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#34: Using Truly360 Interactive Google Tours to Differentiate your Practice

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Episode 34: Using Truly360 Interactive Google Tours to Differentiate your Practice
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On this episode of ODwire.org Radio, we interview long-time ODwire.org sponsor & Truly360 President Matthew Focht about using the NEW Truly360 Google Interactive Tours to differentiate your practice & give you an edge among people searching for ODs.

We learn:

  • What Google Interactive Tours Are
  • How they can differentiate your practice from others in your area when people search online
  • How they impact your search rankings
  • Truly360's network of "Google Trusted Photographers", and why it is critical to use experienced professionals when setting this up
  • The technical details of how the tours are filmed and posted to Google, and how Truly360 handles this for the OD, including embedding the tour on your own web site.

If you've got an office that you're proud of, you owe it to yourself listen to the show & learn about this new product.

Truly360 offer
Hey, it wouldn't be an ODwire.org Radio show without a deal for you...

Google Interactive Tours can cost $1000 or more to create and manage. However, if you use Tru for your credit card processing, Tru will pick up nearly the entire tab, dropping the charge to $39!

Learn more by listening to the show, or get more information from Truly360.

Any questions? Just post in this thread..
 
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more info.. check your local area to see who is doing it..

As you can hear in the interview, while we were talking I decided to check out my local area to see if any ODs were providing interactive tours -- none yet.


portland-od.jpg


If a tour was available at any of those locations, IIRC the marker would be a different color, and when someone moused over it (or looked up the practice in Google Street View), they could walk through your practice to actually see what it looks like.

You can also embed the finished tour right on your own web site, so you get the most mileage out of it.

Because the tech is still so new to most docs, it is a great way to differentiate your practice when people hit the search engines.

See the Truly360 site for some examples...

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I believe one of the ODs on this site has a very nice 360 video of his office. Trying to remember, I thing an office out west, maybe Phoenix, and as I recall he does Ortho K. We discussed it in a thread.
 
Joe DiGiorgio said:
I believe one of the ODs on this site has a very nice 360 video of his office. Trying to remember, I thing an office out west, maybe Phoenix, and as I recall he does Ortho K. We discussed it in a thread.
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cool, i'd like to see the tour.

for the hundreds of OD practices already using Tru, this would seem to be a no-brainer since they are willing to pick up the tab & do the work.
 
Michael I. Davis said:
The Google photographer is coming on on March 19th. Time to start cleaning. I hope I can get all the salt out of the carpet in time.
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looking forward to hearing about how it goes. My experience with google map photographers so far is limited to waving at the guy driving the google mapping car down my street :)

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AdminWolf said:
looking forward to hearing about how it goes. My experience with google map photographers so far is limited to waving at the guy driving the google mapping car down my street :)

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Maybe you will be in the picture on Google maps, when people are trying to get directions to your house. At least they will know they have the right place. :D
 
Joe DiGiorgio said:
Maybe you will be in the picture on Google maps, when people are trying to get directions to your house. At least they will know they have the right place. :D
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lol, true!

back when i lived in vermont, i had a friend who mapped her town on a bike with a special camera pack (google was giving them away at the time) this was a low-cost way for google to map the podunk towns in the area vs. sending a car out. very smart.
 
AdminWolf said:
lol, true!

back when i lived in vermont, i had a friend who mapped her town on a bike with a special camera pack (google was giving them away at the time) this was a low-cost way for google to map the podunk towns in the area vs. sending a car out. very smart.
Click to expand...

My exchange students from Italy showed me that their grandmother and grandfather were actually walking in front of their house, holding hands, in the Dolomite mountains in Italy when Google captured the image. Very cool.
 
Not so great if you are already a TRU client

I have been using TRU for 6 or 8 months now. When I saw that the offer applied to existing customers, I contacted them, but no response.

Then I went to their OD wire ad and filled it out as if I were a first time customer. I was contacted in about 5 minutes after submitting the request. When they realized I was already a customer, the enthusiasm waned quickly.

