5 Key Actions for Enhancing Patient Experience & Online Reputation

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Hi. I'm Tyson Franklin, and welcome back to this week's episode of Podiatry Marketing. With me, as usual, is Jim McDannald. And how are you doing today, Jim?

My name is Jim McDaniel. I I I haven't heard you say that my last name in maybe

A hundred episodes.

Year and a half. I don't know. How long has it been?

Something like that. With me is big Jim Mac. How are doing today, Jim?

Okay. Okay. Jeez. That's a lot of pressure. So, yeah, thanks thanks, Tyson, for the the real introduction.

So how is it in your part of the world?

Life is good in Montreal. No complaints. I'm happy to jump into some, you know, another exciting podiatry marketing topic today.

Okay. What what's the topic on?

Yeah. So today we're gonna talk about kind of five key actions for enhancing patient experience and online reputation. I think, you know, a lot of the podcasts we put out, we we kind of touch on patient experience a little bit. Mhmm. You know, sometimes we we get into sometimes specifics, but not necessarily what are those actions that people can take both to improve patient experience and online reputation.

So we're going to kind of dig into how podiatrists and how people at the clinic can really prioritize that experience. It's not really about providing just excellent care, but it's also kind of positioning their practice in the digital landscape. So really going to jump into those five actionable steps that people can take today.

Five steps. We like our five steps. I think five is so much easier to manage than seven.

Yeah. Seven can be a little tricky, but we'll we'll go with five.

Okay. So what's the first step?

So step number one is to implement a comprehensive feedback system. You know, we've talked a little bit about patient surveys in the past and even online reviews a bit, but you really need to establish a system for collecting patient feedback in various touch points. Right? This can be post visit surveys. It could be feedback forms, you know, on your website or even, you know, even during your email newsletter, you know, soliciting some feedback from folks because we can sometimes be blind to what's going on in our own practice.

You know, we're we're busy seeing, you know, 30 to 40 patients a day. We don't always see what happens out front with the interactions between staff and the patients. So, you know, you need to find ways to make sure that you're providing the kind of the best patient experience possible. And the way only way to do that is really by setting up a system to solicit and kinda gather all that feedback. And there's some real benefits that can happen by doing this.

You know, regular and real time feedback is gonna allow you to address those concerns promptly. Know, instead of something, know, someone's not doing something that is pleasing to the patient. Sometimes you're gonna see it crop up in a in a one star review. And if you can kinda nip that in the bud before that happens, it can be really, really helpful to make sure that, you know, not only are you providing every patient a great experience, but you're kind of avoiding any kind of hit to your reputation because people are, you know, usually gonna talk about negative experiences online. And you wanna make sure you can try to get in front of that.

Yeah. No. That's true. And even when you just mentioned even a newsletter that you do is is don't just put it out there without asking your patients, hey. Did you receive the newsletter?

And getting live feedback from them, what did you think of it? Do you think there's anything we could change? Is there anything we could do to make it better? And even though you're always gonna get a few people unsubscribed, so don't get upset about that. But it's the people who don't who who stay subscribed, is trying to get feedback from them to actually make the newsletter better to add or or add or subtract things.

Now that's a real example, you know. Do they like the newsletter? What aspects do they like about it? Even like they're from the time that they make their appointment either on the phone or an online form, you know, what are those critical moments where you can either provide like a kind of a wow patient experience Yeah. Versus it can kind of go down a path where they're gonna be unhappy.

Right? So, you know, if you can pinpoint when those different interactions are, like we talked about in the past, like car parks, you know, the cleanliness of your office, you know, the wait time, what they thought about the onboarding process, either you kind of did it outside of the clinic, in the clinic, you know, what do they think about the weight room experience, You know, do they have to, what was the wait time once they got into the treatment room? You know, were they satisfied with the care they provided, the communication, the interaction with the doctor, interaction with staff? There's a lot of different things you can try to solicit feedback for them. And you won't know until you ask.

So setting up a system is really, really important.

Yeah. It's well, it's even got me thinking, even when I do a webinar, for example, and I know people have registered, and I know there's a certain percentage of people who don't watch the webinar, and there's a certain percentage who do, and it tells me how much of they watch. But even getting in touch with those people and asking them, what was the process like to register for the webinar? Because I used to use Zoom, and now I use Webinar Ninja. So it'd be interesting asking people, how do you find the process of registering?

Because there might be some things that I can actually improve upon, but if I don't ask for feedback, I'm never gonna know.

