left the review. Reach out to the patient privately to discuss these concerns and, if necessary, explain what steps you have taken to prevent similar issues from occurring in the future. Absolutely DO NOT initiate this exchange in a public forum. HIPAA violation, anyone?
If you are unable to identify the patient, respond to the review publicly to express your regret that the patient did not have a positive experience. Invite the patient (again, no names) to contact you for further resolution.

Yelp does not allow businesses to remove unfavorable reviews, so unfortunately the complaint will still be visible to site visitors. However, the site does allow its users to edit reviews. This means that a patient who receives a satisfactory resolution to his or her problem will have the ability to update the unfavorable review even after many months.

About the author: Jill Nastasia, CEO and Director of Business Development for MDPM, began her career in the mortgage industry, but you shouldn’t hold it against her. It didn’t take long for Jill to discover that dental marketing is where it’s at, though, and she hasn’t looked back since. To connect with Jill, call her at 972-781-8861, or send an email to jill@moderndentalmarketing.com.

You Can Buy Followers, But You Can’t Buy Social Media Love

“Sure, I’ll Like you on Facebook…if the price is right.”

Everyone wants to be the “cool” dentist, the one who has hundreds of Likes and a string of followers to re-tweet their updates. You know that a strong social media presence will benefit your practice by increasing your visibility and generating word of mouth. The only problem? It’s been months since you created your Facebook page, but you still have only a handful of fans. Perhaps, you think, our lack of followers makes us seem uncool. You have two options to boost your social media presence. You can do it the right way, integrating social media and blogging into your current marketing strategy, or you can do it the Newt Gingrich way.

You Mean the Wrong Way?

Exactly. In 2011, the Gingrich PR machine decided that his paltry Twitter following was unworthy of a Presidential candidate. Instead of using social media to engage, entertain, and inform voters, someone took a shortcut and paid for nearly 1 million followers. Gingrich was left with egg on his face after a staff member alerted the press to the fact that 92% of his followers were dummy accounts-for-hire. These accounts, which you can purchase on dozens of websites, are typically generated en masse and lack user photos, valid email addresses, comments, and updates.

Is Padding Your Numbers Really That Bad?

Consider:

Social media analytics lose all functionality, because you can’t analyze an imaginary friend. You have no way to determine what works and what doesn’t.
The number of followers has negligible influence over whether a user will subscribe to your updates. More important are the quality, frequency, and variety of your content.
A large number of followers who don’t comment, share, Like, or post to your profile affects your rate of engagement, raising red flags in the eyes of legitimate social media users. The fact that someone “Likes” your page doesn’t automatically make it likeable.
It’s dishonest. Period.

Social media isn’t a numbers game. I admit that I feel a surge of pride each time MDPM gains a new fan (Hint, hint), but the value of social media stems from opportunities to build long-term relationships with current and would-be patients. Quantitative data, such as what you find in Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics, only goes so far.

About the Author: With her winsome personality and affinity for cat pictures, Jill Nastasia, CEO of MDPM Consulting, doesn’t have to worry about buying Facebook friends to look cool. Sometimes she gets tired of people offering to pay her to be their Facebook friend. She’s turned down Mark Zuckerberg at least 4 times now. That guy never gives up.

Yelp Keeps Calling Me! What Do I Do?

First of all, do you have any idea what Yelp is selling?

In 2012, Yelp became a publicly traded company on the US stock market, so revenue is more important than ever. Today, about 70% of Yelp’s profit comes from paid advertisements, like those the company solicits you for by phone. Your listing at Yelp is free, so what do you need to pay for? Yelp offers local advertising on search engine results pages for a business’ location. The company can also add your information to your competitors’ Yelp listing (not search engines) and remove their advertisement from your Yelp listing. In addition, the paid services can include a slide show, call to action button, and video on your Yelp listing. Packages start at $300 and go up to about $1000 per month, according to Yelp’s advertising page.

