More threads by Garrett Sussman

Joined
Mar 15, 2016
Messages
474
Reaction score
252


Her doctor almost killed her…

That’s Wendy Wester’s claim. She went to see Dr. Alan Brown, an orthopedic surgeon after her knee injury, when she was hurt skiing. Brown diagnosed her injury as an MCL tear.

Wester was rushed to the emergency room after she experienced severe pain. Doctors ordered an MRI and found she had also torn her ACL, LCL and Meniscus. The MRI also showed she had a blood clot in her leg. A blood clot that could have killed her.

Dr. Alan Brown, Wester’s doctor, decided to sue her for defamation after Wester stated in her review that “his enormous ego nearly cost me my life.

Screen Shot 2017-02-16 at 10.18.43 AM.jpg


Was she wrong?

The stakes are often higher when it comes to medical and legal services. Especially when people’s lives are on the line. An online review about Pizza Hut, positive or negative, doesn’t have as much weight or consequence compared to the effect online reviews can have for medical and legal professionals.

Online reviews often create all types of dilemmas for doctors and lawyers to sort through.


All too often they don’t know how to handle negative reviews


Some industries simply don’t have the experience they need to handle negative reviews. Businesses in these industries simply want these reviews gone. They feel slandered or bullied by their reviewers.

Sometimes they’re right.

Because from their perspective, they have a lot to lose. A Harvard study found each star in a review affected the business owner’s sales by 5 to 9 percent. Berkeley economists found an increase from 3.5 to 4 stars on Yelp resulted in a 19 percent increase in business for a restaurant.

Clearly there’s a lot of money at stake.

What’s worse is the fact that customers aren’t always honest about the reviews they post.

A Yelp reviewer known as Dan. W, posted a one star review of Wonderful, claiming staff refused to seat him as he was alone. He mentioned waiting around for a table then leaving.

Here’s his review.


Dan. W.jpg

Just one problem.

Dan. W didn’t speak to anyone in the restaurant. In fact, he was in the restaurant for 22 seconds before leaving, and posting his hostile review.

How do we know? The restaurant owners caught him on camera.

[video=youtube;n2Lgv_pyKLs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Lgv_pyKLs&feature=youtu.be[/video]

It’s not just Yelp. Businesses are struggling to deal with these types of customers across a variety of channels. For service professionals like doctors and lawyers, dishonest or misleading reviews can have much larger consequences. But, why?

Doctors and lawyers have historically been viewed as specialized, elite. Culturally for many, many years and before the age of reviews, they were able to attract and retain customers based almost entirely on or around their status in society.

Things have changed. They are more and more viewed as commodities. “If I don’t like you there’s a dozen others that can do what you do.


There’s a dozen others who are…


More caring, attentive and professional. There are a plenty of other attorneys and doctors who are more focused on customer needs and concerns. That’s a customer’s perspective going in. What if you’re not willing to do what it takes to earn their business? If you’re not able to get the results they want, they’ll simply take their business elsewhere.

But it isn’t just about results. Customers focus on a wide variety of details in their reviews including…


  • The cleanliness of your location



  • Your “bedside manner” and overall demeanor



  • Whether you’re relatable and easy to understand



  • Whether you succeed in solving their problem (e.g. winning their case or relieving their pain)



  • Wait / response times



  • Support staff performance



  • Your performance overall and their impression of you overall


These details (or their counterparts) matter in other industries. The status, expectations and risk involved with the legal and healthcare industries are far reaching and potentially devastating.

For example, Dr. Rolando Sanchez amputated the wrong leg from his patient, then he and his colleagues defended his mistake. Marie Karim wanted to file a malpractice lawsuit against the New York City hospital. She hired attorney Sheri B. Paige to handle her suit and paid her. Later she discovered the truth. Not only did Paige not have the required experience, she hadn’t even filed the lawsuit. The worst part? The statute of limitations had run out leaving Karim defenseless and out of options.

A negative restaurant experience isn’t really in the same league.

They need to know how to handle negative reviews



Too often, they’re handled in a reactionary way.


  • Dr. Alan Brown, the surgeon at the beginning of our story who sued his patient, Wendy Wester for defamation after her negative review on Yelp.














The stories, the court cases, go on and on. Over and over we see businesses struggling to accept a customer’s opinion of them. Professionals in these industries are used to a certain amount of prestige and social capital.

But that is slowly fading away.


