Reputation Management for Dentists- Tips and Strategies for Getting Positive Online Reviews
July 10, 2023
Today, dentists need to manage their online reputations and proactively seek positive patient reviews. Here are four vital tips, ideas and strategies to help your dental practice maintain a positive reputation and use reviews to win new patients.
Word of mouth referrals have always been gold for dental practices. When a patient tells their friends and family that your dental care was superb, there’s a great chance you’ll be getting a new appointment.
Word of mouth still happens (thankfully), but in the world of smartphones, it’s often not face-to-face and often not from a friend. People listen to recommendations from strangers — online.
Today people access online reviews — and lots of them. It’s not unusual for a business to have more than 100 reviews, crossing multiple platforms that include social media and designated dental or medical review websites.
This all results in a great deal of influential marketing content about your dental practice, with one caveat: you’re not the one creating it.
The user-generated content of reviews — at least initially — threw many dental and medical professionals for a loop. Suddenly, there were published statements about your practice coming from unknown sources, and not all of it was good.
Some reviews were outright libelous, repetitive or stream of conscious rants. Many reviews were positive and nice, if not particularly detailed.
Whatever the quality of the reviews, they had an impact — just like word of mouth between neighbors. And each year, that impact increased.
Today, online reviews are like the jury in a trial. After the evidence is presented by all parties, reviews have the final say.
If they give a thumbs-up, you have a good chance of getting a new patient. If thumbs are down — or if you simply don’t have enough reviews for someone to form an opinion — all other efforts to persuade prospective patients may fall short. They’ll choose a dentist that has a better reputation.
So what can you do to gain an element of control with this content? Here are some ideas on how to get reviews working for you.
#1. Your work is your reputation
There is good news when it comes to reputation management. You do have control — a lot of control.
This is not control over what’s said in the review — that’s on your patients. You control the topic of the review itself — your work.
In the era of online reviews, your work — and the perception you create by the way you and your staff treat patients — is really the underlying story. We’ve found that if your work is professional, fair and compassionate, it will be reflected in your reviews.
If you provide solid value and go out of your way to make patients comfortable, you’ll be on solid ground with reviews. Perhaps most importantly, if you have a customer-centric business model where you prioritize the needs of your patients, it will result in a strong review profile.
On dental reviews, patients comment most often on how everyone in the practice made them feel comfortable and at ease. People get nervous going to the dentist, so relieving that fear goes a long way toward having happy patients.
We also notice that keeping a schedule is vital. If you regularly keep people in the waiting room well past their appointment, it’s likely to come out in the reviews. Likewise, making the process of dealing with insurance and payments as smooth as possible reflects well on your office.
This is all assuming, of course, that you do excellent dental work. Very few medical professionals are outright sloppy in the execution of procedures, so the main thing is that you explain what you’re doing so patients are clear on it.
Also, many dental reviews mention not only the doctor but also the staff. Make sure your hygienists and office staff prioritize taking care of patients. Reviews really are about the whole experience at a dental practice, not just the dental care itself.
Your priority in reputation management is first and foremost the reputation part. If that’s strong, the rest will fall into place.
#2. Ask clients for reviews
Consumers today are more inclined to leave reviews. People are accustomed to having reviews be part of their activities on major platforms, like Facebook, Google and Amazon.
But for dental practices, it still helps to nudge people, particularly if you need to get more reviews on a particular platform. We’ve found the most effective way to do this with an email follow-up.
This email template, for example, links to a review site if the experience was good and opens a feedback form if it was not good.
This tactic works for Google, Facebook, Top Rated Local® and Home Advisor. However, don’t use it to get Yelp reviews, as they are likely to get filtered because of their policies on not soliciting reviews.
Many pleased patients will be happy to leave you a review. This is important for newer dental practices building a review profile, but it’s also a good idea for established businesses because you want to have recent reviews. If nobody has left you a review in six months or more, it may create concern in prospective patients.
Important question: Should I offer incentives for reviews?
You can take the request strategy a bit further and actually offer clients an incentive — like a discount on a procedure — if they agree to leave you a positive review.