The rep begrudgingly said that yes, I could have it done, but I would have to extend my contract and if I left TRU, the cancellation fee would be higher. I said that's fine, let's proceed.

He said he would get a contract to me via email and we could get rolling on this. That was two weeks ago. Still no response. I have called several times since - can't get ahold of the guy. Talked to our credit card point of contact today at TRU and explained the situation.

She said no problem - she's having lunch with him today, and she will have him call and follow up. Still no response. I am starting to rethink my decision to use TRU.

I've been happy with their credit card service so far, but this makes me wonder if they're really all that good.
 
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Hey Dr. Ellis

I apologize that you've have a bad experience. Its frustrating for me to hear as well. As you can imagine its hard enough to get clients and I don't like losing clients for any reason, especially one so easy to prevent.

Matt, your TRU rep, is usually on top of it. His wife is due any day now with their second child but this is the first I've heard of him dropping the ball in any way. I sent him an email and he should be following up with you tomorrow...maybe even from the delivery room. ;-)

Thanks for trusting us for your processing and please give us an opportunity to provide you with a shoot. For your troubles the least we can do is waive the $39. And Matt is great about helping clients to optimize their Google+ pages for increased visibility and better rankings online so I'll be sure he spends extra time with you.

Please let me know personally if you need anything else or if anything isn't handled to your liking.

Matthew
 
Lack of follow-up

John Ellis said:
He said he would get a contract to me via email and we could get rolling on this. That was two weeks ago. Still no response.
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Same here, except my conversation with him was on February 12th. I considered following up, but decided against it. Very disappointing.
 
Lisa Heuer said:
Same here, except my conversation with him was on February 12th. I considered following up, but decided against it. Very disappointing.
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If anyone has any issue with our program whatsoever please reach out to me by private message. If I can't solve your issue then I totally understand you taking the opportunity to use this great forum to warn your colleagues about a company not honoring its promises. When a matter is held privately we can assume "the customer is always right" philosophy and fix your situation. However when made public we are forced to state the facts.

Hey Dr. Heuer,

Here's my documentation of our correspondence which can be found in our company's CRM:
1. I initially contacted you on 5 different occasions, thru emails and phone calls, to set an appointment to talk with you.
2. You then followed up with me with an email saying you were sorry for missing my calls and that you would call me the following Wednesday. That Wednesday I never received your call.
3. Even though you clearly stated you would give me a call I still tried one more time and was told your are busy.

At that point I felt as though you weren't very interested so I left the ball in your court to get in touch with me.

We would still love to take care of your processing needs and provide you with a Google Tour. Please let us know if you would like to make another appointment and I will be happy to pick up where we left off.

Thanks so much for your understanding of my need to state the facts to protect us from undeserved damage.
 
Matt Strom said:
If anyone has any issue with our program whatsoever please reach out to me by private message. If I can't solve your issue then I totally understand you taking the opportunity to use this great forum to warn your colleagues about a company not honoring its promises. When a matter is held privately we can assume "the customer is always right" philosophy and fix your situation. However when made public we are forced to state the facts.

Hey Dr. Heuer,

Here's my documentation of our correspondence which can be found in our company's CRM:
1. I initially contacted you on 5 different occasions, thru emails and phone calls, to set an appointment to talk with you.
2. You then followed up with me with an email saying you were sorry for missing my calls and that you would call me the following Wednesday. That Wednesday I never received your call.
3. Even though you clearly stated you would give me a call I still tried one more time and was told your are busy.

At that point I felt as though you weren't very interested so I left the ball in your court to get in touch with me.

We would still love to take care of your processing needs and provide you with a Google Tour. Please let us know if you would like to make another appointment and I will be happy to pick up where we left off.

Thanks so much for your understanding of my need to state the facts to protect us from undeserved damage.
Click to expand...

Matt, you're correct that we exchanged several emails and voice mails before talking, but I am certain we talked on February 12th. I have written notes from our conversation which lasted approximately 10 minutes. We discussed the terms and 3 year commitment to stay with Tru after doing the Google Tour. You explained the logistics regarding arranging and completing the tour. The conversation ended with a commitment from you to send me an updated agreement via email. You told me it would be the same agreement as the original one that I signed, but with an added cancellation clause. I never received that email from you.

