Prospects searching for a hearing care provider look at online patient reviews. Reviews are one of the top ways to grow your practice. 84% of patients use online reviews to determine their choice of provider. The quantity and quality of reviews your practice has will impact a prospect's decision in choosing you over a competitor. So how do you encourage existing patients to leave a review?
As a trusted partner to manufacturers, retailers, private and group practices, and franchise owners, BlueWing helps you build a consistent marketing plan that will help you maximize patient reviews.
Think About Your Strategy
Reviews assist in attracting more business resulting in practice growth. They can help steer prospects to schedule an appointment with your practice over a competitor. Good reviews positively impact your online reputation and improve your local search engine rankings.
When collecting reviews, you'll want to think about your strategy. Some questions to ask include:
- What steps are you taking to collect reviews?
- What is the office experience? Is it positive or negative?
- Are you following up with your patients by text, email, or mail to ask how their visit went?
- If you are following up, how often are you reaching out?
Creating a robust and consistent communication strategy will increase the reviews you receive. As your trusted partner, BlueWing will consider your target audience, channels, communication timeline, and messaging when recommending a strategy. All these elements play an essential part in the collection of reviews. Practices mindful of these key elements in their marketing strategy will receive more reviews from satisfied patients.
*Remember, the care your staff provides plays a significant role in the review's sentiment. So be sure to follow up on staff process and patient interactions to ensure the patient receives an excellent experience and, in turn, leaves a positive review.
Key Elements for Your Patient Review Strategy
As mentioned above, your target audience, selected channels, communication timeline, and messaging are key elements in encouraging patients to leave a review. Let's dig into these four parts to understand how they impact your review strategy.
Consider Your Audience
One of the first things we'll look at is your patient data. By analyzing your data, BlueWing's Data Science team uncovers critical insights such as average patient age, what stage of the patient journey they are in, how long they have been a patient if they use hearing aids, and more. It may be best to target your long-term patients and ask for reviews as they've stayed with you for a reason. They remain loyal because they value the care they receive from your practice. These patients are the perfect target audience to gather reviews from, as they most likely will have positive comments.
Audience insights will steer other elements in the campaign, such as the channel, messaging, and imagery. For example, patient age may determine if it's better to communicate through direct mail, email, or text. Understanding who your patients are will help you better interact with them through marketing.
Choose Your Channels
Once you understand who your patients are, you can select the right channel to communicate through. Some options you may choose from are:
- Sending an email or text with a review link.
- Delivering mail with details on how to provide feedback.
- Placing QR codes in the office that direct to a review page upon scan.
Your patient insights will cue us into how tech-savvy they may be and what channel we recommend using that will produce the best results.
Establish Communication Timeline
Once you've identified how to communicate review requests to patients best, it's time to decide how often you will reach out. You don't want to wait too long to ask for a review. It is best to send your request within a few days while their office visit and experience are still top of mind. If there is no response after the first request, plan to send a follow-up a week later.
Draft Encouraging Messaging
Consider the contents of the email, text, or mail you send to collect reviews. According to BrightLocal, 7 out of 10 people will provide an online review if asked. In your communication, clearly state that you are asking for a review of the patient's recent visit. Remind them of the date of their visit and tell them how long the review will take to complete. People often choose not to participate if they think leaving a review will take a long time. Let them know that their comments are valued and taken into consideration to provide better care.
Remember, while there's nothing wrong with encouraging patients to leave a review, you cannot tell them what type of review to write. Requesting positive reviews and offering compensation for reviews can have serious legal repercussions.
Strategize High-Performing Patient Marketing with BlueWing
The expert hearing care marketers at BlueWing know how to increase engagement and response through patient marketing and communication. We're your partner in recommending proven strategies that raise patient volumes and boost results in other areas, such as patient reviews. Strategize with BlueWing today!