Does your dental office need Yelp’s paid service?
As of January 2013, Yelp had over 100 million visitors per month, and about a third came from mobile searches. This sounds huge, right? Well, Google was pulling in 100 billion searches per month in late 2012. In July 2013, Bing claims to have had over 19 billion searches, and Bing is second to Google in the search market, so there’s no one in between. Yelp, however, is not a search engine – it’s a review site, like CitySearch. Google has a review site, Google+ Local, and then there’s Yelp. There are also industry-related review sites, like the government-based HealthGrades.com, and paid review sites like Demandforce and Rate a Dentist. Angie’s List also comes to mind. There is no unbiased research to tell us how many people search for dentists on any particular review site, so we have to make informed decisions based on our best judgement. Enter the statistics… Read More

Google Alerts: Look Who’s Talking

Have you ever wondered who’s talking about you, and your dental practice, online? You might have googled your name to see where and how often you show up in search results. Oftentimes, however, dentists aren’t aware of being mentioned by a patient, in a social media post or online review. While it isn’t foolproof, Google Alerts is a tool that can let you know who’s talking about you on the Internet.

How Alerts Work

Google Alerts will send you an email, in real time, daily, or weekly, with links to where your name was mentioned online. If your name is posted on any page that’s indexed by Google, you should receive an email alert. Like I said, it’s not foolproof, and not everything online is followed by Google’s robots. For instance, pages with a “no follow” tag in the code are not indexed.

How to Get Alerts

First, you need a fee GMail account. If you don’t have one, get one now. The logins you use for your Gmail account will allow you access to Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Google+, YouTube, and all other Google-owned applications. Once you’re inside your Gmail dashboard, click “More” on the top of the page, in the navigation. From the dropdown list, choose “Even More.” You’ll land on a page with all of Google’s cool applications. Scroll down to the category “Specialized Search,” and select the bell icon next to “Alerts.” Read More

How to Get More Patient Testimonials

Inspirational speaker Zig Ziglar said, “When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.” Though his hay day was during the 90s, Zig’s words still ring true. Dentists in private practice are also business owners, and marketing is an essential part of their success.

Keep an Eye on Your Reviews

Yellow Pages advertisements and direct mail are no longer the leaders in dental practice marketing. We now have Internet marketing and search engine optimization to understand. Even more recent, online reviews (aka patient testimonials) have entered the picture. Many dentists are shocked to find negative online reviews, sometimes from people they never saw or treated. I have seen defamatory reviews that refer to a dentist as a “mouth rapist,” and others posted by people who didn’t like the way the office phone was answered. Disgruntled patients sometimes don’t want to pay their dental bill, so they vent frustrations in a scathing online review.

Studies tell us, 70% of web users believe what they read online from other consumers,

so your online reputation is important.

Rarely can a dentist get a negative review removed by a patient — or the website on which the review is published. In fact, many dentists have lost lawsuits trying to clear their name and regain their good online reputation. If you find a negative online review, the best way to address it is to first post a level-headed reply, backed by facts and steeped in compassion. If you are not a talented writer, enlist the assistance of a professional writer. Read More

Reduce Your Risk for Bad Reviews from Dental Patients

This article isn’t about reputation management, Yelp!, or choosing verbiage to respond to negative patient reviews. Instead, I want to discuss how your team members’ words and actions are interpreted by patients.

Most often, dentists who receive bad reviews that mention kind, caring, reputable team members feel betrayed by the reviewing patient. Doctors may also question what’s occurring at the front desk, on the phone, and at check-out, when he or she isn’t present. How can you know that your team is taking great care of your patients? How can you make sure that their words and actions are positive in the eyes of your patients?

How We Get Offended

In most cases, a feeling of being offended is the fault of the offended, not the offender. Think about it: Someone cuts you off in traffic and you get angry. Perhaps the rude driver did it on purpose, but most likely he was negligent rather than vengeful. What made you angry? You assumed the driver cut you off on purpose. You made an assumption that may or may not be true, and because of this assumption, you got angry. If you could write a review about that driver, it would surely be negative!

Now, let’s apply this to a scenario in your front office. Read More

Dentist Reputation Management and Online Reviews

Disgruntled Former Employees Leaving Fake Reviews

I received a call from a dear client of mine one weekend. He had recently experienced some disappointing behavior in a long-time employee, and he had to let her go. The problem was, this employee had the passwords to his social networking accounts, blog, website CMS, and other important online media. Could she login and wreak havoc, out of anger? Would she leave fake, bad reviews about him on Yelp and Facebook?

