5 Hilariously Wrong Ways to Respond to Negative Online Reviews

After reading countless articles about how to deal with negative online reviews, I came to the conclusion that almost all of them give out standard advice. But, very few articles describe what not to do. Here are 5 ways you should not behave when you see a negative review online.

(1) Completely ignoring the reality that negative reviews exist because you just don’t do social media.

There are plenty of great physicians and health care professionals who do not know that they have bad reviews online because they never bothered to check! People make up all sorts of silly excuses in their heads about why they don’t need to pay attention to the bad reviews, such as:

• “Well, why would I bother checking when no one believes the crazy people who write them anyway.”
• “I’m too busy to care.”
• “I don’t get social media.”​

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we live in an internet age. It’s time to jump on the train or your practice will be left behind.



(2) Freaking out and responding to a bad review publicly and in an antagonistic tone.

If you immediately respond to a negative review with a defensive, negative attitude you are doing the equivalent not one but two negative reviews. Things you should never do when responding to a negative review include:

• USING ALL CAPS  to get your point across. Just don't do it. All caps implies you are yelling and that just is not professional. Here is a perfect example of why using all caps is just going to escalate the problem.

"If you ignore the several reminders we send and flat out good ol fashion commonsense, and show up just assuming we are an in network provider for you insurance, only to realize we are not.....ITS YOUR FAULT! Wow. Its crazy to think that people get upset at us for this. Its your responsibility to know!"

• Using multiple exclamation points or question marks!?!?! This is never a good idea. Interspersed between 5 star reviews on this optometrist's page are responses to 1-star reviews that read like a bad comedy.

3/28/2015 Huh, say what?!?!?! Let me get this straight. You cancelled your eye exam at the last minute because you had an eye problem? Makes no sense. Pink eye is one of the most common things we treat, day in, day out.We hate the phone as this is a perfect example. We can only think that the phone was problematic here as if you had emailed us, you would have promptly got an email that went something like this, "Oh no! Pink eye, that is terrible. However we are here to help. Please come in right away!"

Here is a list of Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to responding to negative reviews.

DO	DON’T
Be factual	Violate HIPPA
Be brief	Try to over-explain the situation
Be professional	Be overly personal
Be humble	Be arrogant
Be empathetic	Be rude
Be engaging	Be combative
Be courteous	Behave in an offended manner
Be appreciative of feedback	Make excuses
Be engaging	Be cold

(3) Responding immediately without first thinking through your response.

Almost every article about how to respond to negative reviews recommends first pausing to reflect on the situation and then proceeding with a private message to the person. Only after a private message should you proceed with a public comment.

Sometimes it takes a few weeks for comments to get filtered. Yelp has an algorithm for filtering reviews that could be suspect so that they are hidden from the public. You should always delay responding to see if the review even sticks.

Do everything in your power to be patient, caring, and responsive to the needs of this individual (regardless of how insane you think they might be). Take time to think about what you are going to say and how you are going to say it. If you decide to respond publicly, remember that future patients are watching.  If you respond poorly, you are giving people even more reasons not to work with you.

(4) Blaming the system (shaking fist in the air) and not using the negative review as an opportunity to grow, learn and better market your practice.

Negative reviews offer great insight into how you are running your practice and how you can improve your business. It's possible you may be overlooking poor customer service skills in your staff because you are so busy taking care of patients. Or, maybe you are becoming burned out and need a vacation and your performance is suffering?

When you see a bad review use all your effort to stay positive and and consider the entire situation as a marketing opportunity.

Your audience is other patients, not the person who wrote the bad review. Show the world that you are a caring professional. Use your response to win over new clients.  The complainer will appear petty while you will look like the bigger person.

(5) Taking every bad review way too personally... like a melodramatic TV character (e.g. Ross on "Friends", Liz Lemon, or pretty much any character on the show "Girls").

Rather than let the review crush your confidence, evaluate the damage by asking yourself if the review will actually harm your reputation. If you have a 5 star rating and 300 glowing reviews with 1 negative review, it is unlikely to harm your reputation and dealing with the review is not likely worth your time. But, if you are a new doctor and you don't have a lot of patients and the only patient who took the time to review you is an unhappy one, you should consider contacting the patient to assess the situation.

Remember, when a patient is sick, sometimes its hard for them to be nice to even the kindest physician.

If they do not feel like their needs are being met by the health care system, doctors are usually the one to blame--regardless if it is their fault. And, because of the internet, it is very easy for people to vent their frustrations online.

Hopefully, after reading this article you realize that there is a right way and a wrong way to respond to negative reviews. Do you have personal experience dealing with bad reviews online? Leave us comments below so we can continue the conversation.