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Below is our recent interview with Ajay Prasad, CEO at GMR Web Team:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to GMR Web Team?
A: We are a healthcare marketing company focused on helping patient-centric providers acquire new patients and capture a bigger share of the healthcare market. Our typical clients are medical and dental practices, urgent care centers, and small clinics.
Q: Tell us more about your services. What makes them unique?
A: We pioneered a patient acquisition marketing solution for healthcare providers that focuses on improving patient satisfaction, building a stellar online reputation, and creating a robust internet presence. Having said that, we do not offer a cookie cutter healthcare marketing solutions. Instead, we analyze each client’s business situation, wants, and needs and come up with a marketing solution that is tailored to their business.
In addition, we have developed our own software platforms for managing all three activities seamlessly. These platforms are flexible such that we can execute our customized marketing solution for each client.
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Q: What are the 3 pillars of healthcare marketing success?
A: The 3-Pillars of a successful healthcare business are
– Measurement & Improvement of Patient Satisfaction – A growing satisfied patient base is critical for the long-term success of any medical or dental practice. Overall improvement needs to be measured and reasons identified for patients’ happiness and unhappiness. Healthcare practices then focus their marketing communications around their strengths and quickly identify what led to the unhappiness to recover those patients and develop processes to improve overall patient satisfaction on an ongoing basis.
– Stellar Online Reputation – A recent study published by Bright Local suggests that 92% of prospective patient provider selection is affected by online reputation – with 70%+ trusting online reviews as much as recommendations from friends and even doctors, and 30% solely relying on online reputation when selecting a provider. Patients with the ability to pay (either cash or good health insurance) research providers’ online reputation, which significantly influences their provider selection decision. A stellar online reputation includes several recent (written within the last few months) reviews on relevant platforms like Google, HealthGrades, RateMD, and Yelp, a good social media presence, numerous third-party verified testimonials from patients, and articles/video by and about the provider.
– Robust Online Presence – Google and other search engines like Bing and Yahoo are a major source of information when a prospective patient or their loved ones are looking for a healthcare provider. It is absolutely critical that providers appear high on search engines for appropriate keywords and phrases, or risk losing visibility to competitors. Gaining rankings on search engines require many website (onsite) and internet (offsite) activities. Onsite activities include optimizing the website for mobile searches, appropriate tags and proper codes optimized for search engine, and compelling copy to lead website visitors to contact the office. Offsite activities include getting listed on right online platforms, ongoing social media activities, ongoing content written by/for providers on the internet, constantly improving and acquiring new reviews, and testimonials. Search engines are continually adjusting their search rankings algorithms to match consumer behavior. Thus, providers need to stay on top of search trends and make adjustments to maintain high rankings.
Q: What is the selection process that patients used when selecting a provider?
A: Here is the typical selection process of a patient looking for a provider:
1) They have a healthcare need or concern
2) They come to know about providers through a recommendation from friends/relatives, referral from their physician, through their insurance lists, or a general online search
3) Once they have identified providers, they research to narrow down options. Typical research includes reading reviews, 3rd party verified testimonials, browsing their website, social media activities, and online mentions.
4) They contact selected providers’ offices to discuss their needs, visit offices, and use their experience in their selection process
5) Select the provider they want to use and become their patient.
Q: How can ORM improve patient engagement?
A: Online reputation managed through a well-designed platform that is focused on the healthcare industry typically includes — 1) Understanding patient sentiment to improve patient satisfaction, 2) Constantly increase the number of reviews by encouraging happy patients to write reviews, 3) Use immediate recovery services to prevent negative reviews by unhappy patients, and 4) marketing support through a) analysis of comments by unhappy and happy patients to identify practices’ strengths and weaknesses, b) improve patient retention and revenue through reminder & confirmation of their appointment, and c) have the ability to send push notifications like birthday eCards and holiday wishes to keep patients engaged.
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Q: Why is it important to ask patients to write reviews?
A: Online Reputation Management (ORM) is important for healthcare providers given the propensity of unhappy patients to write negative reviews online vs. happy patients writing reviews. A recent study by of GMR clients found that online reviews shows significant dissatisfaction vs. the actual patient satisfaction. See the report here.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: We closely monitor latest healthcare trends and tweak our program to stay ahead of the crowd. Our overarching goal is to stay focused on our efforts to improve overall patient healthcare experience by improving share of patient-centric providers through our innovative marketing activities. We consider this a win-win-win for patients, healthcare providers, and GMR Web Team.
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