No. Exactly. You know, over time, if you wanna, like, be continuously improving your your your practice and the patient experience and kind of improving the quality of care as well, you know, you really have to put it in those systems and you have to ask those questions. And it's it's it's really, really important component of of of having a better patient experience.

And sometimes we can just assume that every change we make, the patients love.

Right.

And that's not always the case.

Well, it's kinda like when I and I'm working with a a podiatry clinic, right, and they see a website from their perspective. Right? They see, oh, it's my resume. It's my online calling card. I it's it's all about me on, you know, I don't think podiatrists say that, but like, you look at it through your own lens.

Yeah.

But when you step into the the shoes of the patient, whether it be in the surveys or getting this feedback from them or the website itself, you have to think about, you know, go to a different go to a dentist website. Go to a general practitioner's website and see what that flow is like and how you feel during. Is it frustrating? Is it you know, are you getting the information that you're looking for? You know, if you have you know, really wanna make sure that the the services you provide are front and center, but it's really from that patient point of view.

And the same thing goes with feedback. You wanna make sure that you're getting you're giving yourself an opportunity to see you know, by them sharing the feedback with you, it makes you more empathetic and you can really kinda understand what they're going through in a way that if you think that every change you make or your current system is perfect, then you're gonna have your head in the sand. You're really not gonna have that. You're kinda missing a huge opportunity to be a better practice.

Yeah. And and it's funny that we probably have all seen changes made with other companies and other businesses that annoy the hell out of us. And they never ask us, did we like the change or not? So it makes sense. Like, even I don't know if you have a I have an Apple TV that I have at home.

And the old remote control was cool. Loved it. The new remote control, I couldn't stand it initially. Now I know. I'm better with it now.

But initially, that change, it was an awful change. But but it wasn't just me. My daughter who was a lot younger, so it wasn't an age thing. She went, this remote control is awful. I still prefer the old one.

So it makes you realize any change you're making in business is ask your patience. Give us some feedback, like whether it's website, whether you've moved something around, you've changed the design or something. Get the feedback to know that you're you're moving in the right direction, you're doing the right thing. Absolutely. What is number two?

So number two is optimizing your online listings and monitoring your reviews. I think, you know, I've I've had this happen with with multiple clients in the past as they, you know, they have their the kind of name, their clinic, the address and the phone number, and if you've moved locations, if you bought a practice from somebody else or the practices change names, this information can be really disorganized and really confusing all over the internet unless you're willing to kind of you yourself as the clinic owner or working with someone to go to make sure that all of this information as is clear and coherent across you know every website where a patient might show up. Because you'll be surprised you know if if Yelp has one address or Google business profile has another one, and they type in Google and then they decide to go check that address out and it's not an up to date address, you can have a patient show up on the other side of town at a competitor or another clinic's office, and they probably welcome them in with open arms.

Oh, fair to bad that happening.

You really have to be careful about these online listings. So you really need to make sure that this the information that your name, your address, your phone number, even your website is, you know, clear and very accurate across different places on online.

Yeah. It's that's really good because my wife is currently doing some part time work for for an occupational therapist. And all of a sudden, a patient didn't turn up. And then he rang up and said, where are you? And my wife told him where they were.

And now I'll point out, he didn't make the appointment the day my wife was working, so this is not on her. But they had moved four years previously. So they're in their new location where they are four years ago. But this patient, they mustn't they didn't change all of their listings. There were some of their old listings still had the old address there.

So the guy's gone to the old address. But also at the same time, I think if someone's rung the clinic and they made an appointment, he's always asking, do you know where we are? And then making them say where you are. If they say, oh, yeah. I know exactly where you are, but you moved twelve months ago, they might be thinking about the old address, not the new address.

Yeah. It's hugely important to confirm that that location to make sure they don't show up somewhere else. It's also really important for your online reputation that you're monitoring Google Business Profile, Google reviews, Yelp reviews, any kind of health care specific review platforms. You really need to have your eyes on those platforms. And there's there's different software programs you can use.

It's not like you have to push refresh and check them on a daily basis. There are different softwares you can use that will send you when these reviews show up. But it's really, really important. Obviously, when you get a positive review, you wanna make sure you thank that patient in a HIPAA compliant fashion. But I also wanna be aware of the one stars when they come up.