Unfortunately, this is an HR issue that all businesses face in the Internet era. Here’s another example. Recently, MDPM had a former employee create fake profiles and post negative reviews on Yelp, all within days of each other. The profiles were new and had reviewed 0-2 other businesses. We did not recognize the reviewers’ names, and some phrases they posted keyed us in on the fact that the reviews were fake. However, we can’t get them removed. We followed the advice in this article, and we’ve been as pleased as can be expected, without crossing ethical lines and compromising integrity.

Angry Former Patients Posting Scathing Reviews

Fake and real reviews, more negative than positive, have fueled a multi-million dollar industry of reputation management. Angry people are more likely to vent online than are pleased patients. Late last year, I helped a frustrated dentist as he dealt with a negative review from a one-time patient. The patient was unhappy about the charges for his dental work, specifically that his dental insurance did not cover what he thought it would, yet he still had to pay. The work was done, and done well. He left a long rant on the dentist’s Google Places page, visible to all potential patients. What could the dentist do? Google has no phone number to call when this happens; besides, as a third party, though they provide the means for reviews, they don’t want to get involved in disputes. Read More

Dental Marketing News: Google Reviews Not Showing Up

If you’ve taken the time (and had the courage) to ask patients to go out of their way to post a review for your dental practice on Google, you may be disappointed. While we’ve had some client dentists say that their Google reviews were missing for a year, then reappeared, others report that their reviews simply do not show up. The problem seems to be growing. A quick search reveals, missing Google reviews are frustrating business owners across all industries. This can be a serious hindrance in dental marketing.

Why Google Reviews Disappear

Google troubleshooters are looking for answers to the problem, but the company does not yet appear to reason for the missing reviews. A few key factors may influence reviews being filtered out and unpublished. These include, but are not limited to: duplicate business listings; reviews posted prior to the Google+ Local launch (a few months ago); the sorting of reviews, as selected in a dropdown menu by the reader; a review having a URLs (not allowed); or Google marked the review as spam. Unfortunately, Google does not share the criteria for spammy reviews, so you cannot know whether this is the cause of your problem — or how to fix it.

Here’s Google’s review posting policy.

Where Are the Missing Google Reviews?

If your review posters (patients) did not follow the above policy, your review may be in a holding tank. The reviewer can amend the review and republish. Google says that if a review is edited to meet the guidelines, and it is not considered spam (for unknown reasons), it could become public immediately. Read More

Dental Marketing: Is ZocDoc a Wise Investment?

Today I received an email from one of our client dentists in Pennsylvania. He wanted to know whether ZocDoc is a good investment. Since www.zocdoc.com is a type of dental marketing service, I thought I’d do some research and present my analysis and recommendation here on the MDPM blog. If you’ve had experience with ZocDoc and would like to share it with MDPM readers, please comment on our Facebook page.

What is ZocDoc?

ZocDoc is an online appointment-setting service for healthcare professionals. It primarily helps doctors fill empty appointments in their schedule. Physicians, dentists, and specialists can list their practices and profile on the ZocDoc website. Patients can find a doctor, make an appointment online, and leave a review. To sign up, you fill out a form online, and a ZocDoc representative calls you. On ThisWeekIn.com, in an interview with Cyrus Massoumi (see below), the inventor of ZocDoc, I learned that ZocDoc started by serving dentists.

A listing includes information about a practice and the dentist’s education, as well as available appointments, and patients can simply book online. In addition, dentists can have an appointment button on their website that sends potential patients to ZocDoc to book. ZocDoc does not replace other dental marketing, so a website and SEO is still extremely important. ZocDoc is simply an addition to a good marketing strategy.

What Does ZocDoc Cost?

At the time of the video, the cost was a flat fee of $250 per month, but it’s now $300 per month. The cost covers unlimited patient numbers.

Does ZocDoc Have Good Reviews from Dentists?

