Getting Online Reviews for Veterinary Practices

“How can I get more reviews from my clients?” Below are several strategies you can employ to get more client reviews and improve the social media engagement of your veterinary practice.

Engage, Educate, Enhance!

When promoting online review sites for your veterinary practice, the first thing you need to do is ENGAGE your client when they are in your office. After providing care for a pet, draw on that positive impression to encourage the pet owner to take action. Engage with all your clients as they come into your practice and let them know their feedback is important. Your front desk staff can easily incorporate this into a pet owner’s checkout process:

“Hey, Ms. Smith, thank you so much for your business. We hope you and your pet had a great visit today. We’d love for you to leave feedback on one of our online review sites.”

Once you let your clients know about your profiles on sites like Yelp and Google+, they may need some EDUCATION on using the sites. Be sure that you or your staff is familiar with the sites so you can answer any questions a pet owner may have about the sites.

Sites like Yelp filter out (hide) reviews left by brand new users, so it is best to ask clients to leave reviews from sites they are already using. For instance, if they use Google+ regularly to leave reviews, ask them to review your practice on Google+. For example:

“We have profiles on several different review sites. Do you ever use Yelp or Google+ to leave reviews?”

If you have a pet owner that really champions your practice, ask them to review your practice on several sites.

Another tip for getting more reviews is to use visual cues and reminders. ENHANCE your website with icons linking to your review profiles. The example here shows a creative way to ask for reviews on a veterinary website. Additionally, you can use iCard to ask clients to write online reviews. Lastly, include links to your review sites on your business cards, appointment reminders, and customer surveys.

This strategy of building reviews over time increases the likelihood of getting reviews accepted. Don’t try to get every single client to review you at one time, since this looks like an unnatural pattern. Rather, create a gradual presence by asking pet owners to review your practice as they bring their pets in for treatment. Do not set up a computer in your reception area for capturing online reviews. Yelp and Google+ can tell if the reviews are all being submitted from one location and they will filter out all of these reviews.

Are you interested in learning more tips about generating online reviews for veterinarians? Call 1-800-IMATRIX today for your free one-on-one consultation with our knowledgeable Internet Consultants.