Pete Blackshaw wrote a book entitled Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000. In it he talks about running a business in today’s consumer-driven, Internet world.  It is full of examples of how dissatisfied clients have impacted a business using the Internet. 

Here’s a fun one where a budding musician wrote a song entitled “United Breaks Guitars”, posted it on YouTube and has gotten over 12 million views.  It was great for his musical career but not so positive for the airline.

What do you do if you become aware that a patient or a patient’s family member has used one of these sites to vent their frustration with your practice? 

These online review sites generally provide the ability for your practice to respond to the review or you can consider what a dental colleague did, he filed a defamation lawsuit against his reviewer.

This suit wound through the courts and was eventually dismissed.  The judge declared the critical comments on the review site, Yelp.com, to be free speech and not defamatory.  The legal process brought the practice much more attention than the bad review would have ever garnered and I can’t imagine this attention to be of a positive nature.  

If you feel compelled to respond to a negative review, be polite and vigilant about the privacy rules that you are subject to under HIPAA.  Feel free to dispute misstated facts but if the negative comments are the reviewer’s opinion, it might be best to express regret for the patient’s perceived problem.

Services exist that monitor professional reputations.  They have risen in importance to warrant their own three-letter-acronym (ORM – Online Reputation Management).  Google also offers some help to manage this yourself.  Look here.  

To overreact or to respond in kind to a negative review would be a wrong click.