The online reviews I found for ZocDoc are from patients reviewing doctors, not doctors reviewing ZocDoc. Those patients who posted previews gave it a thumbs up, for the most part. However, ZocDoc kicked off with a huge marketing campaign, and there’s no way to tell if the reviews were paid or real. These days, we have to take that into consideration, though I have no reason to believe the reviews to be fake. So, consumers give ZocDoc a nod. According to the company’s website, nearly two million patients use the service to book appointments 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Read More

What is Dentist Reputation Management?

As a dentist, you probably know that you need to establish a solid reputation online and good SEO. Your website, blog, and published articles contribute to building your reputation online. In the past few years, the term “reputation management” has evolved, but it does not refer to what you publish online. Reputation management is defined as overseeing the online reviews about a company or professional. Online reviews are patient testimonials about you or your practice, posted on Google+ Local, Yelp!, and other review sites.

The Problem with Online Reviews

As companies began to notice negative online reviews, lawsuits ensued. In many cases, because the Internet is international, and because Internet law is still developing, negative reviews – even those that are false – remain publicly posted. This can become a serious problem for companies, and dentists, who rely on the Internet as an important part of their marketing strategy.

Potential Patients Read Online Reviews

According to research, over two-thirds of Americans read online reviews before making a purchasing decision. Studies also show, people are 12 times more likely to believe online reviews that information provided by businesses. Consumers who participate in online conversations usually make a decision during their interaction, and ultimately spend more on the service or product.

The most relevant statistic is that 90% of people believe testimonials from people they know,

while 70% believe reviews by people they do not know.

When you factor in that bad reviews may not always be real or reliable, the consumers seem to be making uninformed decisions, when they feel they are making very informed decisions.

How can a dentist avoid negative online reviews? That’s the big question. The answer is, you probably can’t, so you need reputation management.

Reputation Management for Dentists

As with many aspects of life, the best way to counteract bad is with good. If you’re the victim of negative online reviews, you should actively seek positive online reviews. This means, ask patients you trust to go online and leave a review for you. Point them toward the sites with negative reviews. Over time, the positives will overshadow the negatives – unless the review company filters out positive reviews. If you find this to be the case, as it now is with Yelp!, direct patients to post positive reviews elsewhere.

Many review sites allow a business to respond publicly to reviews. This is always a good idea. In the case of positive reviews, respond with a brief statement of appreciation. For negative reviews, respond with compassion and concern. Invite the reviewer to call the practice and speak with you, personally. Mention that patient service is very important to you, and you would appreciate hearing the reviewer’s story. Do not get involved in a tit-for-tat. Do not defend your actions. Instead, respond only with kind words and empathy. Negative reviews can feel like a personal attack, so you may find that crafting a positive response is difficult. MDPM content managers often script responses to online reviews, and we’ve found that as a third party, our assistance is invaluable to our client dentists’ reputations.

If your regional dental association allows dentists to post testimonials (the Texas Dental Association does not), use positive reviews as the basis for your blog posts. Promote the reviews on social networks, and feature a testimonial page on your website. MDPM dental marketing consultants can help you decide whether services like Demandforce may be a good fit for your practice. You might also consider recording video patient testimonials, which can be very powerful in marketing.

Knowing the Status of Your Online Reputation

No business can address negativity if they don’t know it’s occurring. To stay informed about your online reputation, set a Google Alert for your name, practice name, and associates’ names. With Google Alerts, you’ll receive an email every time Google indexes the word or words you identified when setting up the alert. If you run across a negative review, decide what you’ll do to counteract it, then take action.

Online reputation management is rapidly becoming an integral part of Internet marketing, and the Internet is here to stay.

Your Dental Marketing Consultant

With Modern Dental Practice Marketing, dentists have access to full-service online marketing and consulting. We’ll examine your overall online reputation, including your website, blog, microsites, local listings, and reviews. Then, we will work with you to develop a strategy to improve and maintain a solid online reputation. Our goal is always to bring a dentist new patients. If you need help managing your online reputation or marketing your dental office, call MDPM at 972-781-8861 today for our complimentary Internet presence analysis.