A referral is often only the beginning, Pet owners often look up the names of hospitals or specialists. Referring veterinarians may do the same before referring a patient to specialists. Potential buyers of an animal health company do not want to receive a sales pitch.
They want the tedious details: Did someone get back to them? Was there good communication around the costs and next steps? Were follow-ups done? While reviews may not be everything, they do shape the perception of an organization’s professionalism and trustworthiness.
At this point, an organization has already built a reputation from various sources, some from the organization’s website and business profile, and some from review sites. Search engines combine and organize information, and reviews are much more than a customer service issue.
Reviews Are Part Of A Larger Online Picture
A review profile is one small part of a reputation and is positioned near the business hours, location, description of services, images, and the website. When these components are aligned, it enables the customer to finalize their research instead of getting stuck and wondering what the most accurate information is.
A single review does not determine a practice’s ranking in a search or how its automatic summary depicts it. However, recent long reviews tend to be more meaningful to the reader compared to one positive review or one negative review.
The nature of comments varies by industry. Specific comments can be directed toward a veterinary practice’s scheduling and communication, discharge instructions, billing, or how a certain staff member dealt with a particular animal. Comments can also come from ordering, technical support, training, or customer service in the case of any laboratory, manufacturing, or other animal health companies. Review procedures should match the work performed.
Trust Starts Before Anyone Makes Contact
The reviews illustrate the greatest challenges relating to veterinary practice. One person may be anxious about a pet’s health and an emergency situation while needing to financially assess a situation involving multiple hospitals, specialists, and oncologists. Those reviews, and the comments that accompany them, are accessible to the public.
Some reviews are simply better than others and a narrative is far more valuable than a simple star rating. Comments about a returned call, a follow-up, or a clear estimate all add to the profile. Even when the client’s confidentiality limits the comments the company can respond with online, the disregard for the rules of confidentiality still count toward repeated complaints.
Veterinary referral partners work with and around the medical services provided. Both clinical expertise and comprehensive, prompt communication about the referred client’s records are essential. Any shortcomings can affect multiple partnerships.
Veterinary animal health companies often contend with the dual challenge of needing to service both the veterinary professionals and the pet owners. These two groups have different information needs, and comments and reviews should reflect this duality.
A Review Reply Is Not A Private Conversation
This is especially true for negative reviews since responses are typically directed to one individual, but prospective customers will be seeing it. This alters the parameters on what constitutes a “valuable” response. There is no need to address every point, or try to construct an argument for or against a position in the medical field.
While client feedback on work is valuable, it should be unnecessary to respond to each feedback comment with the same, repetitive, cookie-cutter response, “Thank you.” In fact, it may be perceived as even more personally engaged to include an individual response to the feedback comment than to have a response that looks like it was inserted into hundreds of other reviews.
Reviews provide a basis for documenting issues, and although the system allows for control, do not make promises beyond what the platform allows.
Numerous clients leave the appointment, day, and then home without a positive review, while those who have a negative experience are more inclined to leave a review. Without asking for them directly, it is reasonable to anticipate that those reviews will be indicative of a negative experience.
Ask For Feedback Without Writing The Answer
The request can be an email, text, direct link, QR code at checkout, or even a post-visit survey. It is simple, neutral, and not the same as asking only happy clients to post or suggesting what they should write.
Reviews help organizations by providing them with insight that they may otherwise not have received. If a business receives feedback, including, but not limited to, “instructions were confusing” or “staff were unreachable” or “hold times were too long,” these could be pointing to a problem that needs to be worked on more in house. That feedback is for operations and leadership, not just feedback for the social media manager.
While testimonials may be used in wider integrated communication efforts, just because something is public, does not mean that it can be used for any purpose. If an advertisement, presentation, or social media post, is going to use a reviewer’s comments, it will need to be cleared for any relevant compliance issues and other matters, including obtaining that person’s permission.
Review monitoring tends to break down due to lack of clarity about who has which responsibility. An actionable plan requires you to clarify which platforms are to be monitored, by whom, how quickly they are to respond to an issue, and when it is warranted to escalate something to leadership/legal/crisis communications.
Someone Has To Own The Process
Guidelines may help with a multi-location business to avoid inconsistent, and contradictory responses. These may address privacy, escalation, approval, and tone, but they also should not be used to make all responses sound the same. The wording should still be adaptive to what is relevant to the comment being addressed.
Most issues deserve more analytical thinking than simply stating something is a ‘problem’. When many people have similar complaints, it is a decision to choose to improve client communication, or to explain and keep clients updated about the improvements. This illustrates an awareness of what users experience.
One way to look at it is that a collection review campaign won’t get a business’s brand set in stone online. There are, however, several things happening in the background, from updating contact information to asking for feedback at the right time, to responding to complaints, to creating helpful materials and addressing complaints, to resolving issues. Organizations may not be able to control every review and every search result, but they can show some of the transparency behind the brand image. Owners, partners, and vets will be able to see a more refined image of the company over time.
National PR Agency Credentials
Rosica Communications is a nationally recognized animal health and veterinary practice PR agency specializing in media relations, thought leadership, social media, strategy, KOL programs, and crisis communications. We partner with animal health companies and care providers to improve how information is shared with pet owners.
To thoroughly measure PR and thought leadership programs, Rosica developed the most comprehensive PR and thought leadership measurement tool available today. The Thought Leadership Matrix™ assesses more than 20 indicators to benchmark influence and category/sector rankings over time.
To learn more, please schedule a call with Chris Rosica, CEO and President of Rosica Communications: https://calendly.com/rosica/30min/.