Andrew goes on to provide some guidance on how to handle negative Doctor or Lawyer reviews. Read the full article here.

Discussion: I know a lot of forum members have lawyer and doctor clients. I'm curious whether they come to you with digital marketing and online review knowledge or if there's a lot of education that needs to happen before providing your ORMM services.

What challenges have you run into when it comes to implementing an ORMM strategy?

Which clients are more challenging and why?


Screen Shot 2017-02-16 at 10.18.43 AM.jpg


Dan. W.jpg


gradeusDoctors.jpg
 
Welcome to my world! Virtually of my work is with home healthcare, hospice and caregiver agencies and so we undertake frequent action on their ORMM.
 
Thanks for the reply Tim! What's been your experience with regards to educating clients on improving their Online Review Management?

What's your number one tip for consultants or agencies looking to focus on the industry for ORMM?
 
Thanks for the reply Tim! What's been your experience with regards to educating clients on improving their Online Review Management?

What's your number one tip for consultants or agencies looking to focus on the industry for ORMM?

Educating clients on reviews is always a work in process. Some clients don't want to believe that anybody could say anything negative about them and others know its a long term road to gain a high satisfaction of reviews and a high star rating.

For other consultants I always recommend to be realistic with your clients and give them realistic expectations that can be managed despite if that means you may lose them as a client.
 
It sounds like the doc screwed up. Suing the client just brings attention to the incident. I would of recommended that he apologized, explained the situation and tried to be as human as possible in explaining everything. That would have given him much more credibility compared to a lawsuit.

Reviews have such a big impact in converting clicks to customers. It also affects seo a tremendous amount to. I think about reviews constantly. First I try and dazzle customers to prevent negative ones, and I encourage anyone happy with my service to take a minute to let others know.
 
Great point! Thanks for the reply!

From many of the consultants and agencies Grade.us customers that I speak to, there's definitely an underlying theme of doctors from smaller practices who want to be able to control reviews before they're posted on third party sites.

Many of them either want to control the process or ignore them altogether. As you mention, the education of the client is key. If you have a client that just refuses to adapt, do you drop them, continue with the service anyway, or continue to try to educate them in different ways?

What's the best way to educate clients in your mind about the 'nature of the online review beast'?
 
Thanks for the comment!

What that doctor did, suing his patient was a case of throwing a rock at a hornets nest.

And I concur, the value of online reviews continue to have an impact on SERPs and CTR. I love your mindset of dazzling the customers. And referrals are one of the best ways to acquire new clients.

Do you find healthcare clients are more likely to change their attitude when you show them the impact of positive online reviews for acquiring new patients (via click to call, etc.)?
 
Thanks for the comment!

What that doctor did, suing his patient was a case of throwing a rock at a hornets nest.

And I concur, the value of online reviews continue to have an impact on SERPs and CTR. I love your mindset of dazzling the customers. And referrals are one of the best ways to acquire new clients.

Do you find healthcare clients are more likely to change their attitude when you show them the impact of positive online reviews for acquiring new patients (via click to call, etc.)?

There was a post not long ago that described using industry related bad reviews to see what people were complaining the most about. An example would be several negative reviews commenting how long it took to dry.

If a doctors office wanted to thrive, find the most common complaints and avoid those situations. I hear a lot of complaints about doctors offices in our area. Long wait, canceled appointments, long wait to get appointment.

When the doctor is able to avoid these situations and get reviews to reflect that, I promise the doctor will be overloaded about new business.
 
Thank you for the comment! Great point about actually addressing negative review concerns with business changes.

I remember speaking to a restaurant owner who was getting negative reviews. People were complaining about the automatic 18% gratuity (when they said the service didn't warrant it in the first place). Many people had mentioned this in the review. When they removed that policy, not only did more people start writing positive reviews, but some of the people who had written negative reviews, actually changed them acknowledging the change by the restaurant. I think that ultimately helped their business! (The sad thing is that the employees got hurt losing their tips, but the business owner worked on some replacement solutions).
 

Login / Register

Already a member?   LOG IN
Not a member yet?   REGISTER

LocalU Event

Trending: Most Viewed

  Promoted Posts

New advertising option: A review of your product or service posted by a Sterling Sky employee. This will also be shared on the Sterling Sky & LSF Twitter accounts, our Facebook group, LinkedIn, and both newsletters. More...
Top Bottom