Dental Marketing Direct

Digital Marketing for Dental Offices

Reputation Management

How to Get More Online Reviews for Your Dental Practice

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According to a 2012 survey by SearchEngineLand, almost three-quarters of consumers trust online reviews as much as they do personal recommendations. The year 2016 is almost upon us and if you are still ignoring online reviews then you better wake up. In this article we explain how you can get more of your dental patients to give online reviews.

get more reviews

Get Listed on Local Business Directories

Make sure your practice is listed on as many third-party sites as possible so that patients can find you on their favorite website if they feel like writing a review. This will get you some reviews organically over time i.e. without specially asking patients.

Add Review Links/Buttons on Your Websites

Your website is where patients go to when they need information about your office. By having review buttons on prominent places you can direct some of these patients to third-party sites to write a review on your local listing. You can also create a separate page on your website where links to all your local listings and 3rd party sites are available. Then link to this page from prominent places on your website.

Distribute Handout

Prepare step-by-step instructions for writing a review on various sites e.g. (google+, yelp, angeslist etc.) on a one-sided handout. Then prepare copies of these handouts and distribute them to patients visiting your office. Make sure you only request a review from patients who have been visiting your office for several years as they are more likely to post a positive review.

Personal eMail

In addition to giving instructions in hard copy, you can send them the review link and instructions by email. Although it may be a problem for senior patients who do not use email, it will be easier and preferable for most patients to get the review links and instructions via email.

Phone Call

Almost every dental patient uses a phone. You can hand pick 20 odd patients and call them personally asking for a review. Also give them review instructions handout as well as a personal follow up email. This will increase your chances of getting a review.

Social Media Request

Ask your fans and followers on facebook and twitter to post a review by giving them a review link in your status or post. The good thing is that you can do this at least once a month and just collecting 2 reviews per month would give your dental office 24 reviews by the end of the year.

Ask Reviewers to Write on Another Site

If you know that a certain patient has given your dental practice a positive review, you can request them to review your dental office on a another website. You can ask them again after 5-6 months to post their feedback on another website and then another after a year. This way you can populate several of your local listings with positive reviews coming from a single patient.

My Dental Office Received a Negative Review! Now What?

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So you logged into Yelp, Google+ or another review site and found that somebody has left bad review on your listing. This is a common occurrence which every dentist would experience at least once in their professional career. But what do you do next? There is no need to panic because this post addresses that exact question.

negative online reviews

Ignore Completely

The most obvious thing you can do is not do anything. If you already have dozens of positive review on your profile, a couple of negative reviews will not affect your overall rating. In fact they may even make your rating more legitimate. Let’s be honest, it is rare for a dental office to get perfect 5 star rating from all its patients. Thus if you already have a high number of positive reviews, you can ignore a few bad reviews. They will make your ratings appear more natural and legitimate to a prospective dental patient.

Contact the Website

If you believe the review is unwarranted, malicious or mistaken, you can request the website authorities to take manual action. Most local business directories allow businesses to flag suspicious reviews posted on their profile. They may request the review poster for proof of payment like a billing receipt and if the review was found to be fake, you will be able to have it removed from your listing. This is not easy as it sounds because the process can take a long and is often unsuccessful. However, if you have the time and patience to go back and forth with the website authorities, you can get fake negative reviews removed.

Respond Politely

Replying to negative reviews correctly can neutralize the damage done by them. At the same time, a bad reply can make you look defensive and immature. Some patients are genuinely angry or hurt and responding to their review no matter how politely could provoke them even further. They may take your response personal and become vengeful – posting bad reviews on your other local listings. Ignoring such reviews is recommended.

The first thing you must do in your reply is to acknowledge the problem. Whether it was the waiting time, cancelled appointment, billing issue, quality of dental work or anything else, make sure you identify the problem  and explain how your dental office minimizes such incidents. Next try to reconcile the with the patient by suggesting a full/partial refund or free/discounted corrective treatment or a free consultation. Try to keep your reply brief and too the point using a polite, diplomatic tone. The aim should be to take the issue offline so that you can resolve the issue without heading into a back and forth argument on your local listing.

Monitor the Online Reputation of Your Dental Office FREE

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Online reputation management has become increasingly important as a growing number of patient now read online reviews before calling or visiting a dental office. As a dentist, it is satisfying to see that your patients are happy with  your services when you find positive feedback left by patients on your local business listings. Local residents also rely on these reviews to form opinions about your practice. Therefore it is important that you regularly monitor and improve your online reputation.

In this post I will tell you how to track mentions of your name, practice name and other brand mentions on the web absolutely free. You can do this by setting up Google Alerts. Google Alerts Settings

Make sure you add very specific search queries and select the appropriate channel, otherwise you will end up receiving too many irrelevant alerts in your email inbox. Given below are some example queries I use to setup Google Alerts.

  • dental marketing direct
  • dentalmarketingdirect.com
  • rafay
  • rafay marketing
  • info@dentalmarketingdirect.com
  • dental marketing direct reviews
  • dental marketing direct scam
  • rafay scam
  • dental marketing direct refund
  • dental marketing direct rip off

You can also search your name and practice name in google and note down what search suggestions google shows. Then setup google alerts on those search terms. The main thing you want to track is negative feedback and mentions so you can respond to them quickly and manage any issues before things get out of hand.