Here is the detail from my cell phone bill:
2/12 10:38 AM 760-692-5251 11 Peak --

I can tolerate a lot of things, but I will not tolerate being called a liar.
 
Hey Dr. Heuer

Our intention was never to offend you but as I stated it puts us in a really tough position when someone posts something we feel is not totally accurate. I do want to avoid a back and forth dialogue so I do hope that we can both move on from this and wish each other the best. And I do sincerely apologize if I upset you in any way.
 
Matt Strom said:
it puts us in a really tough position when someone posts something we feel is not totally accurate.
Click to expand...
Really? There was absolutely nothing inaccurate or exaggerated in my statements.

You said, “That Wednesday I never received your call.” FALSE – see above post. We talked that day, but you didn’t follow through on an action item after the call. Maybe you misplaced your notes. You were probably inundated with requests after the radio show was published. Mistakes happen, but instead of owning that mistake, you chose to call me a liar and imply that I was flaky. Really bad move to say that you, "need to state the facts to protect us from undeserved damage."

I want to be very clear because the ODwire community has a right to know how Tru manages commitments and clients. This wasn’t my first disappointing experience with a Tru employee, and I had tried to give Tru the benefit of the doubt because (a) Jodi was genuinely trying to build a positive relationship, (b) I hoped my experience was an anomaly given all of the positive feedback from other ODwire members, and (c) as a business owner, I appreciate how hard it is to please everyone and recover from inevitable mistakes that occur in day-to-day operations.

My initial instincts suggested that I shouldn’t act on the offer to do a Google tour for my office. Should have listened to my gut.

Matt Strom said:
I do want to avoid a back and forth dialogue so I do hope that we can both move on from this and wish each other the best.
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Same here, I'm done. Best wishes for a successful delivery with the new addition to your family.
 
Hey Dr. Heuer

I'm a small business owner just like yourself. Over 12 years ago I came up with cool simple ways to negotiate for business owners and find them great programs that would save them money and help them attract new business.

If you have an average size practice then our businesses are probably quite similar. Our annual revenues and the number of clients/patients we have are probably about the same.

We are not this huge powerhouse with tens of thousands of clients. We are appreciative for every client we have and every referral we receive from our happy clients.

I totally understand you voicing your frustration in your initial post. After all this is what forums are for. However a lot of OD's just don't know how much damage a simple post can cause.

For example it would have been great to add to your initial post that Matt did work really hard to get in touch with you thru email and phone and that Jodi was very nice to speak with at our office but that you were disappointed at the lack of follow up.

Your post can be compared to a local Yelp review from a patient who states he was disappointed with his service and had a bad experience. After doing some research you realize that the patient received exceptional service but someone had forgotten to get him pricing on a particular set of frames he asked about. Clearly a staff member had dropped the ball in that case and lost what could be a valuable client but your practice still didn't deserve the consequences caused by that complaint.

Clearly what has transpired after than original post is far worse than letting it go and I will take full responsibility, as the owner of the company, to say that this should have been handled much differently.

While no one is perfect, especially myself, Matt overall does an amazing job. He's a great guy, at work and away, and yes he has gotten very busy with this new promotion that we are doing. After speaking with him, I do think its best that we assign another consultant from our company to handle the leads from this great forum. His name is Luis Cardona and he's incredible as well and I'm sure he'll be well received.

Thanks so much for your understanding and I sincerely do appreciate the chance you gave us to earn your business. Your business, and the business of every OD, is incredibly important and I want to use this as an opportunity to learn from and not let potential great clients slip thru our fingers.

Matthew
 
Ready for a fantasy?

Can you imagine the president of a Vision Care Plans coming our forum to apologize?

Maybe one day, when provider ODs realize they have the education,training and license without which Vision Care Plans would be out of business, it will happen.
 
