Patient testimonials on your website aren't good enough

We all do it. We put a few great testimonials on our websites that speak to how great we are. It's expected. But our customers are more savvy these days, especially when it comes to health care. Patients don't want to see a few well-written letters on your corporate website. They want the truth -- the good, the bad and the ugly.

They're seeking out healthcare ratings websites and they're in search of honest opinions from other patients. Believe it or not, they actually want to see a few negative comments. Because those negative comments validate the positive ones. Plus, how you handle these public comments also provides insight into how your organization might treat people in general. For example, are you argumentative or apologetic? Do you use feedback to improve? Your responses say a lot.

So what is a healthcare marketer to do? Participate in a healthcare ratings website! Here's how to incorporate a ratings website into your healthcare marketing plan:

1. Evaluate your options. Use a healthcare specific ratings website rather than a general site (like Yelp, etc) because they give prospective patients more relevant and useful information. Questions are geared toward patient care scenarios and focus on things that patients actually care about. Plenty of healthcare ratings websites exist, so do a little homework to determine which one works best for you. First, find out which sites already have reviews on your organization (do a Google search using a phrase like "southgate surgery center reviews"). Working with a site that already has a good base of reviews can give you a head start. Next, determine whether the website allows you to respond to comments or add marketing information to your provider profile. Also look for additional features like alerts when you get new reviews or resources to help you promote your reviews.
   
2. Ask patients to rate you. The more reviews and patient testimonials you can collect, the more accurate a picture you can present to prospective patients. Therefore, you should make it your practice to ask every patient and visitor to 'share their experience on a third party ratings website to help others determine whether your practice is right for them.' Saying something along those lines on your website, invoice and on a script during the checkout process will increase your response rate. Here's something to keep in mind: In a recent study of surveys on WhereToFindCare.com, we found that 90 to 95% of reviews were positive.
   
3. Share your ratings on your website and social media profiles. Much like the travel industry does, you should proudly display your ratings. Post a link to your reviews page on your website and social media profiles. Post them in your lobby and waiting rooms. And every once in a while when you get a really moving testimonial, go ahead and post it as a status update on your Facebook page and Twitter stream. The more people see your ratings online, the more they will trust your organization. Not just that you'll do a great job taking care of them, but that you truly care about your patients and what they think of you.
   

Read more about testimonial marketing and incorporating reviews in your healthcare marketing campaign:

What is Testimonial Marketing, risks and how to do it
Testimonial marketing case study: Western Wayne Family Health Centers
How to respond to patient reviews

Have a question? Just ask in the comments below!

Chiropractors: Reputation is Everything

When marketing a chiropractic office, reputation really is everything. In a recent study by the Journal of Healthcare Management 90% of people said that the reputation of the doctor and of the facility was important when they choose a health provider.

So how do you make sure your reputation stands above all the other chiropractors in your market? Word of mouth and testimonials. And in this age, you need to harness the power of the Internet to make it happen effectively and quickly. Why? 12% of all adults turn to the Internet for information on health care providers like chiropractors. And that number is only growing.

OK, so your goal should be to not only be visible on the Internet, but to stand out as the chiropractor with the best reputation. You can achieve both of these things by following these steps :

1. Google your name or practice name. What do you see? Are there reviews? Read them and respond to them. Read our tips on how to respond to patient reviews.
2. If you can't find anything at all about your chiropractic practice, then that may even be worse than having bad reviews! Establish a presence with a website, Facebook page, blog or a free profile on WhereToFindCare.com.
3. Start requesting testimonials from your patients. Ask all of your patients to share their experience on a ratings website -- because slapping glowing testimonials on your website isn't good enough. People see through that. There are many websites to choose from but don't use just any ratings site. Direct patients to more relevant healthcare-specific ratings sites like WhereToFindCare.com. This gives your prospective patients more meaningful information that they crave when choosing a provider.

If you're a chiropractor who wants to start marketing with your reputation, you can request free Testimonial Marketing Tools from WhereToFindCare.com.

Twitter Marketing for Home Health Agencies

Home health agencies and private duty home care agencies may not realize it but Twitter can be a powerful and cost effective marketing tool.

Most agencies think social media and especially Twitter don't fit into their marketing mix because their prospective patients aren't using them. That may or may not be true, however many doctors and hospitals ARE using Twitter.

So in addition to using Twitter to connect with patients and customers, don't overlook the powerful networking opportunity with referral sources. While in Twitter, do a search on names or specialties of referring organizations in your area. Click the People tab in the results. You can also try the handy Twitter directory www.twellow.com.

Once you find people or organizations you'd like to connect with, just give them a follow and start listening to what they're saying. Answer their questions, make comments and eventually ask questions of your own. Don't try to sell them. Engage them and build a relationship with them online. Eventually you'll be able to take it offline and meet IRL (in real life) for coffee or a sales call. Just be patient and wait for the right moment.

