How HotDoc Reviews Caused a Spike in New Patients at North Brighton Medical
North Brighton Medical is a 4 GP clinic located in Melbourne’s southern suburbs. The medical centre, which Practice Manager Justin Meyer says prides itself on offering an exceptional patient experience, opened its doors in January 2018.
Justin shares, “We really try to ensure patients have a really good customer experience, because at the end of the day we recognise that general practice is a part of the customer service industry. If you don’t treat patients well, they are unlikely to come back.”
North Brighton Medical’s move to HotDoc
After a year of operation, North Brighton Medical began using HotDoc.
Justin says, “We first started using HotDoc for Online Appointments in December 2018. And then from August 2019 we started using the full suite.
“The online bookings have been really great. A big proportion of our patients book online. It’s great that they can do that whenever they want to, not just when we are open. Plus it frees up reception time.”
"A lot of HotDoc is sort of set-and-forget—it saves a lot of work and doesn’t require a lot of work.”
“And we’re getting a lot of value out of the rest of the platform too. The New Patient Forms have been great, having all the data coming in automatically. And the Recalls and Reminders have been fantastic too. The recalls especially are freeing up our nurse’s time.”
Pictured: Justin Meyer, Practice Manager (above)
Turning on HotDoc Reviews
The team at North Brighton Medical are also one of the first to trial HotDoc Reviews—a new offering from HotDoc.
HotDoc Reviews works by sending an SMS to patients post-appointment that encourages them to leave the clinic a Google review.
Practice Manager Justin Meyer says that when first introducing the idea of HotDoc Reviews to his doctors, “they were a little worried that people would use it as a way to complain about things when they were unhappy and it would lead to bad reviews.”
5.0
average Google star rating
200+
total Google reviews
#1
Google ranking
Although he says he had another view. “I saw it differently. I thought people would like our clinic because when we collected patient feedback for accreditation last year, we received very positive feedback. I had the feeling Google reviews would follow a similar path.”
When turning on HotDoc Reviews, Justin says the results were virtually instantaneous.
"We’d been open for 18 months and had 5 Google reviews. After a week of turning on HotDoc Reviews, we had another 10 reviews. A few months on and we’re now at 200+ reviews."
Since running HotDoc Reviews for two months, Justin says his doctors have changed their tunes significantly.
“The doctors love seeing the positive reviews, especially when they know the patient. It’s nice to know that you are getting good feedback. Especially when a lot of the time people don’t get feedback on their work.”
Beyond appeasing the doctors, and having a star rating to be proud of, Justin says the clinic has also seen a spike in new patient numbers since turning on HotDoc Reviews.
Pictured: Justin Meyer, Practice Manager (left) and Dr. Marcus Peplow (right)
More reviews = More new patients
Justin explains, “I think [HotDoc Reviews] has had an impact on our Google ranking because obviously Google likes seeing a lot of positive reviews. And because of that, I think it’s helping us attract more new patients.
“In the last week, we’ve had 191 appointments booked online. Back in August, we were getting around 25 online appointments per month. So that’s a big improvement.”
In the last 30 days, North Brighton Medical has had 47 new patients join the 4 GP practice. In November, before HotDoc Reviews was turned on, the clinic received 31 new patients in the month.
With the influx of new patients, Justin says he has been forced to turn off Google Ads, which he was previously paying for to attract new patients.
“Our books are pretty much full. We had previously been paying for Google Ads, but we’ve paused them because we don’t need them."
“It’s been really valuable from a marketing perspective. It’s free SEO essentially. And better than the SEO you pay for, I think.”
Pictured: Dr. Ingrid Chung in her consulting room (above)
Pictured: Dr Marcus Peplow (above)
The ease of using HotDoc Reviews
Justin also credits HotDoc Reviews for its ease of use. “A lot of HotDoc is sort of set-and-forget—it saves a lot of work and doesn’t require a lot of work itself. HotDoc Reviews is the same.
“We switched it on and if we wanted to do nothing more at that point, we could have. But we get emails from Google notifying us of the reviews. So I always go into each of the reviews and reply, thanking them.
“You know at some point we are going to get some negative feedback, but I really don’t see it as a bad thing. We can apologise to them and try to solve the issue, but I also see it as an opportunity to learn something and improve.”
