5 Smart Tips For Increasing Patient Survey & Testimonial Participation

Do you have trouble getting your patients to fill out surveys and submit testimonials or reviews? If so, you’re not alone—but here’s why it’s important to keep trying:

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Baker Labs manages digital marketing strategies for medical practices, and we’ve seen time and time again how testimonials help drive new patients to their waiting rooms. In fact, 88% of consumers report that they are influenced by online reviews and testimonials when making decisions about choosing a product or service, or a doctor or healthcare practitioner.

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The benefits of sharing reviews and testimonials online might surprise you. One of our clients, Baptist Eye Surgeons, saw their website traffic double and their Google rankings soar to the first page after implementing a testimonial generation process.

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However, many people feel shy when it comes to asking patients to provide testimonials, but collecting feedback and testimonials can become second nature with just a bit of knowledge and practice. Here are 5 steps to collect and share reviews and testimonials:

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1. Tell Them The Request Is Coming

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If your business serves customers in person, such as at a medical practice, retail shop, or realtor’s office, tell your customers that a review request will be coming their way. Educate your staff members to inform each customer before they walk out the door that they’ll be receiving a survey or testimonial request by email or text.

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You can say something like, “Thank you for coming in today. You’ll be receiving an email with a very brief survey about your experience today. We’d appreciate it if you take the survey so we can make sure we’re continuing to deliver the best customer service possible.”

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Don’t ask them to take a survey on an iPad or write their thoughts down on a notepad before they leave your office. If they’re about to leave they’ve already mentally checked out and are ready to get to their next destination. Respect their time and let them complete the survey at their convenience. It’s also beneficial to have a sign at your front desk or by the front door that reminds customers they’ll be receiving a survey or testimonial request.

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2. Keep It Short

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How many times have you opened a survey or testimonial request to see a long list of questions that rambles on without getting to the point? If you’re like most people, it only took you a split-second to say “forget that.”

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You don’t need a long intro about why you’re sending a survey or testimonial request. Get right to the questions and keep them short, just 3 or 4 questions. It’s also helpful to say something very briefly that lets the customer know up-front that the survey will be short. For example, “Please take our 3-question survey, thank you” is sufficient.

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3. Be Specific

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How you word your questions makes all the difference in the quality of feedback you’ll receive. An open-ended question like, “How was your visit today” is more likely to make the customer feel unsure than a direct question like, “On a scale of 1 to 10, would you recommend our business to your friends?”

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Give your customers a quantifiable measurement scale, like 1 to 10, or 1 to 5 stars. For example, our client, Baptist Eye Surgeons, asks their patients to answer the following three questions on a scale of 1 to 10:

• How likely is it that you would recommend Baptist Eye Surgeons to a friend or colleague?
• Did you feel that your physician listened to you and allowed you to ask questions?
• Did you feel that the staff was accommodating and answered any questions you had?

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In addition, be specific in telling your customers what you’re looking for. It’s okay to tell them how much you’d really appreciate a positive, 5-star testimonial.

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4. Send Reminders

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It’s easy to skip over or forget about an email requesting a testimonial, so it’s a good idea to send a couple reminder emails. Typically, three friendly reminder emails sent about three days apart are enough.

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You don’t want to pester your customers with more than two or three reminders, but it often does take a gentle nudge or two to remind them to leave you a testimonial.

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5. Share

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Once you receive testimonials, be sure to share them on your website and social media channels. We recommend including at least one testimonial on each page of your website, including the homepage, and having a page that’s dedicated just to testimonials.

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Share the testimonials on each of your social media channels, and ask the customer who provided the testimonial to share their testimonial on their own channels.

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While these 5 steps might seem like a lot of work to gather testimonials, the process can actually be quite effortless. According to Misty Booker, Compliance Manager for Baptist Eye Surgeons, the Testimonial Tree software makes it easy to automatically send email surveys and then post the testimonials to their website and online sites like as Google and Facebook.

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To see more about how Baptist Eye Surgeons doubled their website traffic and rose to the first page of Google rankings with Testimonial Tree, click here. (You can also download a pdf of the case study on that page.)

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The Testimonial Tree software makes it easy for medical practices like Baptist Eye Surgeons to syndicate 5-star testimonials into their website, search results, social media networks and collect online reviews on Google, Facebook, Healthgrades, WebMD, Vitals and any review site profile. To learn more, please book a demo with us.

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And if you want to optimize your website or create content to get more leads and increase your Google ranking, contact Baker Labs for a free marketing consultation.

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