Part 2: How You Can Encourage Your Happy Patients to Write Reviews
This article is part of our Complete Guide to Chiropractic Marketing, from the section How to Get Online Reviews.
In Part One, we discuss how to Be Selective About Review Prospects.
In Part Three, we discuss how to Make the Review Process as Easy as Possible for Your Patients.
In Part Four, we discuss Follow-up with Patients After They Write a Review.
Most of your patients are delighted with the care they've received in your office. For many patients, they've been suffering for years with pain or disability, and they're gratified by the relief that you've given them.
These patients are your evangelists. They're the ones that tell all of their friends and family about how great you are. For a successful chiropractor, word-of-mouth can be their most successful marketing tool.
Unfortunately, many of these happy patients don't even consider the idea of leaving an online review. Most clinics have hundreds of happy patients, but may only have one or two Google My Business or Yelp reviews. The key to getting online reviews from these people is to ask.
The next time a patient tells you how happy they are with their care, just say, "I'm so glad that we've been able to help you! Could you go online and tell your story so that other patients can get help, too?"
It will probably take multiple reminders to leave a review, as people are busy and they may forget to do it. You might need to send out emails to happy patients and ask them to leave a review.
Another way to help enhance your patients’ desires to leave you a stellar online review is to incentivize it. In other words, give them a reason to leave a review and they’ll be more likely to follow through and do it.
There are many ways you can do this, but here are a few to consider:
- Offer a special gift or discounted product for patients who take the time to fill out an online review. If you sell supplements or spine-friendly pillows, for example, you could offer the person these items at a reduced rate.
- Put their name in a hat and have quarterly drawings or raffles. When people know that they can win something by submitting an online review, they’re more likely to do so. It doesn’t have to be a big item either. Even something as small as a $10 Amazon gift card or a gift certificate to another local business is enough to get people to take action.
- Share their online reviews via your social media pages. People like being recognized when they say or do something nice, so show your reviewers that you appreciate their help by sharing their kind words on your social media accounts. This tells them that they’re important to you while getting you even more exposure at the same time!
Be creative and see what you can come up with. At a minimum, if someone does take the time to post a positive review about your chiropractic practice, at least make sure you acknowledge it by telling the person thank you. A little bit of appreciation goes a long way.
Plus, by recognizing that they did something nice for you, you come across as a kind, genuine person who values their business…keeping them coming back for more.
In the next section, we talk about how to make posting reviews as easy as possible.