How to Handle a Negative Online Review

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 to this week's episode of podiatry marketing. With me today is my cohost, big Jim McDannald, all the way over in Canada. I'm all the way here in Australia, and across the airwaves, we are sharing this podcast. So Jim, how are you doing today?

Feeling fantastic, Tyson. I'm excited to have this opportunity to chat with you, hear about how hot it is and how exciting things are in Australia. You know, I guess I'm getting into springtime now, so it's not so bad here. But, yeah, I always hear I always love hearing about the nine degree 90 degree days Fahrenheit with you at the beach. You know, it makes me a little bit yeah.

I definitely need to get down to a beach one of these days.

So Yeah. Well, now it's May, so it's we only have two two types of weather in Cairns, hot and hotter. During summer, it's hotter. But during no. As we head into winter now, May heading into June, the temperature really starts to drop off, so it's probably around 80 during the day Fahrenheit for Fahrenheit people.

And but it's just gorgeous days, sun shining. You sort of you pray for a bit of rain just to try and green things up a little bit, but, yeah, it's just the best time. If anyone's ever visiting the tropics in North Queensland, probably from, I would say, April through to September is the best time of the year. If you

do it from November

to March. What were you thinking?

No. I'm thinking that I'll have to come visit one of these times and get away from Canada in the winter and spring So

It'll kill you. If you came up here during your winter, it'll just it'll kill you. Yeah. Come during your summer. So what are we talking about today, Jim?

What are we on about?

Yeah. So we're gonna talk today about how to handle a negative review. I think it's one of those topics that it's not fun. No. I I think every clinic has them.

So, you know, having a way to kinda understand, you know, what what is that, you know, how do you deal with it when that kinda like that bomb goes off or, you know, I think patients, you know, podiatrists are really great about handling wounds and all kinds of health related problems. I know that even when I was in, you know, practice, you would occasionally get a a negative review and it felt like almost like a personal attack. Mhmm. But it's not the end of the world really. And there's kind of some steps that people can utilize to really kind of like take account of, you know, what happened and make sure that there's kind of a a good result at the very end of what feels like a really, you know, negative experience or, you know, a bad review.

So what should someone do? Like, so right from the start, like, I know when I had my podiatry clinic, the occasional not positive review would come through on something, and it did. It all of sudden, it was just like someone's driven a knife right in your chest. It was sort of like, you you go from being thick skinned to thin skinned really fast when there's a a negative review. I had one I had a negative review on my book once.

Oh, really?

Obviously, the person can't read it. Oh, hang on. I'll give him a shout out to Emil. That's all he put on there. E m I l.

I just call him Emil the tosser. One star review.

There you go. Yeah. But the thing is like, you remember this guy's name. Right? And, you know, you you how many of the positive ones do you remember?

So we sometimes as we sometimes focus on the negative a little bit. But I think the first step really is, you know, number one, take a deep breath. Right? Like this is not the end of the world. It's not fun, but number one, you need to see whether or not this is actual an actual patient in your practice or not.

Yeah.

Fake reviews are pretty unlikely to have happened, but it it can happen. So first of all, just check and see what they put their name is on Google reviews or wherever it was at and cross reference that to make sure it's actual patient in your practice. You know, if it is someone that is in your practice, you definitely it's not necessarily the negative view that's gonna cause the biggest issue. It's the way you respond to it. So True.

It's normal to feel defensive or emotional when we receive these types of reviews. But like I said, take a deep breath, realize that, you know, this is not the end of the world. Check and see if it's a patient of yours. If it is, you know, that kind of fight that urge to kind of give that emotional knee jerk reaction to write, you know, something that's either number one, like, you know, really defensive and comes off as confrontational online. Or number two, you you kind of take the bait and you, you know, reveal at least in The US, hit HIPAA compliance laws.

Right? So if someone says, you know, like, doc know, doctor Mcdonald botched my surgery or, you know, doctor Anderson did this thing to me. And then you kind of like, you know, share some information about their procedure or how they were non compliant or something like in the review in that response to the review, like that's a definite no no. So you gotta avoid kind of being at that emotional level and you gotta like cool off a little bit before you kinda come up with a plan about how to address it.