If you’re struggling to get reviews or you need to suppress a series of negative reviews, you might consider an incentive. However, for the most part, we’d suggest against it.
As we said, consumers today are much more accustomed to online reviews, so just asking is usually enough. Also, if the quality of your work delights people, they’ll be motivated to leave you a review based on that.
On the negative side, creating an incentive for a positive review may smack of desperation or shiftiness, which is not the image you want to portray for your brand.
It’s also against the rules on many review sites.
#3. Respond to reviews and welcome feedback
One action many dentists overlook in building their reputation is how reviews offer an opportunity to communicate with patients. You don’t just have to read reviews — you can expand on them with your comments.
When you respond to reviews, do so with purpose.
First, if there is a negative review, give a detailed response to clarify the situation and explain what you did to rectify the problem. With the proper response, you can turn a negative into a positive.
Second, expand on the topic of the review when responding to positive reviews. Clarify the benefit you delivered to the patient — particularly when they’re vague about it (many positive dental reviews say the practice is “awesome,” but do little to elaborate).
For example, say a positive review alludes to how you always start appointments on time. You thank the reviewer, then offer a few details on how you always do your best to adhere to a schedule and make sure your waiting room doesn’t intern people. This makes the review a more powerful piece of marketing.
You can simply thank people for a positive review, but you don’t have to do so repeatedly. Instead, try to make your responses relevant. Mention something new people might not know about your practice. Avoid going into a sales pitch as well. These people are already patients, so no need to turn your response into an advertisement.
Google states that responding to reviews and having more positive reviews helps with local rankings via your Google Business Profile account, so stay active there.
Facebook is also a good place to turn reviews into a dialogue. Be sure to respond to posts where someone comments on or recommends your practice.
Look through your reviews for feedback that can improve your work and language that will help you tighten your value proposition. Use constructive criticism to make improvements. If you hear the same positive statements in many reviews, integrate it into your marketing message. Your patients are telling you what they love about you, and that’s likely to motivate new prospects.
Important idea: Perfect is overrated
It’s interesting to note that data shows that websites convert better when they don’t have a perfect review profile.
Consumers are skeptical, and when they see a perfect 5.0-star rating, they get suspicious. They wonder that this is “too good to be true” and think maybe the business is tampering with things.
A few comments that reflect the fact that you have people working for you (who aren’t perfect) give your profile some authenticity.
Many of the best dental offices have close-to-perfect reviews, and that’s fine in the medical vertical. Your work is precise, so there shouldn’t be egregious errors happening that result in devastating reviews.
But if you get a lower rating that offers reasonable, constructive criticism, leave it be. Authenticity is better than perfection with online reviews.
#4. Centralize reviews and monitor your brand
We’ve actually crossed a threshold with online reviews. It used to be that most dental practices had too few reviews. Now many dentists have too many.
A dental practice that’s been getting reviews for a few years could have a hundred or more reviews across multiple platforms, which can be somewhat self-defeating.
The problem is that prospects are having an increasingly difficult time answering the most important question: Can I trust this practice to keep its promises and deliver great dental care for my family?
Across platforms, there are too many reviews and of those, many are too vague to be useful. There are many high-rated reviews, then suddenly a one-star bomb. It becomes kind of wash where the prospect remains uncertain about what they’ll get from a dentist.
It’s for this reason that we’ve created the Rating Score™ system, which aggregates ratings from all verified review sites then gives one overall rating for the business:
This system allows business owners to keep track of their online reputations with relative ease, using centralized management software that tracks review growth and ratings. From here you can link to each site where you have reviews, respond as needed and make sure your reputation is working to help you generate leads and grow your practice.
Reputation matters more than ever for dental practices. If your online reviews are not reflective of the excellent care you provide, check out our reputation management software and talk with one of our reputation management specialists. We can help make sure your online reviews support your practice with authentic, positive patient reviews. Looking to boost your dentist marketing strategies? Learn more and sign up for your free trial.
Originally published on 9/27/18
Get Plans and Pricing Below
Get the know-how to get ahead
Get business, marketing and sales tips written by experienced industry practitioners. 100% free. Cancel anytime.