How to turn a negative review site to your advantage and use it to actually grow your clinic.

I mentioned in the last blog that a technique that is commonly used to remove negative online reviews is to build mini-sites, optimizing them where they begin to rank high on Google and consequently, knocking down the negative review site so that they drop further and further in Google’s ranking so no one will find them.

Although this can be an effective technique, the problem lies in the fact that Google gives such authority to these sites and ranks them so high that it’s very hard to drop their ranking.  As such, it can take a very VERY long time to see results

Actual Post of a Chiropractor on RateMDs

In fact, by the time you’re able to bury these sites, it may be too late and you’ll have been forced to close down your clinic.

So action needs to be swift and effective and since the majority of your potential patients are going to see these reviews before coming to see you, you have turn these sites into your favor.

More important than being swift and effective, is that every step of your efforts have to be done correctly right from the start.

Actual Post of a Chiropractor on RateMDs

As mentioned in my last blog, having your patients respond to these negative comments with positive comments is a very powerful way.  However, since writing the last blog, I had a number of docs emailing me stating that instead of having their patients write a positive review, they did it themselves.  That is to say, the docs wrote fake reviews.

The result… they were called out on it!  Meaning, people posted on the thread that the doc wrote comments themselves and that they were completely fictional, therefore further destroying their credibility.  And overcoming this is unbelievably hard.  Sadly, even legitimate comments can be detrimental to you as they too can also be mistakenly called out as fake

But there is a better way and like I just mentioned, it’s by turning these harmful review site(s) into practice building and reputation building engines!

How do you do that?

Before I answer that, let me state this… in order to have skeptical people listen to you, you have talk to them where they are most at ease, most comfortable and more importantly, where they are most receptive and open to your message.

And where is that? 

At their home!

Now you’re probably saying “Why would anyone let me into their house to allow me to explain myself?”

Well, I’m not asking you to do that, but…

If you were to do that and they did let you in, you’d know for certain that they’re interested in hearing what you had to say, that they’d give you a chance to explain and that they’d probably be more willing to come to your office as a new patients after they heard your side of the story. Right? Right.

Well, fortunately with the technology of today, you can reach these people at their homes without even stepping inside.  And it comes in the way of “WEBINARS”.  That is, live online seminars that you can perform in front of your webcam that people can watch on their computers from the comfort of their home.

So going back to my last point, if people were to let you in their homes (by watching you live on their computer) aren’t they giving you a chance to explain yourself?  Wouldn’t they be more receptive to your message?  And wouldn’t they be more likely to give you a chance and book a consultation with you? 

Answer… Ya, they would be!

So here’s the simple and highly effective method to turn these negative online review sites to your benefit and build up your practice once again.

Simply write a post on the site, of course within the thread where all negative comments are, and say something to the effect…

“Hello All, This is Dr. X and I was told of these comments from a patient of mine who saw them.  Needless to say, I am shocked and saddened by these comments as we at {clinic name} have always made it our mission to provide the best care possible to our patients in a warm and loving environment.

Although, it’s impossible to help everyone, we do everything we can for all of our patients.  But there are some patients that have not been satisfied and have decided to post on this site. 

We would like to set the record straight and we invite everyone to watch and talk to us live online, from the comfort of your home, in an open Q&A format where I will answer all you questions and show you what our clinic is really like.

Please give us a chance to explain and join us on every {Date & Time} by going to {webinar domain} and just for taking the time to listen to us, we would also like to give you a special gift..
Yours,
Dr. X”

Before I get more into webinars, let me address the above invitation.

Again, these review sites are going to be ranked high on Google for a long, long time and you have to address these comments right away and show the readers that you have nothing to hide and that you want to re-establish your good name.

Write in an informal and humble manner so that you appear like real down to earth person and not some stuck up doctor.
Having positive comments is one thing, but allowing people to actually see you, relate to you and be able to have their concerns answered, is priceless and so much more powerful in re-establishing yourself.

Now, there are going to essentially be two types of people that are going to make a point of watching you. People who are wanting to hear you out and give you a chance to explain yourself and people that are curious to see the doc that everyone is bashing.

Either way, these are all potential new patients.  NOT ONLY THAT, but when these people get to know the real you and realize how caring you are and how you have been misrepresented, not only will they come in as potential patients, but they will spread the word about you AND may even write a positive post on the review site.

So over time, not only will you save your clinic from shutting down, but you’ll gain new patients and more importantly, the negative comments on the review site will simply be disregarded by visitors.
To be maximally effective, I recommend that you hold a live webinar every week for about 30 mins in order to reach as many people as you can.