Yeah. I think it's really important because sometimes you can just have a knee jerk reaction. And like I said, I had them in the podiatry clinic, had it with the book. I've probably the podcast has probably been some people that may not give you a five star review. And initially, depending on what they wrote, sometimes it can just get under your skin.

But when you just stop, take a deep breath and you think about it, okay, where where is this actually coming from? And and like I said, and then you've gotta handle it responsibly. Don't don't handle it like sometimes because I I think sometimes you gotta think, what frame of mind were they in when they wrote that review? Because if they were they were having a bad day and, you know, someone's run over their dog and their wife has left them and their car got stolen, and next thing, they come and see you as a podiatrist. And they were already in a bad mental state, and anything could probably set them off.

No. For sure. I think, like you said, it's you don't know what's going on in that person's life. They're with you maybe for half an hour, you know, forty five minutes in your clinic. So, you know, it's tough to decide, you know, figure out exactly where they're coming from.

But I think it is an opportunity to to receive some feedback. You know, if you're getting more than a couple of these every so often, it is a sign that maybe there are something in your operations or something within your clinic. So, you know, when you when you dupe that out there, it is important to know that that that that is a possibility. And and I'm not saying that, you know, it's okay to feel a little upset about it for a period of time. Right?

You know, we're humans. That's normal. You know, like, it is something where we train for this, you know, we try to provide the best care we can. But at the same time, it feels like being attacked in a way. And so it is one of those things where you'd have to kind of like, just kind of cool off a little bit.

And then, you know, what is the next step after that to make sure that you're responding in a way that's, you know, thoughtful and honest, but the same time is respectful of, you know because it's not really you may not never kind of like convince that patient that you were in the right or that, you know you know, whatever the situation is. But what's gonna happen is someone's gonna Google your name. Yeah. They're gonna find these Google reviews or these other reviews and they're gonna see how you respond to this patient, you know. And that's kind of like, we'll kind of get into some of these next steps about the proper way to respond.

But know that you're writing that response, hopefully a little bit for that for that patient, but it's also for those other people searching for foot and ankle care services in your local area.

Yeah. And the one thing you should probably not do is not not respond.

No. That's a %. You you have to respond to those things. You know, it's like a it's just hanging out there in the air and people think you don't care. Right?

And a non response is almost, it's probably not as bad as a bad response, but

Yeah.

Like you said, like if you don't respond, it's just a a clear sign that you're kind of hoping it goes away, ignoring the problem. Yeah. You have to respond to these in a, you know, very specific manner to make sure that those people that search and find you, see that you are someone that does care about what this feedback, whether it's true, you know, or false or whatever, it has to be addressed. And one thing that sometimes you get asked by client some of the clients I work with is like, okay, you know, like I said, I want this this this negative view gone. Like, either like, it's a it's like a a fault that it's a they think it's a false one or they just don't want it to be there anymore.

Know that that's not possible. Like, it just I mean, unless it's like extremely, like, off the reservation crazy, like, Google is not gonna delete a review there at all. So it's really, really important to know that. And also know that sometimes different types of review software that maybe people will utilize you're you're working with the marketing provider that, you know, utilizes something that'll only let people that, you know, rate five stars, like, leave a Google review. Like, that's that's not a great thing either because Google it's actually like, you Google doesn't allow that.

And if someone's really upset, they're gonna get around your little, form that you sent them or something and get to Google or to whatever review site. So just know that as well that these software that try to, like, get rid of the one stars or two stars generally don't work.

Yeah. And like you said, asking Google to remove it usually doesn't work. And we had a patient once who wrote a negative review, but you could tell that and they weren't actually they they weren't a patient. They were going to be a patient but didn't become a patient, wrote a negative review, but then so did three members of their family. All the same yeah.

All within an hour of each other, all written this negative review. So we we just politely wrote to them and just said, yeah. Will you please remove the reviews? It's not accurate. Otherwise, you will hear from our lawyer, and and I like money.

And I will take as much of it from you as I can get. And within twenty four hours, they're all gone. They took them all down. So sometimes it is just reaching out to the patient and or reaching out to that person if you have their details, especially if, you know, it's not true.

That is one option. And I think that gets into our next point. The next step in the process is really trying to figure out a way to settle this offline. Yeah. If you just kinda go back and forth online within, reply to you and then they reply to your reply, it just becomes like what, you know, what Internet parlance we call a flame war.