Mhmm. And, you know, wondering, you know, you have to have a plan and a system to approach you know, how are you gonna approach those? How are you gonna respond to those in a HIPAA compliant way? How is there ways to, you know, get in communication with the patient that's left those to understand what the complaint is, give it a deeper level to try to negotiate with them, you know, not not not kinda in the eyes of the public or online. But those things are really, really important.

You don't want to just, like, let those things simmer out there. You really have to be take an active approach to online review platforms.

Yeah. Was someone I was talking to recently, they only had two reviews. One was five star, which they replied to, and one was one star. And so therefore, their review overall was 2.5. And I said, that doesn't look good.

I said, you should have responded. Said, no. I don't respond to idiots. I've gone. Like, okay.

Fair enough. Don't respond to idiots. If that's if you don't wanna respond to idiots, I said, you need to go out there and really push to get more positive Google reviews. I I think because if somebody sees 25 stars and one one star, no one's gonna pay any attention to that. They'll know.

And you could read through the review. You could just tell if everybody else is saying one thing about you, one person saying the opposite, then you know that person had a bad day or it was just a a one off thing. So, yeah, I think you need to pay attention. You need to

pay attention. You you have to pay attention, and you also have to engage. Right? So when you engage with reviews, it really demonstrates that you, you know, you value patients' feedback. You know, you're kind of fostering a level of trust.

You're not just they're not just like shouting into the void. They're like, you know, raising their online fist. They're all pissed off. Right? Like Yeah.

Puts a chance a chance for that it's gonna be transparent about things. You're not gonna share things you shouldn't share on those on those negative review replies. But at the same time, you know, pause reviews and high ratings are a signal to Google to that you should be rated higher. And like you talked about, when someone sees, you know, two two reviews, two and a half stars, and then they see 200 reviews, 4.7 or 4.8, there's an instinctual feeling we wish we know which direction they're gonna head towards. Right?

So Definitely.

You know, and you have to do that on a consistent basis. You have to engage. You have to be active. Either you or someone you're working with needs to really mind the store in that way.

Yeah. And depends how many competitors are in your area and what they're looking for. But I know if I was so if I'd gone to a town for a holiday and we were looking at restaurants, there's a big list of restaurants in the city, and you're scrolling down, anything that is under four, I'm not even looking at I'm not even opening it to see what is there. I'm starting with everything that's gonna be, like, four and above. So there could be a restaurant that's absolutely fantastic, but they've never really pushed for reviews.

They've got a couple of bad ones which has pulled them down to 3.8, and they haven't responded. My wife straight away is just like, especially accommodation. If there's accommodation that's under four, she's gonna we're not staying there. Especially with the bad reviews and the the establishment has not replied. Yeah.

Because it shows they don't care.

Exactly. They're out. They're checked out. They don't they're just gonna you're just gonna shout at the void there.

Yep. Okay. Number three.

Number three is kinda personalizing your your patient communications. You you wanna utilize patient data when, you know, if you have a HIPAA compliant system that you can utilize that. And it kind of personalize, you know, the type of information you're sending out, whether it's like recalls for orthotics or recare for diabetic foot checks. If you can really tailor those communications to very specific types of patients or diagnoses in a HIPAA compliant fashion, you know, it's it's a great way to connect with people and they're gonna be feel much more valued and understood like you're actually talking to them. I think there's still room for, you know, there's different levels and different kind of degrees of personalization.

You know, people like to get appointment reminders. That that's a personal way to help them not be late or help them not forget. It shows that you do care and that you wanna see them in the clinic. Also after they've gone, you know, to the clinic, know, follow-up messages, you know, can be really really helpful to kind of, you know, whether it be asking for review, but also just checking in on them, you know, whether it be you your staff making sure that they're doing well. And also some educational content related to specific topics or different types of care that your clinic provides can really, know, make it more personal.

Sometimes you're sharing things, we've talked about this in the past too, doesn't always have to be 100% medical, Showing your your human side and connecting with another person. You know, I know you like to eat burgers and do barbecue

I do.

You know, and even like you know, when you're out in the community, when you're working at events or volunteering, it shows a personal side that people will connect with. So it doesn't always have to be make appointment, make appointment. There's ways to personalize your communications, so you really connect with current and future patients.

Yeah. I always thought one of the greatest things that we that we used to do was if a patient told us that they were into, say, hamburgers, for example, and we went somewhere and we traveled somewhere and we had a really great burger, We take a photo of it, and we would email it to the patient and just say, hey. During our last conversation, you said you go to Townsville on a regular basis. We were just down there. We went to this burger place.

