Full Transcript
[0:00]
Welcome to the 805 web minute. And today we're talking about why your website might be costing you appointments before a potential patient ever picks up the phone. Yeah. And this is a deep dive specifically for our local central coast health care practices. We're talking about the chiropractors, the dentist, the physical therapist, you know, from SLO all the way to have hasot roblas. Right. You've spent years, maybe decades building a reputation in the real world, but potential patients are making these snap judgments about you based on just, well, pixels on a screen. And those judgments are fast and they can be really harsh. So let's unpack this because I think we need to get away from the idea that a website is just some static online brochure. It's not the data we're looking at shows your website is basically the new waiting room, the waiting room before the waiting room. That's a great way to put it. We found this incredible stat. 44% of patients say a practice is website directly influences their decision on whether to even book an appointment. Think about that for a second. That's nearly half. Half of your potential client base is deciding if they trust you. Before they've even spoken to a person, they're clicking around looking for signals for comfort. And if that site is confusing or just plain ugly, that 44% they're just gone out the digital door. And I think we really have to stress the high stakes here on the central coast. We have such localized competition for sure. If someone's looking for a new dentist in SLO or maybe physical therapy in Paso, they've really got three or four good options right there. If your site is the one that's a hassle to use, you're not just losing a patient. No, you're handing them directly to your competitor down the street. And the biggest friction point right away is just age, the look of the site. Yeah, this is the real good punch. It is. We saw a stat that 16% of patients would actively consider switching practices if the website just looks outdated. Wow. Fair or not, people associate an old website with an old practice, maybe data technology, old equipment, just a lack of
[2:02]
attention to detail. That is just brutal. I know so many business owners, especially here in the 805, right, who were so proud they built their own site. Five, maybe eight years ago. Right. They checked it off the list. They saw it as a one time thing. They put it in the work, save the money and moved on. But that thing that felt like a success back then is now well, it's silently costing them business every single day. It absolutely is because that design, that initial look, it establishes the first layer of trust, but the real test, the ongoing social trust. That's all in the reviews. And that's the next thing we look for. Okay, this work gets really interesting. For a minute, just forget the services page, forget the fancy photos before patients even look at what you do. They are checking what other patients say about you. Yep. We know that 79% of patients read reviews before choosing a provider. That's almost four out of five people. And they don't just read them. They filter them. And this is the the nonnegotiable threshold for healthcare providers, 53% of patients won't even consider a provider with fewer than four stars. So if you're a busy chiropractor in a royal grande and your average is say 3.8, you are automatically disqualifying more than half of your potential patients right out of the gate. That's business. You are just leaving on the table because of a decimal point. That four star rule is brutal for a busy practice. How do you even start to climb from a 3.5 without looking desperate? It's got to be an active strategy, not a passive one. You have to make it easy for happy patients to leave reviews. But you know, the zero review problem might actually be worse worse than a low rating in some ways. Yeah. Over half of patients now avoid providers who have zero reviews entirely. Why is zero worse? I mean, logically, zero is neutral. Right. Because in a patient's mind, zero just signals risk. It's uncertainty. In healthcare, people are naturally risk averse. They don't want to be the guinea pig. It's like being the first customer to new restaurant. Exactly. Except the stakes are their health.
[4:03]
If you're a brand new PT office in downtown SLO and you have zero reviews, that silence is read as a warning sign. That totally shifts the mindset. It's not just about avoiding bad reviews. It's about actively managing the good ones to get over that four star barrier and that zero review risk. That's it. And that leads to maybe the most counterintuitive part of the data. How you should handle criticism. Right. Most people just want to bury the bad review. They do. They dread them. They ignore them. They hope they go away. But here's the lifeline. 70% of patients say that when a provider responds to a negative review, it actually improves their opinion of the practice. Wait, hold on. So you're saying I should almost be thankful for the occasional negative review. Because it gives me a chance to show my character. Precisely. It turns a negative into a moment of public visible accountability. When you respond professionally, you show that you're a caring, responsive provider. Imagine a patient complains online about a scheduling error at your dental office in Paso. If you reply professionally, not defensively and say, we understand we've reviewed our policy and we'd like to resolve this. 70% of people reading that CU is better than if you just ignored it. That changes everything. It makes review management way more important than just review generation. But that transparency only matters if people actually find the reviews. Where are they looking? It's overwhelmingly Google. 77% of patients use Google before they book their appointment. So not WebMD or Yelp. They matter, but Google is the main event. When it comes to reviews specifically, 84% of patients know they can check Google reviews and 78% actually do. It's where the competition is one or lost. So for any practice here on the central coast, whether you're in SLO or a task ad arrow, your Google business profile is basically as important as your website. It's your secondary homepage. It has to be 100% complete and managed all the time. First, photos, real photos of your office, not stock images.
