Avvo: The Gold-Standard in Client and Patient Reviews
On Friday, I had the pleasure of being on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” The topic was online, user-generated reviews of doctors, lawyers and others. I was paired with the CEO of Medical Justice, Jeffrey Segal. As loyal readers of the Avvo Blog may recall, we have never been a big fan of those Medical Justice agreements that attempt to restrict patients from leaving negative online reviews regarding their doctor. We dislike them so much, we blogged about them twice. :-) (See “Stone Age Thinking . . . No Opinions Unless I Like Them” and “Doctors Trying to Silence Patients”)
The interview focused on how websites can work to ensure the legitimacy of user-generated reviews, and Avvo was there to speak to best-practices. And, while repetitive for some, I think these best-practices are worth repeating because I sincerely see Avvo as the gold-standard in client and patient reviews.
- Avvo has strict Community Guidelines for its reviews, requiring that every review be factual, without personal attacks, etc. We reject 35% of our reviews for violating these guidelines.
- Avvo requires every reviewer to register with the site. As a consequence, Avvo does not have anonymous reviews. While we may not disclose reviewers identities on the site, Avvo knows who they are and how to contact them. This helps on the front end to ensure our reviews are legitimate; and it helps on the back-end if a doctor or lawyer disputes a review (see below).
- We have proprietary software that looks at every client and patient review once submitted. You would be shocked at the silly things people do when attempting to leave fake reviews. It is easy to train a computer to look for these silly things and flag it for Avvo Customer Care.
- We have a HUMAN look at EVERY review before it goes up. That is why we ask to have 48 hours before we post a review. This is expensive and takes a lot of time, but it is truly worth it.
- We have a process where we work with doctors and lawyers and their reviewers in the event that the professional disputes a review. In a nutshell, once the professional contacts us, we remove the disputed review and contact the reviewer (because, unlike most sites, we have contact info for the reviewer). If the reviewer does not respond, the review comes down. If the reviewer wants to maintain the review, we will repost it. However, often the reviewer will want to modify the review before we repost it based on reflection, the professional’s feedback, etc.
- Finally, doctors and lawyers can respond to any review – positive or negative – right on the site. We put the response right under the patient or client review. In particularly, this gives the professional the chance to address negative reviews thoughtfully and professionally, turning a potential negative into a positive.
Thanks again to CNBC for having Avvo on the show and recognizing our commitment to reviewing excellence.
Be Reviewed!
Mark
