OVERVIEW

Over the course of a single month, R&J Strategic Communications implemented a successful campaign to improve the online reputation of a medical services client.

CHALLENGE

Our client, a chain of medical practices throughout central New Jersey, was faced with an overwhelming number of negative reviews on both Yelp and Google My Business. As a significant portion of the client’s appointments were from walk-in patients, and with these reviews appearing prominently in smartphone mapping software on Apple and Android devices, the negative feedback was having a detrimental impact on the client’s business. The team at R&J was tasked with improving the client’s online reputation as quickly as possible.

ACTION

The first step in repairing the business’s reputation was to claim ownership of the client’s profiles on various review platforms. This allowed us to engage with published feedback on the client’ behalf. This access also allowed us to connect the client’s profiles to R&J’s reputation management platform, True Grade™.

True Grade enables R&J to import all of the touchpoints for a client’s reputation into one dashboard. From a single screen, our team now has the ability monitor and, more importantly, respond quickly and effectively to patient feedback.

Once the client’s profiles were configured in True Grade, the R&J team began monitoring patient sentiment. Analyzing historical reviews, we were able to provide the client a summary of common complaints, enabling the clinics to implement some much-needed internal process improvements.

Understanding common patient complaints—wait times, insurance and billing, or personnel issues— also allowed R&J to establish a response protocol. We drafted messaging to address common complaints, explaining how the practice was working to resolve them. Rather than employing canned responses, this protocol allows the customer service to hit key messaging points, but in individually tailored messages. While primarily designed to satisfy unhappy patients, sharing this messaging on public review platforms allows other potential patients to see that our client takes customer satisfaction seriously.

True Grade also allowed R&J to implement the most important component of our outreach: review solicitation and intervention. While the vast majority of the client’s existing reviews were negative, we understood that people who are dissatisfied are more likely to leave an unsolicited complaint than satisfied customers are to leave positive feedback.

So, working with the clinic administrators, R&J began the process of soliciting feedback from recent patients. A few days after a visit, those patients who opted into receiving marketing messages would receive an e-mail or a text message based on their communication preferences that asks them to rate their experience at the clinic, and provides a convenient link for them to do so.

Patients who provide a positive rating are asked to share their thoughts on Facebook, Google or Yelp. Patients who are dissatisfied are asked for more details about their experience and are then routed to the client’s customer service team for resolution.

Simply by asking for feedback, inviting satisfied patients to share their experiences, and intervening with dissatisfied customers before they make a public complaint, our client has seen dramatic results.

CONCLUSION

Upon implementation over a single month, the average online review rating for our client’s locations jumped from 1.5 stars to 3.5 stars on a 5-star scale. The average solicited review is 4.5 stars. This process has dramatically improved the client’s online reputation.

The process also improved the business’s operational efficiency. Utilizing the patient feedback, the client was able to identify deficiencies in the organization, make changes to their business processes, and ultimately improve the patient experience in their facilities.

By utilizing our True Grade reputation management system, taking ownership of a client’s online profiles, monitoring and responding to unsolicited feedback, and requesting feedback from recent patients, R&J has established a comprehensive reputation management process that is capable of dramatic improvement in a short timeframe.