Strategies on Managing Online Reviews

Welcome back to Podiatry Today podcasts where we bring you the latest in foot and ankle medicine and surgery from leaders in the field. I'm Dr. Jennifer Spector, the Assistant Editorial Director for Podiatry Today. And on this episode we have with us our guest, Dr. Jim McDannald, who's the Founder and Director of Podiatry Growth, which provides online strategy and services for podiatry clinics. Today he's delving into the topic of managing online reviews. How do you obtain them and how do you handle the good reviews even more so how do you handle the not so good reviews? Dr. McDaniel will provide us his insight shortly, but right now we'd like to welcome him to the podcast. So this is something that I think is very new to a lot of folks because you don't think of medical professionals as being the same company that you review on Google as you would for a restaurant or a hotel, or something along those lines. But it is something that's coming up again and again for podiatrists. So that being said, what online review sites do you feel podiatrists should know about and have their eye on?

Dr. Jim McDannald:

No, that's an excellent question and I think you're touching on a really important component. I think the really old school podiatrists we're very entrepreneurial. We're used to being a business, and then what's happened over time is that we become more academic, which is fantastic from a training perspective, but then also we've maybe lost a little bit of that entrepreneurial spirit along the way. But then on the flip side, medicine is moving from a very like, "I have white coat. I'm going to tell you what to do," to more really customer, consumer facing in a way to try to attract patients. So these different ways and the way your online presence or even your reputation out there online and reviews play a huge component of that. And really, the number one in my mind is really Google reviews. This is part of that, and what they call now a Google Business Profile, used to be called Google My Business.

But to me that's number one by far because, we'll talk about it in another episode, but while different search is changing in some ways. When people have a problem or looking for a specific solution, whether that be nationally or locally in an area, they're usually going to go to Google and search for it first. So while there are medical doctor review websites, and we'll talk about a few of those maybe, but Google to me is the big one.

Dr. Jennifer Spector:

Absolutely. It's the first one we all pull up when we're looking for the answers to something. So that makes sense being that that is the most important one. But there are other ones out there. I'm sure it can be overwhelming to docs to think about, "Well, how am I supposed to monitor these and manage these? And how can I keep track of my profile and what people are saying out there?" Are there any methods that you and other docs can use to monitor and manage these sites?

Dr. Jim McDannald:

Yeah, that's a great question. I think, like I talked about, when everyone signs up with Google, you usually have that Google Business Profile. So Google has a user interface that it's standard. You can see when reviews come in, you'll maybe get notified every time someone makes a new review of your clinic or of yourself. One thing about Google reviews is important to know as well, that whether you're a solo provider or multi-doctor practice or multi-specialty practice, you can have different profiles on this Google Business Profile. So not only monitoring the name of your clinic but also your provider name is something to be aware of and it's an opportunity. I see some people, they don't necessarily mess up, they just didn't know was available. Also, like you said, when you're trying to maybe gather reviews or check out reputation, if you're trying to make people go to eight different sites, or if you're saying like, "Okay. There's also Facebook reviews," right? There's health grades, there's vitals, and there's Rate MDs, and there's a ton of other ones out there.

Maybe Zocdoc is important maybe in the East Coast, but it's one of those things where it can be confusing not only to you but to your patients. Where do you actually want me to put a review? So usually number one is Google Reviews and there is some different types of software that's available out there to monitor what's going on. One of the ones I use competently with clients that I work with and podiatrists I work with is something called GatherUp. But there's a ton of them out there that, like I said, whether you use the standard Google Business Profile, which is free to help monitor your Google reviews. But some of these other ones will help you be aware of what's happening on Yelp or Facebook reviews or some of these other ones. So you can get notifications every time review comes in just to make sure that someone's not talking behind your back.

I think a lot of times when the reviews happen, people are aware that there's either not a great interaction or something happened that was going to lead to this. But these tools can help you so you don't get surprised, that's probably the most common method I would say as far as on the reputation side of it. When it comes to gap, I think it's really important people have, and clinics have a system to gather these reviews. One of the things I talk with the clients that I work with and my fellow podiatrist is that they're just going to come in, right? I'm going to tell them at the end of the appointments, I'm going to just throw it out there or somehow from the heavens they're just going to reign down upon me Google reviews. And sometimes it does happen. Sometimes you do have that, and maybe a highly young or engage audience or something.

