It can be hard to get reviews when you are in the medical field. It can feel awkward asking for a review after helping a patient with their health. However, for Chiropractors, reviews are extremely important. Having raving fans of how you can help people is how you build trust in your community and can turn skeptics into believers.
When a patient is considering getting care, they are going to look at your reviews to get an idea of your reputation. They want to see if patients are happy with their experience at your practice and with your care. If they can’t find many reviews for your practice, it creates doubt in their mind on rather you can help them. Plus, if you have a competing clinic in the area that has tons of reviews, you risk them going to your competitor’s office because they’ll naturally trust that other office more.
Reviews build trust, which is why you need to generate as many positive reviews for your Chiropractic practice as you can. Make sure you and your team are focused on providing a top-notch experience and a strategy in place to generate more positive reviews for your practice.
Another important factor is that reviews play a role in your search engine rankings. Generating reviews help your Chiropractic SEO so you can show up higher in search results. Typically businesses with more reviews will rank higher in search which can have a major impact on your ability to pull in new patients.
You can collect patient reviews in a lot of areas. The most important place to have reviews on is your Google My Business listing as well as your Facebook Page. These are typically the first places people look to see your reputation.
For your Googe My Business listing, Google actually gives you a link that you can pass onto your patients that takes them directly to leave a review for your business. This is super convenient because it makes it really quick and easy for patients to just click on the link and leave a review right away.
Facebook does not provide a review link, so the next best thing is to link to your “Reviews Tab” on your Facebook Page. Then hopefully your patients will take the initiative to click on the “Leave Review” button.
Top 5 Local Reviews Platform
If you’re looking to grow your practice, you have to build a strategy around generating more patient reviews. To help make that process smoother for you, we outline a full review collection strategy so you can start collecting more reviews today and continue to grow your reputation.
After each appointment, send your patient a text message inviting them to leave a review. Give them a link directly so they can easily leave a review with minimal effort. Better yet, use a Chiropractic Marketing Software like CHIROPIPE to automate your review requests after each appointment. This puts your review collection on autopilot.
Once every couple of months, send an email blast out to your patient list inviting them to leave their feedback. Again, provide direct links in your email to patients can 1-click to leave a review online. Use an email marketing tool so you can send this out to your entire patient list at once instead of emailing them one-by-one.
When you’re in an appointment and a patient is giving praise to your treatments and responding positively to how they are feeling, invite them to leave a rating online. Say something like:
"I'm so glad this is helping you feel better. If you're open for it, it would be great to get a review about your experience so future patients can see how positive the outcomes can be."
It doesn’t have to be pushy or weird, but simply asking the question will yield you great results. Otherwise, patients won’t even think about it at all!
At the checkout counter, have a sign posted that invites them to leave a review. Put a QR code on the sign that links to your review page so it’s quick and easy for patients to scan with their phone and quickly leave a review. Again, it’s all about making it convenient for them.
Use an online QR Code Generator and use your Google Review link as the destination. Then simply create your graphic in Canva or Photoshop to be printed for your checkout area.
If you’re struggling to get traction with your reviews or you want to spark a wave of new ones, try running a giveaway or drawing for all those that leave a review within a month. People love free stuff. Giveaway an Apple TV, Alexa, or Amazon Gift Card. These are inexpensive gifts that can get people excited and motivated to take the extra step.
Turn your reviews into little social graphics that you can post on Facebook and Instagram. Quote your patient reviews and promote them. Existing patients that have not thought about leaving a review before will be inspired to leave their own feedback. Plus, potential patients will get more exposure to build on that trust factor.
Here is a Canva template we created that you can use for your practice.
Post your reviews on your website to showcase them to the patients that are visiting your site. This gives more exposure to potential patients while also inspiring existing patients to leave their feedback. When they see that you care about reviews and their feedback, they’ll more likely want to leave their own. We use a floating widget that follows the visitor around the site with a link to leave a review directly.
Set up a follow-up system for your staff to call patients after a few appointments to see how their experience has been. If the feedback is positive, invite them to leave a review for the practice. This also doesn’t have to be strange or awkward. Your staff could say something like:
"Hey this is {name} from {practice}. Just calling to check in and see how you're feeling and how has your experience been at our clinic? Is there anything we can do to make your experience better?"
When you do get a review, make sure to respond to it quickly! Patients are going to reak your responses and see that you are engaging with patients leaving feedback. This shows that you are paying attention to their experience and actually care.
Plus, ranking algorithms on search engines monitor your activity on your listings and they want to see that you’re responding and engaging with people leaving your reviews.
You can use Chiropracticor marketing software to monitor and respond to your reviews across several platforms. This helps streamline your workflow for managing your reputation.
If a patient reviews your practice and has something negative to say, it’s important to take the right steps. Future patients will see how you respond, so you want to make sure you handle this with grace and care to show that your patient’s experience is extremely important to you.
Doctors’ responses must be kind and professional. An example response could be something like:
"I’m sorry to hear about your experience at our office. Please contact us so we can better understand what happened and make things right."
Apologize and acknowledge their bad experience. Then invite them to get in touch so you can help resolve their concern. Even if nothing more comes from it, you’re still showing to future patients that you are paying attention to the patient experience and you actually care and want to do what is right.
Even if the negative review is fake, the patient is lying about their experience, or the instance is being exaggerated, you still need to handle these professionally and kindly. Future patients do not want to see you snapping back, arguing, or trying to prove something in your responses. You don’t win here, so it’s better to handle with grace and move on.
Reviews will help your Chiropractic practice stand out, build trust, and drive in new patients. Work with your team to build a reviews strategy that fits your workflow, and execute. Your efforts will go a long way in building your online reputation and generating reviews for your practice. Knock it out of the park by being a great doctor and providing an exceptional experience for every single patient every time they’re in your office.
If you need help building out your reputation management and review generation strategy, we’re here for you.
Nick is the Founder of CHIROBASIX, a marketing agency that specializes in helping Chiropractors dominate their local markets and drive new patient acquisition.
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