What exactly is online reputation management for doctors?+
Online reputation management (ORM) for healthcare is the systematic, ongoing practice of monitoring, building and protecting a doctor's, clinic's or hospital's perception across every platform a patient checks before booking — primarily Google, Practo, Lybrate, Justdial, Facebook, Healthgrades, Apollo247 and 1mg. It covers four pillars: (1) acquiring more authentic reviews, (2) responding to every review within hours, (3) keeping listings consistent and search-friendly across 40+ directories, and (4) handling crises like fake reviews, defamation or viral incidents. Done right, ORM doesn't just protect a rating — it compounds local SEO, lowers paid-acquisition costs and lifts walk-in OPD.
Why do doctors and clinics specifically need ORM (vs general marketing)?+
Healthcare is the highest-trust purchase decision a patient makes. 94% of patients read reviews before booking, and 87% won't book a clinic rated below 4.0★. Unlike a restaurant where a bad review costs one meal, a single unanswered negative review for a clinic can deter dozens of high-value bookings — and Indian Medical Council (NMC/MCI) advertising guidelines mean you can't simply 'market your way out' with paid ads. ORM is the only lever that touches both trust and search ranking simultaneously, and it must be done within strict compliance boundaries. That's why generic marketing agencies almost always get healthcare reputation wrong.
Will you respond to reviews on our behalf, and how do you keep it on-brand?+
Yes — that's a core part of every plan. On day 1 we run a 60-minute tone workshop with the founder/lead doctor to capture phrasing, non-negotiables, brand voice and language preferences. For the first 30 days every response is drafted by our healthcare-comms specialist and routed to you for approval; from week 5, the team responds inside our 2-hour SLA without needing your sign-off. You always retain veto rights and can request a re-draft on any reply. We never sound robotic, never copy-paste, and never violate platform or NMC advertising guidelines.
Can you remove fake or defamatory reviews?+
Where reviews violate platform policy — fake patient identity, unrelated business, profanity, hate speech, conflict of interest, ex-employee retaliation — we file structured removal requests with documentation and follow up until resolved. Our success rate on policy-violating reviews is around 70–80% on Google and Practo. For genuinely negative but lawful reviews, we don't try to remove them — we respond well, address the underlying experience issue, and dilute them with new authentic 5-star reviews. For defamation crossing into legal territory we coordinate with your counsel (or recommend specialised IP/media lawyers in our network).
Is asking for reviews from patients allowed under NMC / MCI guidelines?+
Yes — asking patients for honest feedback is permitted, and is explicitly different from advertising or solicitation. What's prohibited is incentivising reviews, soliciting fake reviews, or making medical claims in your responses. Our review-acquisition flow has been reviewed against NMC Code of Ethics, the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act, the DPDP Act 2023 and platform-specific healthcare policies. We never promise outcomes, never reward reviewers, and we always include the patient's right to opt out. You stay compliant, by design.
How fast will we see results?+
Three reliable horizons. Week 1–2: listings cleaned, dashboards live, SLA active — you'll feel the operational lift immediately. Day 30: review velocity typically doubles and rating moves 0.2–0.4★ in either direction (sometimes negative if we're aggressive on legitimate response). Day 60–90: meaningful rating shift (0.5–1.0★) and a noticeable lift in calls and walk-ins. Day 180+: this is when the flywheel really compounds — partners average 4.7–4.9★ across every managed platform.
How is this different from buying fake reviews on Fiverr / Telegram?+
Bought reviews are the single fastest way to lose your Google Business Profile, get featured on platform takedown sweeps, and damage rankings irreversibly. Google's algorithm catches review velocity anomalies, IP clusters, copy-paste patterns and account-graph signals — the takedowns are silent and final. Beyond that, fake reviews violate NMC ethics and the Consumer Protection Act 2019, and can attract complaints from competitors. Everything we do is authentic, opt-in, time-stamped to real consultations, and built to survive the next algorithm update — and the one after that.
We're a hospital with 8 locations. Do you handle multi-location reputation?+
Yes — multi-location is where we earn our keep. We unify listings under a single hub, build per-location response queues with branch-level SLAs, train each front desk on a shared SOP, and produce a unified executive report alongside per-location dashboards. The Enterprise plan includes a dedicated 3-person pod, EMR/CRM-level integration of the review flow, and a 1-hour response SLA with on-call crisis retainer — built for groups doing 50,000+ OPDs a year.
What platforms do you cover beyond Google?+
Every platform an Indian patient might land on. Google Business Profile (always primary), Practo, Lybrate, Justdial, Facebook Pages, Healthgrades, Zocdoc, 1mg, Apollo247, MouthShut, Sulekha, AskApollo, Bajaj Finserv Health, MediBuddy, and platform-specific clinic-side tools. We also keep your hospital-rating profiles aligned where they exist — UrbanClap (Urban Company) Wellness, MFine, and similar.
Do I have to switch from my existing marketing agency?+
No. About 40% of our partners run us alongside their existing performance-marketing or SEO agency — we focus exclusively on reputation. We share dashboards, brief the other team monthly, and many of them tell us their paid CPCs drop because conversion lifts once your stars cross 4.5. We're complementary, not territorial.
What does onboarding look like? How disruptive is it for our team?+
Light. Onboarding is one 60-minute kickoff (founder + 1 ops lead), a 30-minute front-desk training session, and a Notion / WhatsApp setup — total ~2.5 hours of your team's time in week 1. After that, you spend 5 minutes a week on response approvals (first month) and 30 minutes a month on the strategy call. Everything else is run by our team, dashboards, automated flows.
What if it doesn't work? Is there a guarantee?+
Yes. Every Growth and Enterprise engagement comes with a 90-day performance guarantee: if review velocity hasn't at least doubled and your weighted rating hasn't moved in the right direction within 90 days of activation, we'll refund the previous 30 days' fees and continue at no cost until it does. The reason we can offer it: we've run this playbook with 100+ clinics across 18 specialties, and we've never had to write that refund cheque.