But there's three ways I see people going about trying to gather these reviews. Number one is they try to do the old analog way of doing things. So give them a physical piece of paper, maybe telling them about it, having their staff just mention it at the end of the checkout period, which I think that's an important component of it. But if you want to make sure that you have the follow through, we'll get into what's a little bit better of a system. And the second type is, what I say is a fully automated or digital way of doing it. It's like every patient that comes in, they're going to get this email blast that says, "How's your experience?" Which can be a good thing, but also will sometimes maybe get you some, one or two stars. Because if you're sending it to everybody, maybe someone's having a bad day and while you saved you and your staff time, it was also, it feels very impersonal, right?

It doesn't feel they didn't actually, they even consent, you sent it to them. You have their email, so it is consented email, but that you didn't ask for that review. So I like more of a hybrid model utilizing, letting the doctor get a feel for the patient. Maybe it was a great first visit, someone had an amazing course of treatment with the clinic and they're primed. And then communicating that from the physician to the front desk person, the checkout person, whether it be a check mark or on a box or maybe there's something in your EMR where you can notify them about that. And then just a very simple ask, don't hand them an iPad or make them feel on the spot in the clinic, but say like, "Mrs. Smith, Dr. Miller said you had an amazing visit today. Would you be open to leaving us review online? It really helps people know about the excellent care that you received and it helps more patients know about who we are, so we can provide more of that great care."

So if you frame it in that way, and if they say no, don't push it. Following that up with a system or a software that says... Once they say yes, "Would you like to give us that review via, would you like to receive a request via email or text message?" So generally I would say within that first two hours or three hours of them saying yes, I wouldn't do it just as they're walking out the door but a little bit afterwards, sending them that request. And you're going to get a very keyword rich, great experience from that person in a paragraph as opposed to three stars or five stars and no comments. These comments and these keywords can be beneficial from a SEO perspective to make sure that you rank higher. And these reviews as well it's a huge signal if you have 300 reviews and the clinic down the street has 16 or five or something, it's a real instinctual feeling that people have all, they've got 300 reviews, they must be a good place. So it can be a real win for your SEO, but also from attracting patients.

Dr. Jennifer Spector:

No, absolutely. Especially because so many people are going online these days and using search engines and social media, and things along those lines to find their potential care providers. So the hybrid makes sense that you mentioned, because I do feel a lot of providers are not going to be super comfortable asking for those reviews. But I think if you're keeping an eye, like you said on how the visit went and really identifying some ones where it will be a more comfortable ask. And having that come from the staff and making it so open-ended that it seems that's a really great reasonable approach for it.

Dr. Jim McDannald:

Yeah. I think if people have a great experience and you can tell that, they are more open and willing to share it doesn't feel you're cold calling or cold asking for something that doesn't feel relevant. If they have great care with you, they would like to spread this digital word of mouth, and that's what these reviews are.

Dr. Jennifer Spector:

So on the flip side of that, unfortunately, like you said, some folks are just going to be having a bad day or going to be frustrated with their experience even independent of having received excellent care. But what are some pathways in your experience for podiatrists to potentially follow if they become aware of a negative review online?

Dr. Jim McDannald:

No, those are never fun and I don't want to minimize them at all. I think sometimes the first negative review a clinic has is, it's almost like a bomb goes off in the clinic. They don't know what to do, what happened. I know we're used to seeing wounds and taking care of all these medical things that don't panic us, that would panic other people, but we get a negative online review and it's like, "What do I even do here?" You feel attacked, right? So it's not uncommon to have an initial emotional response, but it's important to know that everybody gets a bad review from now and then. It's not necessarily the bad view that comes in, that is the defining moment. It's how you respond to the bad review. It's one of those things where, like you said, you do get emotional, right? Because that's your care and you're providing that, and it feels a little tough to deal with at first.

