Looking after your reputation online is the equivalent to being in a small town and having the town gossip come in and tell you what everyone is saying about your services. It tells you the areas in which you excel, highlighting what you should be promoting in order to draw in more business. But just as importantly, it also tells you where you need to improve in order to make your patients happier and get more people to walk in your door.
By paying attention to your customer’s online reviews, you’ll know exactly what others think about your chiropractic business based on their one-on-one interactions with you and your staff. And because people tend to be more honest online than in real life, you might learn things that you wouldn’t ordinarily learn if you asked them face-to-face.
Plus, if you see something you don’t like, a comment or rating that isn’t as high or complimentary as you’d like, taking the appropriate action on that review can help promote your reputation versus tarnish it. While you have no control over what others post about your practice, you do have control over your response, ultimately helping others decide if you’re the right chiropractor for them.
What About Chiropractors Specifically?
At this point you may be sold on the fact that many people are using the Internet to find their service providers, yet you might also be questioning how many people are actually using online reviews to find chiropractors specifically. And that’s a good question because, if this doesn’t apply to you, then it’s pointless to even take this issue any further and waste your time on it when you could be working on other more productive ways to promote your business.
To help you answer this, BrightLocal, a company designed to help businesses improve their online performance, conducted a survey to better learn what types of reviews people were reading online. In this case, each respondent was encouraged to select all of the reviews they typically read and use when making purchasing decisions, providing researchers with a more accurate idea as to which types of businesses were the most impacted.
According to their results, “doctors/dentists” was the second most searched category (35 percent), beaten out only by searches related to local restaurants and cafes (60 percent). Furthermore, 47 percent of those interviewed indicated that reputation was the most important factor when choosing this type of health-related professional, further supporting the fact that your online reviews matter—and they matter quite a bit.
As a chiropractor, managing your reputation by building 5 star online reviews must be a top priority in your marketing strategy.
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