Imagine this! You have a whole raft of fabulous online reviews on Facebook. You wake up one morning and whiz through your emails and see what’s happening on social media and then BANG! Your previously awesome 100% of 5 star Facebook online reviews has been annihilated overnight!
This happened to a lovely Osteopath this week and she was very upset about it. First and foremost when you work by yourself and for yourself it’s very difficult to keep perspective and make good decisions when you have been personally attacked online.
Despite behaving in an impeccably professional manner, she very sensibly came to me for some objective advice.
It was obvious that this Osteopath had done nothing wrong
Without going into great detail, the situation was this. A new patient had come to see her suffering great cervical back pain. It became apparent that because of the acute state of the spine, it was impossible to give an exact diagnosis until some treatments had helped to alleviate the symptoms.
With the patient in great pain, the Osteopath gave only gentle treatment with advice to see her GP upon her return home. The patient left satisfied.
However, it had been noted that the patient was on strong medications including anti-depressants which she had reduced without her Doctor’s knowledge. She was also on steroids which of course can cause heightened aggression.
The patient did then see her GP (who was also her mother!) and then there ensued a tirade of emails from the patient, some up to 10 pages long! They became more angry and accusatory.
Then this escalated when the patient not only wrote a 1 star ‘review’ on Facebook but encouraged a friend and previous patient to also write a mean review.
You can’t delete bad online reviews!
So what can you do? Here’s a demo of your options on Facebook:
Perhaps a simple ‘We are deeply sorry that you felt you didn’t receive our best attention to your needs. We always strive to apply our considerable experience and knowledge to each individual case’ or something similar.
What can you do to protect yourself from bad reviews?
Ultimately, people will do what they want on a public platform of course. But where somebody presents with mental health issues or are behaving nervously or in an unstable fashion, then it appears that it’s better not to give too much detailed diagnosis or to even outline possible related issues. If they are highly stressed they may need to hear only basic information and advice. Perhaps be a little more measured in what hypotheses you share!
In this case, the word ‘vascular’ was suggested briefly as a possible issue and now the patient has become fixated on it and called the Osteopath ‘dangerous’ when this was not the case at all.
Further, I think that rather getting into protracted correspondence, it is better to apologise for any confusion and politely withdraw. In these cases, it is almost impossible to change the other person’s thinking or understanding. Sometimes, they are at war with the world and will do anything to provoke another battle in their lives. Do not engage if you are in a no win situation!
Sometimes, you’ve just got to take a deep breath and love your haters…
