Online patient reviews are crucial for any urgent care business, but running a successful urgent care isn’t just about collecting the best reviews, but how you react to them as well. In a world where online reviews have such an influence on patient decisions, the way you manage them can separate your business from other operators. These days, an online review management solution is essential.
Here are seven reasons why managing your online reviews is important:
1. Influence on Patient Decision-Making
The patient experience starts online when they’re looking for a new healthcare provider. Ninety percent of patients use online reviews to evaluate clinics and nearly three-quarters look at online reviews when searching for a new doctor.
As an example of just how much today’s patients value these reviews, over 80% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as recommendations from friends and family. So as you look to drive traffic to your urgent care clinic and increase patient volume, it’s essential to cultivate a positive reputation through your reviews, both in volume of the positive and your reaction to the negative.
2. Enhanced Online Reputation
There’s no denying that positive reviews enhance your urgent care clinic’s online reputation. But The number of reviews also plays a critical role in driving business. Research shows that people look for a high quantity of reviews when choosing a business's services. In one study, nearly 65% of consumers said they’d be more likely to purchase something with more than 1,000 reviews rather than a product with 100 reviews.
People tend to read seven reviews, on average, before deciding they trust a business, so it's important to make sure those are likely to do your brand justice.
3. Trust and Credibility
Positive patient testimonials help build trust and credibility among existing patients and those looking for an urgent care provider. Using and managing online patient reviews to attract patients and boost your credibility is growing more and more important as people increasingly use online review sites in their search for a new healthcare provider.
When researching a new business, 65% of consumers put the most trust in online search engines and see them as more credible than traditional media, according to Edelman research. People generally put a lot of value in the overall sentiment of a business’s reviews, with about 75% of consumers saying they trust a company more when it has positive reviews. That said, be cautious about preventing patients from leaving negative reviews, or review gating. One study showed that 96% of consumers will actively seek out negative reviews, and that businesses without any look suspicious. Some consumers even say they won’t do business with a company after reading just one negative review. Meanwhile, more than 40% of respondents in one study said they’d see a doctor with favorable reviews even if they’re out of network.
4. Improved Patient Retention
Online review management helps you develop a positive public image, which makes a difference in whether patients return to your urgent care. It may also inform a patient’s overall trust and loyalty to your facility.
Reviews contain valuable feedback that can help you get an idea of the patient experience at your urgent care. You can use patient reviews to identify trends in what’s going well at your urgent care and what can be improved. You can leverage this information to change and improve your business in ways that encourage patient retention.
5. Local SEO and Search Visibility
Managing reviews is a great way to boost your local SEO ranking — especially given that more than 50% of trackable web traffic is driven by organic search. Online reviews also build awareness and trust among your local community. According to Search Engine Journal, when businesses have large amounts of positive online reviews, leading search engines like Google tend to reward them with a ranking toward the top of organic local search results.
6. Direct Impact on Revenue
Given the influence on patient behavior, reviews can impact your revenue. Evidence from one study shows that a simple one-star increase in ratings can lead to a revenue increase between 5% and 9%.
It’s important to reply to online reviews for multiple reasons, including the impact on revenue. According to research from Womply, businesses that respond to one or more customer reviews earn 4% more, and businesses that respond to at least a quarter of their online customer reviews earn about 35% revenue, on average. Consumers engage with the brands that engage with them.
It’s also helpful to have a large number of reviews. The Womply research found that businesses with more than nine current reviews earn more than 50% more than average, and those that have more than 25 current reviews earn more than 100% more than average.
7. Managing Negative Feedback
If and when someone leaves a negative review of your urgent care, it’s important to respond. In a survey from Software Advice, 66% of respondents said they feel it’s important for healthcare providers to respond publicly to negative reviews.
Consider using reputation management software to help you monitor for negative reviews and respond quickly when they pop up. Remember to respond professionally, honor patient confidentiality, show empathy, acknowledge any patient concerns, and, if possible, offer a solution. A carefully considered response goes a long way — 36% of patients in the Software Advice study said they ignore negative reviews when there’s a thoughtful response from the provider.
Key takeaways
Simply put: online patient reviews matter — and so does managing these reviews. In today’s competitive healthcare environment, the benefits of online review management for your urgent care business cannot be ignored — it can help boost revenue, increase patient loyalty, improve patient retention, raise your urgent care’s standing in local search results, enhance your credibility, and a whole lot more.
Learn more about how Solv can elevate your reputation, improve patient loyalty, and automate your workflow with Reviews.
