How to Beat Bad Reviews by Marketing Health
I try to look away as that sinking feeling swells in my gut. And then I just get mad. This is so unfair. Did I really just get another bad review? Do they understand how much this hurts my business? I'm caring for 15 or more very happy patients a day, and one bad Yelp review makes it sound like I'm a hack, heartless, careless, incompetent. There is something very wrong with this system. I can't meet these standards. I'm not perfect. What can I do?
-Anonymous Doctor
You're right. There is something wrong with this system.According to research, 95% of people who feel they were treated poorly are going to tell someone about it compared to a much lower number who share good experiences. About 50% of these 95% end up sharing with multiple people on social media or review systems. It takes 12 good experiences to cancel out 1 bad experience.
And when you consider the fact that everyone "perceives" things differently, these odds are just not in your favor. A person who has had a bad experience is much more likely to share it, so if you have 1 out of 100 patients who are unhappy, chances are that 1 person is going to write a review that others will use to determine whether or not they want to come to your practice. Most of the time, you don't even know who wrote the review so you feel helpless. With a deck stacked against you, how do you beat these bad reviews? What can you do, but just get angry? The fact is that they hurt.
But the good news is that you can beat bad reviews -- assuming you are a decent doctor and those reviews really are unfair.