Handling Negative Reviews

Working with the public will get you a lot of great feedback as well as some bad reviews. I have never heard of any eye care provider who never had a bad review. All reviews are good, if bad reviews don’t teach you, you will never learn from good reviews. No one likes to be criticized, however, you cannot ignore feedback, and if you are asking patients to tell you what they think, you will get a great amount of feedback then you will have to deal with and handle each one with specific care.

Patients who criticize you will make you feel bad about the way you practice Optometry. Many Optometrists ignore feedbacks because they find responding to bad reviews is stressful. Even though the process may be exhausting, patient feedback is definitely indispensable.

To cope with negative feedback you should start by looking carefully at the review and discuss it with the staff to bring up suggestions for how you can improve your practice based on the review context. Negative feedback means there is something not going well in the practice and needs to be addressed. Instead of being annoyed, you should be alert and you should detach from your own ego when you are carefully examining criticism directed to you. When you get over the bad feeling you should make sure that the patient does not cross red lines using profane insults. When it happens I personally don’t feel obliged to dealing with such angry patients. Putting that aside, I do all reasonable efforts to restore the professional relationship with the patient.

Inside every criticism or review, there will be an element of truth. You must accept that even though sometimes this element of truth is hard to accept, accepting it is valuable for improving our efficacy and the business. If you find the reviews to lack an element of truth you should not become bitter with the patient and harden yourself. Instead, you should connect with the patient and create a stronger connection and relationship.

A reliable and safe way to deal with notoriously difficult patients is to -whatever happens or whatever you do- never give promises beyond his expectations and beyond what you can deliver. Certainly, you have to connect with him but you should always acknowledge the reality of his character and his basic reactions and never argue disagreeing directly with him. Telling a patient he is wrong is a huge mistake. A great tip when all attempts fail is to get assistance from another colleague to provide the patient with a second opinion and strengthen your point of view. When we deal with every criticism in a timely manner and caring way we often develop a good rapport with patients and many delete their feedback or sometimes make a positive review.