[6:06]
People want to see where they're going. Exactly. Then accurate hours and the phone number has to be front and center. And critically, you have to respond to every single review, good or bad, to maximize that trust signal we talked about. So the key insight here is that your website and your Google presence, they're not separate things. They have to work together perfectly to get you seen and trusted. Absolutely. Think of Google as the invitation to the dance. And the website is the actual experience once they get there. Okay. Let's pivot back to the website itself. Once someone lands there, what are they actually hunting for? I doubt it's a thousand word essay on advanced techniques. No, absolutely not. And that's the mistake so many professionals make. They focus on what they want to say, not what the patient needs to know to take the next step. So it's about clarity, not complexity. It's all about clarity. We found four essential purely practical things patients are looking for. First up, easy ways to contact you. Specifically, the phone, which is kind of amazing in 2024. It is staggering. 88% of appointments are still scheduled by phone, a huge majority. So that phone number needs to be impossible to miss visible immediately in a sticky header at the top, clickable on mobile, not buried on some contact page. People still call for healthcare because it feels more personal, more urgent and more private. Right. If I'm a new patient and I hurt my back hiking near Moro Bay, I don't want to wait for an email. I want to talk to someone now. That urgency drives the call exactly. And your website's job is to make an effort list to connect with your receptionist. Okay. What's next? So even though 88% call, people still want easier booking options online. They do 42% want easier appointment booking. And this doesn't mean you need some complex, expensive scheduling software. So what does it mean? It means you need a big, obvious request appointment button on the homepage and keep the form short. Name number best time to call. That's it. Reduce the friction to a single click. The third point is about personalization.
[8:07]
Who you are and what you treat. Patients are choosing a person, not just a service, a short, friendly bio is essential. People want to feel like they know you. This is where you connect locally, mention you love living in Paso or you've served the SLO community for years and be brutally clear about what conditions you treat. And crucially, what to expect on the first visit, right? Yeah. That eliminates a lot of anxiety. Oh, absolutely. Uncertainty is the enemy of booking. A quick paragraph explaining what that first visit looks like that removes the fear of the unknown and makes them much more likely to book. And finally, the really practical stuff. Location and hours, especially important for our spread out communities here. Don't underestimate this. If someone's searching for a task adaro, they need to know if you're easy to get to off the 101 or buried in downtown SLO with no parking. Make the address an hours obvious. OK, all of those must have the phone number, the simple booking, the bio, they all depend on this final critical topic. Mobile. Mobile matters more than most people realize 65% of patients use their phone when interacting with healthcare providers. And they're probably on the go waiting in line at the grocery store in AG or something. Exactly. They're impatient. So if your site is slow to load, if the text is tiny, if the buttons are hard to tap with your thumb, you've lost them. It just has to be fast and easy. That's it. And here is probably the most powerful stat in this whole deep dive. 65% of patients say they would switch providers for better digital features. Wow. OK, so that proves this isn't just a preference for younger patients. This is the modern reality. It's a huge competitive advantage. Absolutely. If your practice in a royal grande is just easier to deal with online than the one down the street, you win. Convenience is currency. So what's the big takeaway for the business owner listening right now? The sobering conclusion we found is what we're calling the one chance problem. Yes. The reality is it's brutal. 82% of patients give a provider just one or two chances.
[10:10]
One click. Maybe they'll view two pages before they switch. The window is tiny. That first impression has to be perfect. It has to land. If your site looks dated, if the phone number is buried, if there are no reviews, they're gone. They won't give you a second look. So we want to leave you with a quick self check. Be your own secret shopper. Pull up your website on your phone right now. And be honest, ask yourself, can you find the phone number and click to call it in three seconds? Is it immediately clear what you do and who you help right there on that first screen without scrolling? Does the site look current or does it feel like something from 2015? Are patient reviews visible or at least very easy to find from the home page? And finally, can someone easily request an appointment with almost no friction? Like three clicks or less? If you hesitated or said no to any of those questions, you are absolutely losing appointments to competing practices. There's simply making it easier for central coast patients to book. That's the quick tip for today. If you want a professional website without the agency price tag or the DIY headache, here is the better way. At Ugro.pro, we build it, we manage it and we handle every update forever all for just $79 a month. There is zero setup fee, no contract and it's a strictly month to month, so there is zero risk. We're local here in AG and we can have you live in days, not months. Want to see what your site could look like? Go to Ugro.pro right now and we'll design three custom mockups for your business, completely free, no strings attached. Thanks for listening and keep growing.