Nobody's gonna win from that.

So And have you seen them? I've seen them in podiatry. I've seen them outside of podiatry and other businesses where it has now become an argument. And you can see it just escalating to the point of it's gonna end in a knife fight. It's just it's just not looking good, and you're thinking, which one of you is going to just stop?

It's like they they wanna get the last word in. They just need to get the last word in. And the business owner, I don't think, realizes the world is reading that, and they would have been better just to have gone, thank you for your comments and said nothing.

No. For no. For sure. You have to kinda be the adult in the room there. Right?

You have to kinda disassociate yourself from the emotion or trying to figure out, like, who is right in that moment. You know. So definitely something that you have to kind of be aware of. And, you know, like, maybe you this person wrote their review and you've already tried to reach out to them. You've already tried.

So I know that's that will sometimes happen. Sometimes that ability to kinda try to sell it offline feels like that bridges, you know, that that ship has already sailed. But at the same time, if there is an opening there, you know, having kind of a one on one conversation, either the doctor and the patient or the practice manager and the patient to try to understand the situation better. Cause if you're, you know, when you're leaving reviews, you wanna make sure that you're not just, you know, writing that for the, you know, for future patients. Definitely need needs to be it needs to be genuine and authentic.

Right? I'm not saying right. Something fake where it's like, oh, yeah, like we we try to settle this in a way that was, you know, that'll kind of read kind of in a it'll be kind of a snarky thing. You don't wanna do that. But if you can really try to generally settle it offline, that's really the next best step.

Have you ever left a one star review?

I think we had a plumber one time that just like did like, everything worked worse after they left Yeah. Or I think they missed like two they missed two appointments and then everything was like like, we had some water issues after they left. And, you know, I don't think I think it may have left a like a two or three star, but like kind of explain the situation. Because I don't think it really you you see those like one star no comments? Yeah.

That that's pretty much the worst. I mean, I guess, the only thing worse than that is like one one star in a lie. But just even when I wrote that comment, having knowing that I work with podiatrists, I wouldn't explain just the situation and why I was giving like a two or three star. I don't think I'd give one star though. Have have you given one star?

Yeah. I have. I can't remember what it was for. I think it was one was a restaurant because I just thought I don't want you to kill anybody else. And because I want to save people from eating there.

And the other one oh, yeah. Yeah. One was one was I might mention the name here, but one was like a noodle business. And it was just it was awful. It was an awful experience, and I think my daughter is still scarred from it.

Not from me, from them. And one was a accommodation place that we stayed at. That was just from start to finish, it was just outright horrible. And even when I gave them the one star, I then got a list of things I reckon they should do to actually improve things. So I was trying to actually be the the one part of it, the location was awesome.

There you go.

But but it is I reckon when when I've read one star review, especially, like, whether it's a restaurant or, like, say, podiatry, and I see a one or a two or even a three story, and the person hasn't commented, I always go, do you not care about your business? Do you not look at these things? To me, that's an indication you're out of touch with what with what's actually happening today.

Yeah. I think you definitely have to leave a review leave a response to those reviews. Otherwise, yeah. It just it speaks volumes with with nothing being there.

So what's what after that? After they've what's the next step? What should they do?

Yes. Let's say, like, you try to, like, ask them to either delete it. You shouldn't do that right away when you when you try to, like, you know, settle it with them offline. But if if they're unwilling to delete it or it doesn't seem like they're gonna be reasonable with you, the next step is really to respond in a kind of a non emotional HIPAA compliant manner. Right?

So that's kinda saying something like, you know, you know, you shouldn't apologize. Like, that's kind of the or admit kind of like guilt of any sort. But it's saying something like, you know, at Tyson Franklin Podiatry Associates, we take the feedback from our patients very seriously. You know, I will have my my assistant Rhonda will reach out to you within the next twenty four hours to see if there's a way that we can, you know, under understand your situation and and and make a make amends. That's probably not the best phrasing, but something similar to that nature where it shows that you're taking it seriously.

You're looking you're basically trying to kinda find a way to resolve the situation with them. But that's that's kind of, you know, if it's if if it needs to get to that point. Right? Like, you know, we'd already tried, but just kind of giving a good review like that as a way to kind of signal and show people that you are making a a solid effort to kind of find common ground with people that provided this level of feedback. And one thing that I'll add to end of that is that we do focus on these negative things.