Is your home health agency already on Twitter? Have you found a referral or made any other important connections? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Google Rich Snippets Benefit WhereToFindCare.com Members

WhereToFindCare.com member health provider profiles now show review data in Google search results. Now, the millions of people using Google every day to find health care providers will see our review data right on search engine results pages, and WhereToFindCare.com members' profiles will stand out even more.

What it is
The review data shown in Google search results are "rich snippets" of your organization's ratings on WhereToFindCare.com. Your reviews are now summarized and visually displayed directly in Google search results as shown in the image below.

The image below illustrates a typical scenario in which a person uses Google to locate a health service he or she needs. In this example, the search is for "colonoscopies downriver mi." The WhereToFindCare.com member profile of Southgate Surgery Center is the first result and you'll notice the center's 11 patient/visitor reviews are shown in star format just below the underlined link.

{Click the image to enlarge}

What this means to WhereToFindCare.com members
According to Google, these review snippets help users to better identify pages with good content. That means your WhereToFindCare.com profiles not only stand out more, but they also signal to Google users that the information contained within your profile is informative and helpful. Both of these things increase the likelihood that your prospective patients will not only see your profile, but take further action to contact you and make an appointment.

How you can take advantage of this new benefit
Get more reviews on your profile! Encourage patients and visitors to rate their experience. Because if you don't have any reviews, you won't benefit at all from this enhancement. And by now you know all about the many benefits of having patient reviews, right?

WhereToFindCare.com constantly looks for new ways to help promote our members and we've worked with Google to bring you this new benefit. We stay abreast of changes in search engine optimization techniques and new technologies so you don't have to.

If you have any questions about this or other benefits, please feel free to contact us. If you'd like to subscribe or learn more, check out our healthcare Internet marketing packages.

Patient Experience in a Healthcare Social Media Marketing Campaign

In a previous post, I explained how Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital in Michigan has created a whole new level on which to compete by focusing on the patient experience. Here, I'll show you how that focus creates a goldmine of social media-friendly content that is fuel for a successful healthcare marketing campaign online. And how you can create a similar campaign at your hospital.

Henry Ford has tons of social media-friendly content. The uniquely beautiful facility the events it hosts as well as the heartwarming patient experiences they create every day yield an abundance of photo, video, live tweet and other content that are easily shared across social networks.

For example, the upcoming wedding that will be held at the hospital will surely yield many photos that are so unique, people may be inclined to share them with their social networks ("Check this out...these people got married at a hospital -- isn't that wild?!"). A hospital can help the process along by posting photos (after getting the appropriate permissions) on its Facebook page. Then send a simple tweet with a creative hashtag that links to either the photos on the hospital's website. By the way, the website landing page should also include information on how to book a wedding or other event at the hospital.

Okay, so maybe your hospital won't be hosting any weddings any time soon. That's ok, you still have plenty of opportunities.

Your goal should be to make people feel included in whatever is going on at your hospital. You want your hospital to feel familiar and comfortable to people. You accomplish this by helping people to visualize your hospital in friendly and comfortable light, perhaps not how they may normally see it. When they think of your hospital now, they probably think of a crowded emergency room and sick people shuffling through dimly lit halls (we know that's not accurate, but that's what people imagine, hence the challenge here). So if you show your hospital the way it really is as well as the friendly people who work there, you can change that perception. Also, allowing people to see things before they check in helps to reduce anxiety.

Here are just a few ideas to integrate "the patient experience" in your marketing campaign:

• Give them behind the scenes look at operations or events.
• Show them community benefit events such as health fairs, car seat checks, immunization clinics, whatever. Show them that your hospital is not just a place where you go when you get sick, but it is also a partner in your community's health. As a bonus, if you do this in real time using Twitter, you may also see increased event attendance. Even better, promote the event in advance by showing setup preparations and detailed information on what the event covers.
  
• Interview doctors, nurses, staff a patient is likely to meet during his/her stay or other interesting people.
• Show a day in the life of the emergency room, cath lab, L&D, or whatever service you'd like to grow (or that you have a public perception problem with). This will be tricky, especially because you'll need to keep your video under 3 minutes and you'll probably have to blur a lot of patient faces. Also read our 5 tips for using video in healthcare marketing.
• Illustrate some of the things you do different from other hospitals. If you have a concierge service, do a quick video showing how it works. If you meet surgical patients at the door when they arrive, show that.

However you decide to do it, using the patient experience in your online marketing campaign is a great way to help people see your hospital in a new light. It is the best way to get your message to travel across social networks and to help people connect with your services and programs.

Corporate Social Media Profiles are Boring: Social Media for Multi-site Healthcare Orgs

Many multi-site health care organizations have just one Twitter handle or Facebook page controlled by corporate staff. Hospital systems and assisted living companies are especially guilty of this. They have one profile for hundreds of residential communities or dozens of hospitals. They do it to save time and resources, but ironically it is a waste of time altogether. They also do it to control their messaging, but sadly, nobody cares what they're saying.