Have a look at this one. What do you reckon about this? Have you tried it? And this could have been four weeks after the patient had even seen us. But we would try and make mental notes of what our patient's likes and dislikes were and what they were interested in.

So if we came across something, we could maintain that contact with them, and it just had the personal touch and it just showed that we listened to not just their problem, but we actually listened to them as a person, and we remembered the the conversation.

Yeah. I think I touched pretty heavily on kind of more the digital side of things, but when you're in that treatment room with the patient, you know really showing empathy and you know really kind of the way you're kind of personalize your communication with them right. Everyone has their own kind of communication styles right. So kind of meeting them on their level even during the patient encounter shows that you're really willing to build that strong patient practitioner relationship. It's really, and it's gonna retain patients better, patients are gonna be more satisfied when they feel that you care for them, more on a personal level as a patient, they're more likely to become advocates and be more loyal to your practice.

So you know really sharing positive experiences with your patients both online and offline is really a great way to keep the care personal. Right? Because these people are dealing with injuries or the wound or the the thing even when they walk out of your clinic, but they feel like you listened to them and didn't treat them as a diagnosis. You're gonna build that loyal patient following.

Yeah. No. I totally agree. It's we even when we used to do our recall letters well, one of the things we try to do whenever you're having an appointment with a patient is even in your clinic notes, part of the conversation, if they mentioned anything about their life, is to try and keep note of that. And then if we were doing a recall letter, you know, the recall would be, hey, dear Jim.

You know, time to come in for your orthotic recall. And down the bottom, end handwriting, PS. By the way, Jim, did your son get in the Australian soccer team, or did your son make it into this representative team that they were going for? And that, to me, that lets the patient know that, wow, that was a conversation we had a year ago. They may know that you've even written it in your notes.

It might be pretty obvious. But to take the time of handwriting that little comment in there with a question mark, which means they're more than likely to wanna come in because they wanna answer that question. It's like an open loop.

For sure.

Okay what's the number four?

Number four is improving patient experience through leveraging technology for for patient convenience. So you know when you can not every technology solution is gonna work like gangbusters. Some of that I know that some of the you know, for exactly the the early chatbots and some of the the ways of trying to schedule through chatbots wasn't great. But there's a lot of great new kind of online convenient technologies that are really helping people save time, whether it be appointment booking. Like we talked about previously, sometimes you can onboard by filling out an online form at home before you even show up at the clinic.

So when you show up at the clinic, don't have to spend ten, fifteen minutes filling out paperwork on a on a clipboard, and then they have to go back and scan it and those things. It can not only help the patient but really improve operations in your clinic so your staff has more time to really care about the patient experience. Sometimes I've heard positive and negatives about patient portals, some people like them, some people don't, but when you have a website and online services that are user friendly and kind of optimized for mobile, it's going be really, really helpful for patient convenience, especially as the population becomes more tech savvy. Obviously, if you're working with people maybe 70 and over, it's not such a big deal. But, you know, if you're if you're wanting to kind of, you know, age with the the young Gen Zs, Gen Zers, and some of the millennials, you'll wanna stay on top of these things so you stay relevant and you're convenient for the different ways that people want to have interact with their practice and interact with their clinic.

Convenience is just such a big thing, and especially with younger people now because they just they want everything to just flow. Anything that that seems clunky to them seems outdated, and they will move on pretty quickly. So if you have a a younger demographic, yeah, ideal patient, then you wanna make sure that you you are using technology to the best of your ability because they're expecting it. Yep. To give them a paper if you gave my daughter a paper form, she'd probably what do I do with this?

And now what do I do with it?

Yeah. There's there's kind of modern patient expectations. Right? You know, we talked about, you know, Amazon Prime or Netflix. People expect things and have a overall experience that's a lot different than it was in the past.

So, you know, this is not only gonna boost patient satisfaction, but it's also gonna position your practice as forward thinking and more patient patient centric. So you wanna make sure that you distinguish yourself from competitors in the local market. And by doing you know, by being making things more convenient for patients, they're gonna be very happy.

Yeah. Even we had a recent local election. My daughter, first time she got to vote, So we took her down. We did the whole went through the whole process. We're sitting in the car driving back.

She goes, why? I said, why? What? She said, why did we have to go leave our house to go somewhere to get a slip of paper to tick some boxes or put some numbers in there, and then have to go and put it in this box, which is then gonna go somewhere else. So then some people unfold these pieces of paper, and they all sit there and they count them, and then there's all these other people standing around watching that they're counting them properly.