You know, these negative views can kind of overwhelm us or get us emotional, but everybody has them, you know, like and if you if if you have a clinic that has zero, like one stars or even two stars and they're like five point o

That's a bit dodgy looking, isn't it?

Yeah. Well, if you have five point o here, I'm not here to throw shade on you and say that you're like, you're running this, you know, you know, a shady operation. Operation. But, you know, somewhere between 4.7 and 4.9 looks more genuine or more authentic Yeah. And seems more realistic for people to shoot for.

I mean, if you're under 4.5, maybe there's some work you need to do in your clinic. If that's, you know, if you have over a hundred reviews and they're below 4.5. But it is one of those things where these positive ones are really gonna drown out the occasional negative one. So, you know, if you can, you know, if you're using different type of software, if you have patients, you know, that haven't provided a review that had a great experiences with you, there's ways of pushing that down. At least in Google reviews, they don't show the most recent review.

They usually show the most relevant review that that that pops up there. So as long as you're, you know, making that effort, like I said, responding in a HIPAA compliant, non emotional way that shows that you are trying to make an effort with this patient or the person leaving the review, most patients will understand that. And if you have a lot more positives than negatives, that's really what it's all about. So don't don't focus on this one. You definitely need to address it.

You don't wanna ignore it. But at the same time, it's not the end of world if you get a negative review.

Yeah. No. No. I totally agree. It's and I have read that where if if you've got a thousand reviews and it's five point zero, people go, I have a, yeah, a thousand reviews, and I haven't had one person that's even just been slightly unhappy with with something.

I know when we had when I had my podiatrist clinic, I think it was we sit around 4.7, four point eight because there was always that one four star one or a one star one where someone had the shit to be at something. And but my old clinic now, I think it's at now that I don't own it, 3.5. Could be problems. And when you read the reviews, a lot of the times the reviews are saying similar sort of things, but they're not being addressed either. Nobody is commenting on those reviews.

I think it's important to to address every review even if you don't agree with it. And sometimes too, I think even if someone gives you a one star, when you read through it there were I remember there's one particular one star review, and when you read through it, my comment was just it was something along the lines of, yeah, your your complaint I when I read through your complaint, I I totally understand because it made no sense. I'm just saying, I didn't didn't even know where to start. I just went, anyone who reads it is gonna realize you are a nutter, and just think, my god. Thank god.

That person isn't a patient. So it's yeah. It's funny.

Well, sometimes these these things could pop up just due to, like, you know, organizational issues. Right? Sometimes they caught you at a bad time. You know, I think one of my one of my clients was in the process of, you know, they were they were training like a new front desk gal, and she just, you know, they that some for some reason, there's like a kind of a series of events that happened that led to kind of like a really negative situation where, you know, the person's appointment was either canceled or they, you know, they were something happened in a negative way. So there are definitely ways that it this negative review can be resolved, you know, and the patient can be made to feel better.

But like you said, sometimes there's people that just either aren't reasonable or just are having a bad day or need some way to kind of let off some steam. And so unfortunately, sometimes this happens in your clinic reviews. But just know that you're probably gonna have more more good than bad. Oh, yeah. And if and if there is, you know, the grain of you know, if you get, let's say, you get, you know, five bad reviews in a year, and there's something like a similar kind of area that they're talking about a specific topic, like, you know, that's probably a sign that that area needs to be tweaked a little bit or improved.

And like, you know, hopefully, you know, there's other ways to gather patient feedback, you know you know, talking to your patient at the, you know, the end of the the appointment, making sure you're listening to them them during the visit. I think sometimes if you're busy in practice and you're trying to see a ton ton of patients, you know, that extra like, is there anything else I can do for you? Do you have are there any questions you have for me today? Like sometimes those types of questions at the end of an appointment from the doctor can actually diffuse a lot of negative reviews that they just wanna feel heard sometimes. So, you know, even if the person is gonna, you know, it's not gonna diffuse every negative review, but by just asking maybe one question at the end of a patient encounter, it will sometimes help the potential to diffuse some of this stuff.