Having just one corporate profile for all your locations defeats the purpose of being on social media. Your corporate profile is too far removed from the goings on at any individual location and the staff monitoring it have no idea how to communicate effectively with a local site's community. How can you possibly devote enough time to promote each location as it should be AND engage people effectively? It's hard enough getting people to engage with a brand -- let alone a brand that is so far removed from the entity they've actually dealt with in real life.

Some healthcare organizations rationalize this by saying they have limited resources and they want to control their marketing message. It is no coincidence that these same corporate organizations simply use their social media profiles to spout off promotional messages of little interest to their followers. Some of them don't even reply when people address them directly. They aren't engaging people and quite frankly, nobody cares that the organization is even on Twitter or Facebook. So I ask, "why bother?"

I argue that if these organizations can't (or won't) let each location have its own profile, the organization as a whole is better off just choosing one location and letting that site get a Twitter profile. You'll be able to generate much more specific, relevant and engaging content that prospective patients and residents (or their families) will actually care about.

I also argue that on social media you should not have control of a marketing message. You should be there to listen to what people are saying about your brand and talk to them. You should be engaging in dialogue. Then you should be sharing content that is highly relevant to a local community. For example, if we're talking about a large chain of assisted living facilities, you should be talking about what residents are doing at an individual community, posting photos of outings and talking to residents' families. You should not be issuing press releases and talking about corporate-wide initiatives.

Don't believe me? Think of a large multi-hospital organization. Or an assisted living company with communities scattered across the country. Find the company's Twitter or Facebook profile. What do they talk about? Is it interesting? Engaging? Or does it just make you want to log off and take a nap?

Is it possible to have a successful social media campaign with just one corporate profile? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Focus on the Patient Experience in Healthcare Marketing: Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital

In healthcare marketing, there is a shift to focusing on the patient experience. Hospitals all over the country are trying to "wow" patients to win admissions. While more and more are trying, I doubt any hospital does it quite like Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital in West Bloomfield, MI.

Last night at an event held in the lush atrium of the 2-year-old hospital I had the opportunity to tour the facility and hear its CEO Gerard Van Grinsven speak about what they're doing to change the patient experience and compete on a whole new level.

It was remarkable. And not just the revolutionary hospital design and beautiful decor, but also the culture, the attitude and the entire experience.

It started as soon as I turned into the drive. Much like Apple, Inc. you can tell the whole campus was designed for ease of use as well as aesthetics. Many hospital campuses are a little too complex, frustrating or suffer from poor signage. But not here. Here it seemed like I just floated into a parking space.

Then I walked through the door. If I didn't know better, I would have thought I just entered some sort of mall...actually more like an upscale hotel in Las Vegas with has shops and dining. A far departure from your typical sterile, uninviting hospital.

Then I was escorted to my destination by a friendly gentleman who took some time to get to know me as we walked. He wasn't like all the other greeters at other hospitals; he took an interest and made genuine conversation. Even the lady cleaning the restroom was engaging and friendly.

Later at the event I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Van Grinsven, who was recruited from the luxury-brand Ritz-Carleton hotel to open the hospital and create a new patient experience. They chose wisely. In our brief conversation, I could tell that he gets it. He understands that its all about the patient and his passion for changing the experience shows. As we talked I started to understand what the difference was. He explained that they have created a culture by empowering employees to make a difference. You can't just tell someone to smile, make eye contact and greet a visitor. If the culture isn't right, and employees aren't happy, it will come off as insincere. I've seen that happen so many times. The people at Henry Ford West Bloomfield aren't just putting on a happy face, they are sincere.

As he addressed the crowd of mostly leaders from competing hospitals, he went on to explain his philosophy: Create a new level on which to compete. Hospitals can't keep competing on the same old things because its just driving up cost and reducing value for the patient.

So what they've done was design a facility that makes you feel at home. They've designed buildings and processes that reduce anxiety (e.g. staff meet surgical patients at the door and keep families in constant communication during the procedure). They serve fresh and organic foods. They have no deep fryers and no freezers. People actually go there to eat even when they don't have to. And get this -- they'll even be hosting a wedding soon. That has to be a first.

One might think, "how can they afford to do all this?" They're exceeding their financial targets and have even opened up new revenue streams. They have a culinary learning institute, healthy cooking classes for the community, shops, a spa and don't forget, a wedding venue. Length of stay is even half a day lower because, as Mr. Van Grinsven believes, their patients heal faster because they've created a more healing environment.

In my follow up post I explain how this competitive shift creates a robust healthcare marketing opportunity -- and how Henry Ford (or your organization) should take advantage of it. Read it here.

For more information about Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital visit its website.