“How can my veterinary hospital get more reviews on Google or Yelp?” This is a question that veterinary practice managers and owners ask me all of the time.

I’ve done a good amount with veterinary hospital reputation management, but I recently helped Snout School member hospital, Mendon Village Animal Hospital, to get a 5-star rating on Google.

I want to share how we made this happen with you!

This blog post will tell you:

How Mendon Village Animal Hospital got 17 Google reviews from their clients overnight
How you can make getting reviews SIMPLE
A ninja tip for getting the most Google reviews possible

1) Have an awesome team

I don’t agree with a lot of “online reputation management” companies out there because of 1 key thing: Managing your online reputation starts from within. Just like bad social media behavior is a hiring and training problem, a bad online reputation might be more of an in-hospital management issue. Any responsible online reputation management consultant can’t promise you anything else!

A book that REALLY defined how I manage and lead my team with customer service is If Disney Ran Your Hospital, by Fred Lee.

If your team is awesome, it will be a lot easier for you to have awesome reviews. I can’t take credit for that part of Mendon Village Animal Hospital’s successful review campaign. They are awesome in real life, without me!

2) Make it EASY for people to review you with a simple email

When it comes to veterinary hospital reviews, you need to make it EASY for people to find your review sites. At this point, the two most important are Google reviews and – depending on where your practice is located – Yelp.

Facebook reviews are kind of a dime-a-dozen, so focus on Google and Yelp. (Total ninja tip that should get you AT LEAST 10 Google reviews coming in a few seconds…)

I think that a text-based, no frills email can do a great job of getting you reviews. Have the email come “from your veterinarians” so it’s personal. The whole thing should be conversational in tone, and it SHOULD NOT be in some elaborate newsletter template.

Your email should be as brief as possible and include the following:

Link to your Google+ page, specifically the “About” section
Explanation that on a mobile phone, customers need to go to the Google Maps app to review you
Links to Google Maps app for Apple and for Android
Link directly to your Yelp page or any other review site you want reviews on
A friendly explanation of how important this is to your practice

Bonus tip: Use your practice management system to pull out your “@gmail.com” customers. (IE: Your clients that have gmail addresses) Send your Gmail customers the links to review you on Google. They already have accounts, so it will be simple for them! Send your veterinary clients that have other types of email addresses an email asking for a Yelp review.

This simple “ninja” trick got my hospital 12 reviews on Google the last time I tried it, and it got Mendon Village Animal Hospital 17 reviews. 🙂

3) Wait for the reviews to come rolling in!

If your veterinary clients are happy with your service, sending an email with those easy-to-follow instructions will result in a flood of happy reviews about your animal clinic.

I would suggest breaking up your email lists even further, as Yelp gets especially “mad” when you get a bunch of good reviews at once. (And then they won’t show all of those great reviews to your clients.) Eg: You have 500 clients that don’t use Gmail. So you want to send them links to Yelp, but you break it into 5 batches of emails to 100 clients.

Let’s look at the awesome results that Mendon Village Animal Hospital got with the email I helped them create and send!

Google reviews BEFORE we sent the email:

Only TWO lonely reviews for Mendon Village Animal Hospital, which was pretty similar to other practices in their area.

Google reviews AFTER we sent the email:

Mendon Village Animal Hospital is now up to 19 reviews on their page. They have a 5-star rating, which I can’t take any credit for earning them. They’re clearly an awesome team. No one else in their local area has that many Google reviews, which is going to really help them stand out to new clients.

Yelp reviews before we sent the email:

This is the part where I cry because I forgot to take a screencap. Whoops. The lovely ladies at MVAH will vouch for me, though. They had ZERO Yelp reviews before we sent an email.

Yelp reviews after we sent the email:

MVAH got – wait for it – 49 YELP REVIEWS with our email. I didn’t expect that kind of outpouring of support, and I wish I had. As I mentioned, it is important to segment out your list. If we had expected that level of Yelp interest (they didn’t think many clients used it in their area), more reviews would show on the front page.

As you can see here, 5 of the reviews made it to the front page of Yelp. I am so impressed with these results.

Due to how Yelp works, 44 reviews that they received aren’t recommended. This is what is so frustrating about Yelp, but seasoned Yelpers know to look for this at the bottom to get the full picture!

Additionally, realize that getting good reviews takes TIME. Review sites, like Yelp, want you to grow your reviews organically over time. That is why they don’t show all of your reviews. I think it’s important to regularly ask for reviews over time to satisfy Yelp’s pickiness.

Want to get 17 Google reviews overnight?

The results that Mendon Village Animal hospital were awesome. I’m here to help your veterinary hospital, just like I helped them! There are two ways that we can work together:

1) Become an Advanced Member of Snout School. We’ll work on your reviews during your 1-on-1 coaching sessions. You’ll learn EXACTLY how to get more reviews using email.

2) Contact me regarding pricing. I’ll do the heavy lifting for you! I’ve laid down the nuts and bolts of how to get more reviews in this blog. If you just don’t have the time, the Snout Consulting team and I would be happy to get everything done for your practice. (Warning: Be prepared to tell me that your team is AWESOME! :P)

Disclaimer: The exact results achieved by the hospital in this blog post cannot be legally guaranteed.

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How Mendon Village Animal Hospital got 17 Google Reviews OVERNIGHT!