Side Note:  Once you see how powerful webinars are, you will most likely continue to do them for all your Health Care Talks, Lunch & Learns, Health Care Booths etc. because you’ll not only will you be able to reach the people right in front of you,  but you’ll always be able to reach the 100’s if not 1000’s of people online.  Imagine how many new patients you can now potentially get!!

Where can you go to find a webinar service?

Well, there are several that you can find online.  One of the best is Gotomeeting, but for the most part, they are all quite good.  But there are a few drawbacks with these services.

1.    Cost: - Because you shave to pay every time you use their service, pay for the length of your webinar, the number of attendees and up-sell features (e.g. webinar host/co-ordinator) it can get quite expensive.

2.    Different Access Code - every time you hold a webinar, you’ll be given a different access code to give to your attendees. So instead of posting just one time for all your upcoming webinars, you’ll have to make several posts.  Problem with this is that review sites will most likely block your posts as they will be deemed similar.  As such, your future webinars won’t have attendees
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3.    Webinar is not linked to your website – webinar services are not attachable or embeddable into your website.  This is a major downfall because viewer of your webinar may want to get more information about your clinic so having the webinar embedded into your website makes your information easily accessible to your visitors and increases the likelihood of them booking an appointment.  People are fundamentally lazy and the more steps it takes to get something, the less likely people will take action. So without having your webinar embedded, you will lose potential patients.

4.    No downloadable options – skeptical people generally will not make quick decisions nor making financial commitments.  So during  your webinar, viewers should have the option of downloading a Gift Certificate with some sort of promotional  offer (e.g. FREE examination and Initial treatment)

But there is a better way. A better webinar option and it successfully addresses all of the above issues and allows you to maximize your viewer-to-new patient conversion.

In addition, you can now hold as many webinars as you want and at any length of time as you want. 
And the best part… the cost is pennies!

Promodocs chiropractic website developers have created built-in website webinar feature (exclusive to Promodocs chiropractic websites) that allows you to direct viewers to your website to watch your live webinars without the need for access codes and continuous posts.    Thus making your posts much more effective in being able to reach a larger audience.

In addition, Promodocs chiropractic website designs have also incorporated into their websites Event Calendars where you can post upcoming webinars and events (e.g. Health Care Talks, Lunch & Learns, Trade show Booths etc.) that your online visitors can make note of and attend.

Lastly and more importantly, after performing your compelling webinar, your online viewers can take immediate action by utilizing your Promodocs Fillable Online Intake form and Online Patient Scheduler so that they can quickly and easily schedule an appointment with your office.

Thus having an all incompassing website webinar feature is so vitally important in getting new patients because you want to make everything easily accessible for your online visitors to book a consult after you have them pumped up about you and your clinic. 

Of course the decision is up to you.  So whether you use a Promodocs site or a webinar service, it is imperative that you take action immediately, allow visitors of the negative review sites to get to know the real you and to build back up your clinic.

In this day and age, it is a well known and excepted fact that people’s first impression of a business that they are searching out information about is their website.  Chiropractic is no different.

The fact of the matter is, websites are the new store front…  whether you have an online business or a brick and mortar shop.   This being the case, peoples views on a business is based on how their website looks and functions.  If you have a run of the mill website, people will view your clinic inferior or run of the mill.  If  you have a website that will blow your visitors away by enhanced visitor experience, you can bet that your visitors will not only have a very high opinion of your clinic, but chances are they are going to contact your office and book an appointment.

Imagine walking down the street and seeing a 30 or 40 store fronts all looking relatively the same, but the items in the store range from clothes sold at Walmart to Armani and Dior.  Now, you’re the type of person looking for Armani but you can’t go into the stores  to see which one sells Armani, instead you have to stand down the road and chose the store that you think sells what you want based on the store front.

That’s a really hard determination to make right?  Now, what happens if a store opens up on that same street where the store front is beautiful decorated, has sophisticated and elegant signage  and really stands out from the other stores.  Well, chances are your going to go straight to that store and find what your looking for and completely disregard  the others, right?

And that’s exactly what online visitors will do when they see a bunch of chiropractic websites.  If visitors see just a plain static typical chiropractic website, the visitor will perceive that clinic as below par (whether justified or not).  But if a visitor jumps on to a site that blows them away and enhances their online visitor experience they will look no further and contact your office, right?  Of course.

So what makes a website stand out from all the rest?

1.    Contacting and Communicating with your Office has to be BEYOND easy – in the world we live in today, people have little patience and time.  Your chiropractic patients are no different.  Having a well visible phone number is essentially, but it’s just the start.  Your chiropractic website has to have a Live Chat function where your visitors can text chat to your staff via their  Smart Phone and computer (btw… statistics are indicating that more people are starting to search online using their smart phones than lap top and desk top computers - so your site has to be Mobile Compatible!).  Your site also needs Fillable Online Patient Intake Forms that can be emailed to your office (not just printed out by your website visitor and brought into your office) and there needs to be and Online Patient Scheduler where patients can book their consults and appointments online.

