How to Gather Patient Reviews & Testimonials

When was the last time you went to a really great restaurant? Very occasionally, we might randomly stumble upon such a place, but mostly we tend to visit great restaurants because someone else has told us that it’s, well, great.

This is also how some patients come to find the clinicians they are looking for.

Patient reviews are the new (online) word of mouth.

The great news is, one person’s fabulous review of your care, can inspire many to see you.

Reviews are one of the most effective ways to grow your practice.

What’s holding you back from asking for a review or testimonial?

One of the reasons doctors may feel shy about asking for reviews, is a concern around receiving a potentially bad review. This needn’t hold you back.

In the (hopefully) rare situation that you might receive less than glowing feedback, you can usually manage to turn things round by responding to the review in a courteous and concerned manner.

Patients are savvy on-line researchers, so mostly they’ll be able to read between the lines of that equivalent of a TripAdvisor one-star review. If you reply respectfully and intelligently, addressing any questions (instead of ignoring the review), you can often turn this into a positive outcome. It really is about demonstrating that you can respond to criticism well.

So how can we be better at obtaining reviews and testimonials?

Firstly, it’s important to ask.

Asking for something can often make us feel uncomfortable, and we may try to let ourselves off the hook by convincing ourselves that if the patient really wanted to give a testimonial, they’d offer it up without any prompting.

The reality is very different. The patient might be thinking, ‘Wow’, I’m so glad I came to see Dr ‘X’’ but springing forth with an offer of saying fab stuff about you might never occur to them (even though they’d be delighted to help, if only you asked).

It helps to look for key moments that make it easier to ask. If a patient says, ‘thanks so much for getting me back to riding/sleeping again at night/feeling confident about my skin’, then they’re going to potentially be receptive to the being asked for a testimonial.

You could respond with something along the lines of, ‘I’m so glad I was able to help. I really enjoy helping people like yourself, so if you ever have friends, colleagues or family who’ve also been struggling with ‘x’, then please don’t hesitate to give them my contact details. I’d be delighted to help them too’.

You can also make it easier for patients to say yes, by giving them a hint or two about what they could keep in mind when writing the review. For example:

What was the problem that you were experiencing before you came to see me?

Had they tried anything previously, and if so what?

What happened as a result of coming to see me and what was the best thing about it?

What would you say to anyone else who is in a similar situation and why might you like to recommend that they come and see me? 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

It’s a great idea to give patients a direct link to on-line places where they could leave a review. This could be extending them an invitation to leave a review on LinkedIn, or, you could set up a Google account linking to your private practice, and then send them to link to your review area on Google. That way, they don’t have to figure that part out on their own. Don’t forget to ask if you could use their review on your website too.

Finally, it can a good investment to sign up for an online review service such as Doctify, as these review sites are like miniature search engines in their own right. They really know how to leverage SEO, which helps you to be found.