Yeah. And like you said, in every negative review, there probably is an some element of truth in there even if it's in only in their mind. In their mind, if they think it's true, then it's true. And you've then got to address and make sure you handle that the right way. Yep.

We we'd had some complaints when we read through it. We just went, okay. I see where ship I see where they're coming from, but they don't understand this side of things. So a lot of times, yeah, we would just take it straight offline and try and communicate with them. And I would say, of every negative review we got and there wasn't a lot of them saying over fifteen years I had the clinic where reviews were coming through, there may have been maybe five or six negative reviews.

We were able to get five yeah. Probably ninety percent of them removed where the patients would come back in. So they may have seen somebody else in my clinic, for example. They've commented what they've commented, I've gone, oh, that's really interesting. I would reach out and say, hey.

I found your review really interesting. Would would you please come back in the clinic and see me? I wanna run through this. And when they came and saw me and we ran through, went, ah, okay. I see it.

I understand what you're talking about. They were, well, yeah. That's what I was trying to explain, but they wouldn't they wouldn't listen. And that comes back to the communication part. They would go home.

They would remove the review. I think as the business owner, you have gotta be take affirmative action on this as well.

No. I couldn't agree more. You know, just in summary, you know, don't get too emotional when they when you get that negative review. Don't clap back and try to leave, you know, you know, fight fire with fire is not gonna win the war in this one.

That's why keyboards don't have an f off button. Exactly. Because if they did, it's a lot some people would just go, oh, I can't believe you said that. F.

Yeah. It'd be a bad it'd be a battle that no one won. So the second step is really to try to, you know, find a way to settle this offline that with both, you know, yourself and the patient or the reviewer kind of, you know, feeling like, you know, they they feel good about whatever settlement if you could do that offline. Number three, leave a, you know, you have to leave. You have to respond to these.

Right? So if you're gonna respond, make sure you do it in a calm and non emotional way that really shows that you, you know, you listen to the feedback and you're trying to find a way to resolve the situation with them. You know, that's really kind of the best way to address these. And like I said, it's really about communicating with patients, you know, whether it be your staff or yourself, who really sometimes help diffuse these things. Like I said, it's not, you know, one negative reason not in the world.

So if you do get these, they can be frustrating and that's, you know, that's just the way it goes. But, you know, try to focus on the positive of those, you know, if you're at 4.7 or 4.8 and you're getting good reviews in the door, this this negative rule won't be the end of you. So Nah. That's how the best way to kind of address these things.

And also I think as a final tip, if you are somewhat a little hot headed and you have other people in your team is set a rule in your business that you are not allowed to respond to a comment unless somebody else has read your comments, your response first. That was a rule that was brought up in my clinic.

That that's a really good rule. And actually, I I respond to all of the the the reviews positive or negative Yeah. For the clients I work with. And usually, I'll get notified. So I have some software that sends me a message saying like, there's been a one star.

So so usually, I contact the clinic and they I'm the bearer of bad news, but then I also usually am the one that's composing or writing up like a non emotional response. They can, you give me feedback about how they feel about it. Do I need to change this here? Really kind of help guide them. So know that someone on your staff or someone outside of your practice to kind of review it.

I think that's a good point, Tyson. You really need to make sure that that that that kind of, like, stop gap or that safety net is a is a huge help to make sure that you don't get a, you know, fight fire with fire.

Well, especially if you're a business owner who is is emotional and loves your business and you care about it. And I know I've mentioned this, you know, where your your business is sort of like your your child. And if somebody said something negative towards your child or slap your child, you would be on them so fast. And sometimes that's our initial reaction. So I think it's good to just pause, Write what you want, not online on in a Word document.

Get somebody else in your team to read it and go, is that a suitable response? If they say, yes, it is, then post a bit. Just just make that a rule in your code that if if you do the wrong thing, and this is what we said that if I do the wrong thing, I have to give a thousand dollars to a podiatrist in town I don't like. That was the rule. So I always made sure I ran everything past other people in the clinic first.

Sounds like a solid plan there.

Okay, Jim. That was a good topic. I enjoyed that one. We we done? Fun.

Yeah. We're all good.

Okay. I will talk to you next week from sunny North Queensland.

Alright, Tyson. Okay. Bye. For listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim Mcdonald. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing.

That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.