She's, why isn't this all just done online? She has a big question. Why don't I just have a a password that I put in that's attached to my me? I'm the only one that has it. I put my vote in.

A computer calculates everything. I can't be used twice. And she's only 19. First time voting, she's already asking these questions. So that goes back to the whole convenience.

The whole voting process was inconvenient. So what are we doing in our practice, which people are questioning why are you doing it that way?

Totally. I think it's a it's a huge, you know, world changing. Right? Whether it's, you know, through everything is through our phone now these days, it seems like. So I can only imagine the future that there'll be some way that we vote a little bit more in a convenient fashion.

But you know what I told my daughter? I said, it's the fun of doing it. I love election day. I love going down. I love people trying to slip pieces of paper in in my face and and people yelling at each other every now and then.

I said, it's that's the fun of voting. For sure. Okay. What's the fifth and final tip?

Yeah. Last but not least is, you know, respond actively and empathetically. You know, really to provide a great patient experience. You really wanna develop a strategy. How you respond to not only to reviews, but to online comments, you know, to to comments that people bring into your your practice.

Always think about being empathetic and really comply with patient privacy laws whenever possible. Right? You know, like I talked about previously that you don't want to if someone's negative towards you, you have to absorb that and try to put it you know, put it out there. The situation in and out the way that that just shows you care and that you're empathetic to what's going on in the situation. You know if you can handle some of those things privately fantastic but you know it really can be beneficial when you're you know whenever you're communicating both online and offline you really want to have a response strategy that shows that you take patient concerns seriously and you're committed to resolving issues.

And that's really what's most important when you're if you're if you're not responsive, people are gonna think you don't care. So if you can amplify the positive effects of the favorable reviews or the favorable, you know, feedback that you get, it's gonna enhance your online reputation and really build and grow patient trust in you and your practice.

No. I couldn't agree more, especially the the empathy side of things. Because no matter no matter what a patient does, no matter what they say, sometimes you've gotta try and put yourself in their shoes. And I don't think anyone wakes up in the morning and says, you know what? I'm just gonna destroy my podiatrist this morning.

It's just something about them, and it's gonna get online and destroy them. So there's always something underlying, and I think we've gotta gotta be aware of that.

No. A %. Like, you know, some people are having a bad day or something's going on in their life that you have no control over. But you can during that fifteen, thirty, forty five minute visit, however long been in your practice, if you show that you care, you're empathetic, you're trying to do the best by them, you know, it can and it's not only sometimes what you say, it's how you say it and how you treat them. Oh, yeah.

You know, and it kind of it's not only sometimes your body language or if you make them feel like a priority, it's gonna, you know, someone's kind of dominating your time that's a little bit different than, you know, what I'm talking about here. But when you show someone that they are important to you and you not only say it, but you show an action, it just it communicates volumes. And like I talked about, you're gonna build trust, You're gonna provide a great patient experience when you put these things into action.

Mhmm. Yeah. I like what you said then too about it's not always what you say, it's how you say it. I remind my wife about this all the time. She doesn't listen to this podcast, so I can get away with that joke.

But it's true. I've seen people argue, friends. You'll see a husband, wife, and they'll be arguing over something, and then he might walk out or she'll walk out. And and I've said to him, we go, it's not what you said. It's how you said it.

I said, you can use exactly the same words, but it's the tone, tonality of your voice. It was your body language. It's all these things that can just escalate situation. But also going back to between just the empathy side of things, though, some patients who see us are in pain, and we can't feel their pain. And sometimes pain makes us do stupid things.

Fuse can be a lot shorter when we're in pain. So I think it's it's important to be aware of it.

Yeah. Give the patient the benefit of doubt. And like you talked about, you don't we don't live their lives. You don't know what that it feels like. So obviously, can't help every single person.

And maybe there are gonna be times when we just don't get along with the patient. It's we're not the best fit for them. But at the same time, when you bring it when you walk into the treatment room and you have empathy, you're open to to listening and and letting them be heard, it's gonna have a huge impact on your practice and the way that you're developing a great patient experience.

Okay. So anything else you wanna say before we wrap up?

No. I think that's good.

I think it was a good topic. Okay. Big Jim, this has been fun once again, and I look forward to talking to you again next week.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. See you. Bye now.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McAnnold. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.