TRU response

Matthew/Matt

Thanks for the quick response to my complaint.

I understand that sometimes things slip through the cracks. I guess that the slow response felt like you were more interested in new business than in existing customers, and that was kind of frustrating.

That's all water under the bridge now. I have submitted the paperwork you sent me and I'm looking forward to setting up the Google Tour soon.

As I mentioned in my first post, I have not had any problems with TRU in the credit card processing department - they have delivered on their promises concerning fees and good service and I highly recommend them for this service.

Now that this miscommunication has been resolved, I anticipate that the implementation of the Google Tour will go smoothly as well.

And Paul - I agree that when the President of a company apologizes on a forum for a mistake his company may have made, it shows an impressive commitment to customer service. Assuming that the follow through is there, that makes me comfortable in my decision to stay with TRU.

I'll keep you posted as to how things go from here.
 
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Good Morning,


Recently I have been receiving messages about Google+ pages and if they are really showing up on the first page of Google. The great news is YES they are! Right now if you do a search on Google for "optometrists in (Your City)", you will notice Google+ pages show up on the first page of Google search results. If you went back six or seven months, the highest ranked site was an organic site that an optometrist most likely spent thousands of dollars creating and a couple hundred dollars more each month maintaining. In short, most of the time if a business invests the most on their it website appears first on Google.


Now Google+ Business pages are the new 'Yellow Pages'. When you search in your area, you will see Google+ pages appear on the first page of a search. This is great news because a Google+ page is free and pages appear based on how much content they have! This means having the best Google+ page with pictures, Google Virtual Tours, posts, reviews and Google Hangouts will help your page appear higher in a search. As you know, highest ranked sites are clicked first and your site can be at top!


To put all the pieces together, I looked at how many potential clients are searching for an optometrist in my area. I was surprised to see that depending on the month there were between 70 and 100 new searches for an optometrist. As you can imagine, if you were in the top two Google + pages you would be seen by all of them. If this resulted in just 5 new clients a month or 60 new clients a year who would choose your practice, then become a long term client this would an amazing return on your $0 investment! :)

Of course if you would like assistance on your Google+ page please give us a call or post any questions we are always happy to help. We even would love to give you a Google Virtual Tour and continual Google + page management assistance all at no cost through our Google bundle program.


Thanks, have a Truly great day!
 
Matt Strom said:
Good Morning,


Recently I have been receiving messages about Google+ pages and if they are really showing up on the first page of Google. The great news is YES they are! Right now if you do a search on Google for "optometrists in (Your City)", you will notice Google+ pages show up on the first page of Google search results. If you went back six or seven months, the highest ranked site was an organic site that an optometrist most likely spent thousands of dollars creating and a couple hundred dollars more each month maintaining. In short, most of the time if a business invests the most on their it website appears first on Google.


Now Google+ Business pages are the new 'Yellow Pages'. When you search in your area, you will see Google+ pages appear on the first page of a search. This is great news because a Google+ page is free and pages appear based on how much content they have! This means having the best Google+ page with pictures, Google Virtual Tours, posts, reviews and Google Hangouts will help your page appear higher in a search. As you know, highest ranked sites are clicked first and your site can be at top!


To put all the pieces together, I looked at how many potential clients are searching for an optometrist in my area. I was surprised to see that depending on the month there were between 70 and 100 new searches for an optometrist. As you can imagine, if you were in the top two Google + pages you would be seen by all of them. If this resulted in just 5 new clients a month or 60 new clients a year who would choose your practice, then become a long term client this would an amazing return on your $0 investment! :)

Of course if you would like assistance on your Google+ page please give us a call or post any questions we are always happy to help. We even would love to give you a Google Virtual Tour and continual Google + page management assistance all at no cost through our Google bundle program.


Thanks, have a Truly great day!
Click to expand...

For those of you take advantage of what appears to be a great opportunity, please give us a progress report once you have signed up and the program is underway.
 
I am as usual astonished that the discussion of Google 360 morphed into such a thread.

