Introduction
What’s your first reaction when you get a negative review or poor feedback on your provider website? If you’re like most people, your first urge will be to get rid of it. The problem is, you should be able to take every negative or poor review on your services, or the services of your providers, and turn it around into a positive learning and improvement experience.
A negative review can be just as beneficial and educational as a positive review. Websites providing patient ratings are standard practice throughout the Internet today, and provide a valuable tool for both consumers and medical providers in the medical tourism industry to promote their business and make decisions.
Don’t let your initial gut reaction hamper your opportunity to learn and to improve. What’s the first thing you should do when you see a negative review?
Contact the reviewer and get more information regarding their experiences, feelings or dissatisfaction with services provided. Only this way can you determine where improvements should be made, both in your services and in the method of service delivery of your medical providers.
Use Feedback as a Learning Opportunity to Improve Services
Most patients ask friends, family members and acquaintances about their doctors, their services, and their likes or dislikes about those doctors, surgeons or facilities. It’s perfectly natural to want to compare opinions, feedback and comments when making a decision regarding health care providers.
Patients want to be heard. They want to know why that they should choose one facility over another, one doctor over another, or one surgical procedure over another. It’s a big decision. Patient resources, including feedback and testimonials, can help your patients determine the best course of action and treatment that best meets their needs.
When receiving a negative feedback or review, resist the temptation to ignore it or sweep it under the rug. Follow these few tips to help you deal with negative feedback in a positive manner:
- Address the feedback
- Take every review (positive or negative) as a learning experience. You can’t fix something or even improve it if you don’t know how your customers or clients feel about those services.
- Accept the complaint – own it. Take responsibility and accept the criticism. When making contact with the reviewer, make sure you offer a sincere apology and assure them that their feedback will be appreciated as a valuable tool to help improve services.
- Offer the dissatisfied client or customer some type of refund, compensation, or something that shows that you care about that patient and their opinion of you and your services.
Taking such steps will help you deal with any type of negative feedback in a positive manner.
Promote Communication
Promote communication between yourselves, your clients or customers, and your providers. Request that patients provide feedback regarding their experiences with your service, facility, doctor or surgeon. Studies have shown that a majority of potential customers and/or consumers are more likely to purchase from suppliers if testimonials, feedback, reviews and ratings are offered.
A staggering 80% of consumers rely on such reviews when making purchasing decisions, and this is especially true in the medical tourism field. After all, it’s difficult enough for people to deal with the need for treatments or surgeries, let alone the stress of traveling to a foreign country for those services.
Make it easier for your potential customers to make such decisions, and to feel good about them. Maintain open and transparent communication with your customers throughout the service experience, from the initial phone call to the final request for feedback.
