How can you influence a steady stream of customer feedback and proactively manage your online reputation? There are two solid methods for doing this.
The number one thing you need to do is: Restructure. No, I don’t mean fire all your staff and start over because your online reviews suddenly went to hell in a handbasket. What I mean is, learn from your customer feedback, engage with them online, and look for opportunities to improve your processes or workflow. You can’t ignore feedback, reviews, and complaints. You must establish a system to listen and engage with your customers. Gather customer feedback and look for gaps in your service and fix them. Use negative reviews as an opportunity for growth. This requires an “all hands on deck” approach and coordination between many different departments. Taking your customer feedback and using it to proactively identify opportunities to improve your organization should be part of your company’s culture. Your goal should be to exceed the expectations of your customers.
Another way to look at reputation management is as expectation management. The experience your customers have with your business must match their expectations. True story—an online reviewer gave an imaging practice a one-star review because of some scheduling confusion, but their online profile showed that same person was giving a local laundromat five-star reviews. Why? Expectations. All the laundromat must do is provide a clean area and a supply of soap. Imaging, on the other hand, comes with emotional ties; there is a high probability of nerves, a financial investment, and time away from work for rendered services. The expectation is much higher! To level-up to the expectations your customers have about imaging services, your customer service must be remarkable, worthy of being remarked upon. Almost guaranteed, if your service is anything less than remarkable, you’ll receive remarks online that you don’t want.
As you learn to meet and exceed your customers’ expectations, you must have a good understanding of what is most important to them. “Use marketing tools such as comment cards and patient surveys to gather feedback from your customers, so you can understand what is most important to them. Then, use common trends and responses to drive your decisions for making changes,” says Jennifer Kammer, executive director at Vancouver Radiologists. “You will never please everyone, but you will likely identify trends that can lead to a better overall customer experience.”
This leads to the second thing you need to do. Get more positive reviews. Don’t be shy, you need to ASK for the review. You can’t, or shouldn’t, assume your customer knows where to find you online, how to use review sites, or the importance of leaving an online review. Decide on a system or process for who will lead this effort and create an experience around the customer’s exit. Someone needs to say goodbye to every customer, be prepared to inquire about their visit, and ask for a review. First, if the customer is stewing about something that went wrong during their visit, there’s a chance they’ll discuss it with you on the spot. Secondly, it’s helpful to voice the benefit of their online review. It can be as simple as saying, “Will you go online today and leave a review about our company on Google, Facebook, or Yelp? It would really help us improve our service if you would do that. I have a card that explains where to find us online, if you’re not sure.”
Identify the departments in your organization that are best suited to communicate this information to the customer as they are leaving your facility. This will likely not be your marketing department, but it does provide an excellent opportunity to include other departments in your marketing efforts. Not only will this process help you receive more—and better—reviews, it will also help you run your business better.
In part three of Online Reputation Management I will share how to make the most of the reviews that you do receive and how to navigate reputation management as a hospital-based practice, using services of a third party vendor or considering a merger/joint venture.
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