Come on folks..it doesn't cost that darn much.
Kind of reminds me of going to a store and seeing something on sale the next week you bought the week before.
Remember, it could just as easily be about you.

How many of you have a patient who comes in and swears they have no insurance, only to return oh....say 6 months later to say..BTW..I do have VSP. Can I get my money back?

If you really want a Google 360 tour, just pay. Its not as though it costs a fortune.

Personally, I think that like glasses, you can shop for your "photographer". There are lists of google approved photographers. They come in with a set of requirements from Google. They take a bunch of pictures, submit them and wait.

Now, I don't know if it will bring me a single solitary patient, but it is very cool. I am trying to cut and paste mine, but even when I go there, I have to click a time or two to get it to come to where the photos reside.
Has anyone else done this?
I have a pretty clean looking lab, but I left it off. I prefer they see the finished product more than the way it is made.

Ok..here goes..Adam..you watching.
http://bit.ly/Dr_Panzer_Map
 
I have a google+ account and uploaded pics of my office to that and they show up....at least the way I searched for my office. Is google 360 just giving you a 360 view inside your office alongside the other pics? I don't see how that's doing much for anyone when you can upload pics on your own. Street view is slow and a teeny bit time consuming to move around.

Looks like Dee Zunker also got to have her name in the 360 photo.

Allan Panzer said:
I am as usual astonished that the discussion of Google 360 morphed into such a thread.

Come on folks..it doesn't cost that darn much.
Kind of reminds me of going to a store and seeing something on sale the next week you bought the week before.
Remember, it could just as easily be about you.

How many of you have a patient who comes in and swears they have no insurance, only to return oh....say 6 months later to say..BTW..I do have VSP. Can I get my money back?

If you really want a Google 360 tour, just pay. Its not as though it costs a fortune.

Personally, I think that like glasses, you can shop for your "photographer". There are lists of google approved photographers. They come in with a set of requirements from Google. They take a bunch of pictures, submit them and wait.

Now, I don't know if it will bring me a single solitary patient, but it is very cool. I am trying to cut and paste mine, but even when I go there, I have to click a time or two to get it to come to where the photos reside.
Has anyone else done this?
I have a pretty clean looking lab, but I left it off. I prefer they see the finished product more than the way it is made.

Ok..here goes..Adam..you watching.
http://bit.ly/Dr_Panzer_Map
Click to expand...
 
Ok, you could certainly use your own photos. I did in the past.
But the 360 is very cool and very high quality. And there is some slight merit to having an approved Google photographer...maybe it moves you up on the google search, maybe not.
You can actually stroll up to the frames and look at them...now that's cool.
Glad I don't have anything good that thieves want to scout.

Are any of you crazy enough to take frames down at night and put them away?

I do. A week or so ago a guy down the road got broken into.
He had cameras, but no alarm.
Next week I am installling the special thick film on my doors to slow them down.
I was broken into March 30. The guy strictly wanted money. Came and went in 30 seconds.
All it cost me was a new front door..............and a bit of lost sleep at 4:10am.

But really, I do see a problem is the thief is smart enough to use it to scout my frames.
 
Interesting issue you brought up....theft. Strange that they only went for cash.

There's that downside to all the public stuff we might advertise whether on Google, FB or other online service.

Allan Panzer said:
Ok, you could certainly use your own photos. I did in the past.
But the 360 is very cool and very high quality. And there is some slight merit to having an approved Google photographer...maybe it moves you up on the google search, maybe not.
You can actually stroll up to the frames and look at them...now that's cool.
Glad I don't have anything good that thieves want to scout.

Are any of you crazy enough to take frames down at night and put them away?

I do. A week or so ago a guy down the road got broken into.
He had cameras, but no alarm.
Next week I am installling the special thick film on my doors to slow them down.
I was broken into March 30. The guy strictly wanted money. Came and went in 30 seconds.
All it cost me was a new front door..............and a bit of lost sleep at 4:10am.

But really, I do see a problem is the thief is smart enough to use it to scout my frames.
Click to expand...
 
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