But just know that everyone has these and also know that for a clinic that has five out of five stars, something feels off about that. Even for me, I'm not a pretty optimistic person by nature, but 4.8 and 4.9 feels realistic. If someone's at five, oh, it's like, "Are they paying for these reviews?" I mean, I'm not trying to, if you have a 5.0 I'm not saying you're doing that. You don't necessarily have to try to get a negative review to make it look more legit. But I think there's nothing wrong with anything 4.7 and over in my mind. So that real first step I would say is take a deep breath, you and your staff just calm down to understand exactly what happened in that interaction. Number one, is it a real patient or not? And that sometimes will happen. It can for whatever nefarious reason, sometimes you get just a really negative review that actually you can't tell who it's from and it doesn't seem like it's a patient of your clinic. So don't get all emotional this just going to be that.

A lot of times though you will know who it was or what the interaction was like. So just being aware of that. And I would say really the second step is really trying to settle things behind the scenes as much as possible. Don't go straight to Google reviews or whatever review site and try to combat it with something, because that's not really helpful. The real goal is to resolve the situation with the patient. So if you can behind the scenes with a phone call, you and your staff try to see, understand what happened and see if there is a resolution. Sometimes there, sometimes there's not. But that's really that step that I think it's easy to jump to wanting to combat it online. But if you just fight fire with fire, it becomes we call in the internet like a flame more, people are talking past each other and it's not a real conversation.

But if you're honest and you can try to communicate with that person and find a resolution, that's usually best. If that's not possible, you go to step three and that's responding with a non-emotional HIPAA compliant. It might sound generic, but you really need to put it out there that, "Hey," you don't want to basically a apologize for anything. But you can say like, "We at McDannald Foot and Ankle Clinic, we care about patient feedback. We take it very seriously. Please contact the clinic so we can find a suitable resolution," something of that nature. You don't have to say whether it's false or not false because then you get into HIPAA areas, "I went in for a bun in and the surgery had so many complications and stuff." You don't don't want to get into that online.

So like I said, it's something more generic and everyone has questions, they can reach out to me and I'm happy to give you some ideas or some templates that would work. But that's usually how you approach it. But that comes back to is that these reviews, whether platforms are on, are a way of gathering feedback. Like I said, most people are just going to get one every once in a while. If there's a consistent theme, either positive or negative with these reviews, it's something to lean into. So if you're providing excellent, blah, blah, blah care, maybe it's toenail, ingrown toenails, or you're seen as that person, these reviews can also be used as social proof on your website in the U.S. at least. So the patient seeing your praises as opposed to you talking yourself up is a lot more valuable. And then also on the negative side, if there's something that keeps on coming up regarding the patient care experience, it's something that you can get back to your staff about and try to implement some ways to improve that, really improve how you're running your practice.

Dr. Jennifer Spector:

So to round out this topic today, what one thing do you feel like podiatrists should incorporate into their practices right now about online reviews? If they've never done anything before, if they don't do anything ever again, what one thing do you think might be helpful for them to incorporate?

Dr. Jim McDannald:

I think just getting into that hybrid system, like we talked about. Getting over that talk about this, there's this disparity between being the entrepreneurial business owner of a private practice versus you want to be respected for your training. You don't want to feel like you're selling a patient in a way. But at the same time, the way that the world works right now is that people want to see social proof, they want to go see experts. And by putting a system in place that displays the excellent care you provide to your patients and having them reflect that back to your local community is very, very powerful. So I would really encourage people to get a little bit more comfortable with developing a system.

If you're totally not comfortable asking the patient yourself, like you said, the front desk staff or the people checking out, the patient can say it in a very caring and non-pressure filled way. Reviews are just a way of spreading more information and gaining more visibility about the type of practice you want to build. And like I said, it's in the patient's words as well. So it's a really powerful thing. So I'd really encourage people to at least take that first step into considering it. And then the step after that is building out that hybrid system to gather those reviews.

Dr. Jennifer Spector:

Thank you so much Dr. McDannald for sharing your thoughts with us today. I'm sure that this will be very applicable and important for all DPMs. And thank you to the audience for joining us as well. We hope that you'll check out other episodes of Podiatry Today podcast on SoundCloud, podiatrytoday.com, Spotify, apple Podcasts, and your favorite podcast platforms.