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Get Image Savvy -- Check Your Yelps

By Somyr McLean Perry

Managing Editor of Vetpracticenews.com and Veterinary Practice News

Last month, a receptionist at the Animal Medical Clinic in Bountiful, Utah, took a call from a prospective client with a new kitten. Before the prospect confirmed her appointment, she asked, "Are you aware of your rating on CitySearch? It's not very good."

That was a small-town clinic's first introduction to the power of consumer reviews on the Internet.  Reviewing small businesses on community websites is a favorite of the Millennial generation and older Web-savvy generations, too, and is catching on in popularity. Posters rate everything from local coffee shops, hair salons, dentists and even veterinary clinics.

Many of these consumer review sites are based on directories. So someone with a new dog in Los Angeles uses her favorite Web browser (such as Yahoo, Google or City Search) to search for a veterinary clinic in the area. A directory listing of clinics pops up and some have customer reviews. Other websites such as www.InsiderPages.com and www.yelp.com are specifically for consumers to "yelp" about products and services.

A quick search for veterinary hospitals in Los Angeles on Yelp.com shows 36 listings. One that caught my eye is Laurel Pet Hospital in West Hollywood, Calif., with 24 reviews and an average 3.5 star rating (out of five stars). Some of the reviews go on for several paragraphs--patrons either love this clinic or absolutely hate it. When you read the reviews one by one, many are very detailed and some come off as emotionally charged, so you sort of take those with a grain of salt.

But collectively, the message they send is powerful--clients are watching what you do and are eager to shout about their experiences from the rooftop. The city slickers seem to use these websites more often, probably because they have more products and services to choose from. But even Sun Valley Animal Center in Ketchum, Idaho, population about 3,200, has been reviewed online.

There's just one, but at least it's a positive one.

What are your patrons saying about you?

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Get Image Savvy -- Check Your Yelps

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again i feel that veternariens need to be more sensitive to the consumer. for every bad experience a consumer has you have a moral responsibility for. consumers know when they are getting quality care and attention and they never forget the bad care.(never). we are at the mercy of our vets and our most vunerable times in are pets life. to cross the fine line of being taking advantage of dollar wise and with the lack of compassion for an animals suffering is shocking and not forgotten. for the mercy of all the animals that have been lost or for the ones who have sufffered to this type of service. I know what is needed is customer service checks. mystery shoppers to check the quality of service to make sure that everything is honest and correctly up to standads. and over charging and wrongful test and procedures are eliminated. brenda, lowell, IN Posted: 7/21/2008 10:10:53 PM Since NO ONE polices veterinarians, ratings/reviews is the only weapon the consumer has to expose negligence/malpractice/wr- ong-doing/incompetency/la- ck of communication, etc. . . Consumers deserve to know so they can make an informed decision in choosing veterinarians. Unfortunately, my pet was a victim of incompetent veterinarias who are board certified and didn't live up to my expectation. They killed my pet through ignorance and indifference! Fotini, Madison, AL Posted: 7/16/2008 10:13:12 AM i think vets practices should get rated. i have had the worst experience with two vets this year. i just left and couldn't gather enough strenght to tell them what they have done wrong. ty didn't care any way they never asked. one vet i was with for over 10 years but never had an emergency intill this year it was bad the whole experience just tramatic and on top of that i lost my cat anyway. in my opinion my vet didn't live up t expectations. then the emergency vet turned out to be not what emergency vets should be. and they have the nerve to call it an emergency vet. i am so confused of where to ever turn to when your animal has an emergency. BRENDA, LOWELL, IN Posted: 7/9/2008 8:33:58 PM