Last Updated on February 15, 2021 by Bright Past
If you are a physician or other type of medical professional, you may well be the proud owner of your own private office or care center. If this is the case, then you are already aware of just how important it is for you to maintain a positive reputation throughout your community.
The Internet has made it far easier for you to reach new patients and increase the traffic to your office. But the Internet has also brought a whole host of more troubling concerns, including the issue of reputation management.
How Can You Keep Your Online Reputation As Positive As Possible?
There are a number of methods that you can adopt in order to keep your online reputation as positive as possible. One of the best things you can do is to ask your patients to leave ratings for you on your official homepage, as well as other locations around the Web.
By doing so, these patients can help ensure an overall high and positive rating for your services, as well as related issues like your bedside manner, pricing, etc. The more positive ratings you receive, the better equipped you are to ride out a potential burst of bad publicity.
You can encourage patients to leave ratings for you by giving them with a business card that has URL’s to various review sites printed on it. You can also send them an email update with these same links. You can leave a tablet on your receptionist’s desk with which patients can post reviews before they leave your office. You can also include a link to your favorite reviews sites in all of your email communications with patients, as well as on your official website.
Make Sure Your Name And Profession Is Visible On The Web
It’s an excellent idea to make sure that people know who you are and what you do for a living. These means not only hosting an official website for your practice, but also joining plenty of social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and the like.
The more updates and responses to questions and reviews that people see, the more they will realize that you are very much involved in your practice. Responsiveness to comments, questions, and complaints is an excellent way to protect and maintain your public reputation on a daily basis.
Never Ignore Angry Complaints You May Receive From Past Customers
One of the quickest ways to do possibly permanent damage to your professional reputation is to ignore, steamroll over, or simply delete angry responses and complaints from past customers. While it may be tempting to simply delete the comments and pretend like they were never posted, the reality is that you may well be goading the person who posted them into filing them elsewhere on public forums that you aren’t aware of and can’t control access to.
This is a tricky area to navigate, and there is no “one size fits all” answer. You don’t want to discuss any aspect of a patient’s case (especially the details of their medical files) online. You may not want to reply in person, but have an employee or partner craft your official response. The danger in this situation comes from the fact that you can’t simply ignore angry comments.
On the other hand, you can’t afford to make rude or angry comments in reply. Perhaps the best way to handle the situation is to offer a quick acknowledgement of the customer’s grievance, along with an invitation to talk in order to negotiate a quick compromise by way of settlement.
If Your Online Reputation Is In Trouble, Contact Us Today
If you have followed all of the above-listed suggestions but still find your online reputation to be in serious trouble, don’t panic. You can contact BrightPast today to get to the bottom of the issue and solve it in a safe, timely, and cost-effective manner.
No matter what the cause of the trouble may be, we can work with you to neutralize it and give you a new clean slate to work from. Contact us today to learn more about what we can do for you in your time of greatest need.