As medical practices begin getting the high volume of reviews SocialClimb delivers, we are often asked for strategies and best practice for Service Recovery opportunities. Here is a summary of the best practices our customers have shared with us over the years.
- Publicly posted poor reviews
- Respond publicly as quickly as possible to reviews on the review platform. Showing your responsiveness goes a long way for the frustrated patient and for the potential patient reading your reviews at Google and Facebook.
- Get the conversation offline (out of Google and Facebook or Yelp) as fast as possible by providing email and/or phone contact information in the response online. Do this even if you intend to contact the patient proactively via email or phone.
- Actually contact the patient and hear the details on their complaint. Do what you can to help them become an advocate. Response speed is the biggest key. They just want to know someone is listening and trying to respond/improve.required
- Privately posted poor reviews – SocialClimb provides all the data we have on a patient in the Notification so the team can respond quickly.
- Again, response speed is the key. If you contact within minuets or hours of them posting the review, they will be impressed and more like to become an advocate.
- Remember that many of these patients will not realize that the Review they posted was not public. They may think what they wrote has been posted to a public review site.
The effort you are making to listen to these patients and respond will pay off in many ways. We see it with every practice. At first the response rate seems scary but over time most teams develop a rhythm and sustainable model.
One additional item to consider is responses to positive reviews as well. It may be difficult to write a personal response to the high volume of great reviews you are getting but responding to just a few of the 5-star reviews is always a good thing!