Never doubt this fact... your website HAS to be a complete extension of your clinic - educating, communicating, and booking - if it's not, believe me, you are loosing a ton of potential patients.

2.    Remove Website Clutter -Information must be concise and not overwhelming – all too often, chiropractors have websites where they jam pack it with information… tonnes of information, too many tabs and too many choices.  This is a website killer!  Just like the saying goes… “less is better”  If too much information is given, people will feel overwhelmed and will jump off your site to go to your competition.  In addition, because people are time sensitive and impatient they want their information is small packages so that they can just get what they need to know and then take action.

3.    Site Must Be Visually Stimulating – websites have to be visually stimulating and interesting.  By this I don’t mean having all these flashing lights and attention grabbing gimmicks.   I mean a website that is attractive and pleasant to the eye and one that makes the visitor to want to explore your site further and more importantly, drive them to contact your office to make an appointment.

4.    Doctor Must be Able to Build Rapport with their Visitors – This is massively essential and I cannot over stress this one enough.  Too many chiropractors think that throwing up a few pics of them with their patients or with their family members will allow their online visitors to get to know them and see how great and caring a doc he or she is.  Well, this may have worked a number of years ago but it no longer does.  Visitor-to-Doctor interaction IS the new standard.  That is to say, visitors want to get to know the doctor not from pics of them on a page, but from interacting with them… but from the comfort of their home!  This is why Webinars (i.e. Live seminars online) are growing in epic proportions.  Now I’m not saying that  you have to be online live all the time during your office hours, but all your Lay Lectures, promotional talks etc should be shown live online.  Therefore, not only will you be lecturing and building rapport with those standing before you in your clinic (or where ever you may be), but now you’ll be able to lecture and build rapport with all those people online.  Imagine how many new patients you'll be able to get now!

5.    Overburdening Visitors with Emails and Newsletters – A visitor email capture (having your visitors willingly provide you with their email address) and an auto-responder (i.e. an email/ e-newsletter mailer that sends those visitors that have given you their email address information on an automatic and continuous basis) are crucial to a successful website.  Much like #4, a lead capture and auto-responder built into your website is a MUST HAVE. 

In order to get as many of your visitors to book with your office, you need to be in constant contact with them and this is the reason why having a website that will automatically send out timed emails (i.e. auto-responder) to your visitors is so important. Sending out periodic  emails to your visitors is critical for your clinic success because they will keep your clinic top of mind and thus, if your visitor feels the need to see a chiropractor, your clinic will be the one they call. Not your competitor. 

But you CANNOT email them too much!  If your visitors/leads get an email from you more than 3 times per month, they will perceive your clinic as an annoyance and they will not only request to get off your mailing list, but you can bet they will never come to your office.

Now, if you have an old site or you have a site that does not incorporate the above 5 components, you may be thinking that this is going to be too costly to do, not to mention the cost of website optimization in order to build your online presence.

                                                     But fortunately there are options!

There are companies that you can find online that provide businesses with auto-responders services, patient scheduling services, webinar services and you can pay for all of them or choose which ones you think you need and depending on your budget.

                                                       However, there is a better way.

At the risk of taking away the importance and necessity of these 5 essential website features by sounding sales pitchy, Promodocs specifically builds websites for chiropractors that incorporates all these features and much, much more to create the most powerful chiropractic website available.

Our team of chiropractic website developer at Promodocs have spent countless hours and have done tremendous research in understanding what drives your online visitors to be motivated to not only tour your website but also to communicate and book an appointment with your clinic.

To learn more about how our chiropractic websites are so effective in bringing you new patients and why we are so different from other chiropractic website companies, visit us at http://www.promodocs.com or call us toll free at 1-800-652-0592 and take advantage of our limited time $200 Promotional Discount!

Clinic burnout is a VERY common occurrence, whether you have a  busy clinic or a struggling clinic.

If you have a busy successful clinic, burnout can come from constantly having to go out to promote your office or almost being like a robot and repeating the same chiropractic message/script to your consults, ROFs and existing patients or from having to quickly bounce from room to room adjusting patients.

If you're just opening up a new clinic or you have a struggling clinic and you're burning the candle at both ends trying to make a go of your clinic and just trying to pay the bills.

Regardless of how you get to clinic burnout, the experience is the same...

• Dread knowing that Monday is tomorrow and you have to go to the clinic.
• Just don't want to get out of bed to face another day at the office.
• Don't want to spend another weekend doing another promotion.
• Don't have the energy and the focus to give what your patients need.
• Always tired during the work week, but have lots of energy on your days off.

