A Listing for Each Practitioner at a Clinic

One practice, several listings

Search Google Maps for a clinic's name and you may find more than one result. The practice is there, and so is a listing for each of several practitioners.

Some were created by the practitioners themselves. Some were created by nobody; Google assembled them from directories and professional registers.

And one may belong to someone who left two years ago, still showing the clinic's address and phone number, so patients call the front desk asking for her.

Doctors, dentists, physiotherapists, lawyers and realtors all run into this, and it rarely gets sorted out until it causes trouble.

Who may have a listing

Google My Business has rules for this, under individual practitioners. In short:

• The practice itself, named as it appears on the door.
• Each public-facing practitioner, listed under their own name only.
• Not support staff, such as receptionists or office managers.
• Not one listing per specialty for the same person.
• A solo practitioner may combine the practice name and their own in one listing.

The second catches many practices out. A practitioner's listing should carry the person's name, not the clinic's, so it does not look like a second copy of the practice.

Where the extra listings come from

Google builds listings from many sources: business directories, professional registers, data suppliers, old websites. A practitioner who has never touched Google can still have a listing.

Others were created years ago by the practitioner, a former office manager or a marketing company, and connected to a Google+ page nobody at the practice can now log in to.

Unclaimed listings take whatever details the sources hold, which may be an old suite number, a fax line or a previous practice entirely.

When a practitioner shows up instead

The local pack, the map with a list of as many as seven businesses near the top of many searches, can show a practitioner where you expected the practice, or both.

A practitioner with many reviews can appear above the practice for its own name or for the service. That is fine while the details are right and the person still works there.

It is a problem when the listing has an old number, the wrong hours, or a person who has gone. Patients then call a line nobody answers, or ask for someone who is not there.

Decide which listings should exist

Start with an inventory. Search Google Maps for the practice name, each current practitioner's name, and the names of anyone who left in the last few years.

For each current practitioner, decide together whether they want a listing. Someone who sees patients by referral only may not need one; someone patients choose by name usually does.

Then claim the listings that should exist and verify them, usually by a postcard to the practice address. Write down who manages each one, so access does not leave with a departing employee.

Keep the details consistent

Each listing should agree with the practice listing and the website: the same address with the same suite number, written the same way.

Use the main number or the practitioner's direct line, and the hours when that person actually sees patients, not the clinic's full hours.

Link each listing to the practitioner's own page on the practice website, with their name, what they do and the days they work. A link to the home page leaves the patient searching again.

A worked example

A midwifery practice with five midwives shares a suite in a medical building in a suburb. Expectant parents often choose a midwife by name, on a friend's word.

A midwife who had moved to a practice in another city still had a listing at the old suite, with dozens of reviews and the practice's phone number. It often appeared above the practice's own listing.

A second listing, assembled by Google from a directory, named a retired midwife and gave a fax number. Parents dialled it and heard a tone.

The practice manager listed every result, then asked the departed midwife to claim her listing and move it to her new practice, which she was glad to do, reviews and all.

The retired midwife's listing was reported through Google Maps as no longer at that address, and took several weeks to go.

Each current midwife now has a listing under her own name, linked to her page on the practice's site, and the practice listing carries the full office hours.

When someone leaves

Departures are where listings go wrong, so add them to the checklist used when a practitioner leaves, alongside keys, email and the website.

If they are practising elsewhere, the best outcome is that they claim their listing and change it to their new address, taking their reviews with them.

If they have retired or cannot be reached, report the listing through Google Maps, or ask Google My Business support what can be done.

Update their page on the website at the same time, and agree in advance, ideally in writing when someone joins, what happens to their listing when they go.

Reviews on the wrong listing

Patients review whichever listing they find, so praise for the whole clinic can end up on one practitioner's listing, and leave with them.

When you ask patients for reviews, where your profession's rules allow it, send a direct link to the listing you mean. That keeps reviews of the practice on the practice's listing.

The counter-case

Some practices need only one listing. Where patients choose the clinic rather than the person, as at many walk-in clinics, practitioner listings add little, though any that exist still need correct details.

And some practitioners prefer not to have a public listing at all, which is their choice to make within Google's rules.

For most practices with several practitioners, though, the work is the same: know every listing, keep the ones that should exist accurate, and plan for departures.

This month

1. Search Google Maps for every practitioner's name.
2. List each listing you find, with who controls it.
3. Claim the listings for current practitioners.
4. Match names, addresses and numbers to the website.
5. Link each listing to the practitioner's own page.
6. Ask departed practitioners to move their listings.
7. Add listings to your departure checklist.

Step six is the one that needs the person who left, which is why it goes better arranged on their last day than chased two years later.

A listing's phone number matters for the same reasons as in a toll-free number on a neighbourhood business.

Frequently asked questions

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