We've all been there!

The great thing is... there are easy ways to re-energize and get back that excitement about practicing like you had on the last day of classes at your chiro college. And I'm going to tell you about it right now!

Here at the TOP 6 ways to get out of a slump...

1. The Pareto Principle: A.K.A. the 80-20 Rule - roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.  That is to say,  get rid of the patients that just whine and complain and bring down the energy in your office.  Do the promotions that bring in the best patients.  Don't waste your time on all those other promotions that only bring in a few, but  you have to spend HOURS getting those few. Of all the task that you have to do, only 20% of them matter.  So ONLY work on that 20% as those are the ones that will drive 80% of your business/clinic.
   
   
2. Write It Out: Often people become overwhelmed because they feel that they have so much to do and they just don't know where to start.  So they start tasks haphazardly and just spin their wheels and get no where because they are jumping back and forth from task to task trying to get everything done.   AND at the same time, busying themselves doing less important tasks and NOT the important ones that will truly benefit them and their clinic. But, if you write out your task in a list format, you will realize that you actually have less to do to achieve your goals and you'll know which tasks are the important ones.
   
   Here's what I do... on my wall (in my home office), using cue card, I have 3 columns.  The first column is the "To Do" column.  2nd column it's the "Doing" column.  3rd column - "Done" column. So I then write down each task on 1 card and put them in the "To Do" column and as I start a task, I move the card into the "Doing" column.  When I finish that task... I move the card into the "Done" column.
   
   You will be AMAZED how it removes your stress levels!  Because now you see what you actually have to do (and as  you move the cards to the "DONE" column you get a lot of satisfaction as you see your tasks getting completed) AND you realize that it's a lot less than you think you actually had to do.
   
   
3. Go On A Spontaneous Vacation: Right now, think of a place you want to go to (the Caribbean is really cheap this time of year), book it for 3-7 days from now (so that you give your patients the heads up), and then just take off!  Ya, you heard me... just jet!  I did this.  During a super stressful time in my life (and I had an insanely busy office), I took off for 3 weeks.  You might be thinking, "What are my patients going to think?!"  Well, when I got back after 3 weeks, NONE of my patients said anything and the clinic started back up as if I never left!  My advice... JUST DO IT!
   
   While I was on vacation, I not only came back super charged and ready to go back, but I also came back with amazing marketing and promotional ideas that built up my clinic that much more! And more importantly, my patients were feeling much better from my adjustments because I was able to focus more!
   
4. Change Up Your Clinic:  Paint the wall, get new chiropractic posters, new flowers, new furniture etc.  Don't have the money for that? That's fine.. then just rearrange your furniture, change the patient flow patterns in your office, change the music in your office to more pop or energetic music.  If you are already playing pop music, switch it up to jazz or ambient music.
   
   Instead of wearing jeans and a T-shirt or golf shirt in the office, wear dress pants and a dress shirt or vice versa.
   
   Or have some fun contest in your office.  Do some Give-Away to the patient that brings in the most referrals within the month, organize a food drive. do a Chiro Quiz Contest (i.e. make up a sheet of 10 questions about chiropractic that your patients have to answer and hand in on their next visit.  Then at the end of the month have a draw - person who's name is drawn must have answered the Qs correctly.  Winner get a gift certificate to a nice restaurant).
5. Go to a Chiropractic Seminar:  Although you may think that you're the only one suffering, believe me, YOU'RE NOT ALONE!  A great place to get motivated, learn new ideas, get the moral support you need, is from Chiro Seminars.  Not only is it a great escape from your office, but it sets your mind straight so that you can get back into the game.
   
   
   And My ALL Time FAVORITE... with LASTING Results...
   

   
   
6. Network With Other Chiros (WITH A TWIST!):  First of all get a Magic Jack (i.e. internet phone where you can call anywhere in North America (and some other countries) for free.
   
   Second: Find successful chiropractors in different states or provinces.  I did this by Googling different chiropractic websites. I had 2 main criteria that I used to gauged a successful practice...
1. Quality of their website - Was the site just slapped together with no thought just so that they had a website, or did they have a high quality site because they took pride in their clinic.
2. How did the office look - Did the office look professional, clean and modern or did it look like just a plain office with typical M.D. office chairs, plain walls, and just really no thought involved.

If the office met my criteria, I would call them up to talk to the doctor and tell him/her that I was forming a private group of just a few select docs where we can share marketing and promotional ideas, how to make our practice more fun, etc.

At first, I was met with hesitation because the chiros didn't know if I was their competition down the road.  So I told them that I am calling docs from completely different states so that there is no conflict of interest and we can openly share our insider secrets without having the office down the road using them.