How to Increase Your Online Reviews
Searching online for a physician, mechanic, nail technician, and dentist is standard nowadays.
While word of mouth is still the gold marketing standard, online reviews are the platinum standard. Your online presence, especially positive reviews, will help grow your business.
Our social media accounts were created as soon as we opened in January 2012. At first, our social media accounts were Facebook, Google, Yelp, and Oh My! Currently, we have 969 reviews on Google, and it took 12 years to reach 969 reviews, but I found software to help boost my reviews to the next level last year. It has helped double our average monthly reviews this past year to 20, with our highest number being 69 in August 2023.
This article will share tips and tricks for increasing your office reviews.
Ask for Reviews in Person
Our team members are trained to ask for reviews. We don’t ask for a review from every patient, just the ones who enjoy and love their experience at our dental office.
For example, the patients who leave saying the team member’s name and leave with a smile. When patients get checked out, we ask how they enjoyed their visit. If they rave about the team, ask them to write a review.
Doctors should not be intimidated to ask for a review. Remember, if they do it for anyone in the office, they will do it for you. Say something like, “Sally, I really appreciate you being a patient here. Would you write a review for our practice?”
We also made review business cards for team members to give out. It has the QR code for Google review on the card and a spot for our team members to write their names.
We love personalized reviews with team members’ names listed. Reading these reviews to your team is a great way to start your morning huddle.
Ask for Reviews by Text
All communication systems for confirming appointments offer review text. Do not hand-select who the reviews are sent to. Instead, let your system automatically message all patients seen.
One of the doctors I was helping would hand-select reviews, and their offices hardly had any reviews. Once they changed their review text to send to all patients seen, their reviews started growing.
A good tip is to ask your communication system if you can manually stop a review text from sending. For example, if a patient is unhappy, stop that text from being sent that evening.
As a routine, we have review texts sent to patients in the early evening. Typically, we receive the majority of our reviews in the evening.
Communication System Relationship with Google
While they will send a text message to each patient after their visit, there are communication systems in partnership with Google.
What does this mean?
The link sent to the patient for Google doesn’t require the customer to sign in to their Google account. Making the review more seam-less will get customers to write reviews. This makes a difference! If more steps are required, customers will not complete the review because of the extra steps.
I have heard of pop-ups asking you to rate your experience from 1- 10. If they say 10, it prompts the Google review. I wouldn’t recommend adding more steps to your reviews; the fewer steps, the more reviews you will get. It is that simple.
An enhanced text for a review should have a picture of the doctor and wording that the doctor themselves are asking for the review.
Focus on GOOGLE
Google, Facebook, or Yelp?
Focus your energy on Google reviews. Put a few reviews on Facebook and less on Yelp, but mostly, all your energy should go to Google reviews.
Not only do potential patients read Google reviews, but Google reviews influence your local search ranking, making your business more visible in searches. Positive reviews will help you stand out from competitors and bring more patients to your practice.
Make sure your Google business is up to date with professional pictures and information about your practice.
Online booking is also a great feature to include in your Google business. I wouldn’t recommend sending your reviews to a non-name review page.
When I first started dentistry, many communication systems had review landing pages specific to your office; don’t waste time on these. These landing pages can’t compete with Google’s audience and searches.
Another tip is if you are a multi-specialty office, you may want to create Google departments for these specialties. Currently, we have added one for our Pediatric side. Our goal was to get Google reviews on the pediatric department so that we are more visible when patients Google pediatric dentists.
Responding to Reviews: Positive and Negative
Always respond to the reviews, whether they are good or bad. You are not only responding to the patient who wrote the review; You have an audience of potential patients reading your response.
Good reviews are easy. Thank your patient for their kind words and for taking the time to write a review- keep it short and sweet.
Now, for the bad reviews, don’t argue with the patient; this is not the place for it. If a patient wrote an off-the-wall review, guess what? The audience would read it as that.
These are some review responses I have used in the past:
“I am sorry that your experience with us wasn’t positive. We would be more than happy to go over your billing statement and your insurance plan. Contact us at your earliest convenience at XXX-XXX-XXXX.”
“We appreciate when our patients take time to review our practice. Unfortunately, we are not able to identify you from a Google+ account or by name. If you’re a patient of record, please give us a call at XXX-XXX-XXXX. We would love to help.”
Don’t make the mistake of not responding to a bad review.
I recommend that you bury that negative review with good reviews. I would hand-select some patients and send them the link with a personalized message to do you a favor and write a review. Not all negative reviews are terrible. Although we strive for a 5-star review, a slightly less-than-perfect ranking makes your reviews more credible.
Have you ever searched for something and saw over 1000 reviews with only five stars? As a potential customer, I would think the reviews are fake.
A good tip for a negative review on Google is that if the review is written by a third party who is not a customer, Google will remove it. You must report to Google, and those negative reviews will be removed.
For example, “My friend went to your office, and they hated you!” That can be removed. Besides removing third-party reviews, reviews are hard to remove unless you get litigation involved.
Reviews are a vital marketing resource for your dental office. Get strategic with how you ask for reviews. Getting a review communication service that partners with Google will be a great investment in increasing your reviews. If you are a starter practice and want to do this, organically get your team involved.
About the Author
Vanessa Escobar, DAADOM
Vanessa grew up in Central Florida and graduated from Cypress Creek HS in 2004. She then attended Florida State University and earned a Bachelor’s of Science in International Affairs with a Minor in Business Administration in 2009.
Vanessa started with Winter Garden Smiles since pre-opening in December 2011. Vanessa is responsible for overseeing the finance, operations, and marketing of the Winter Garden Smiles & Winter Garden Pediatric Smiles. Her goal is to provide the highest level of customer service to her patients.
She enjoys having an active role in her community. She has participated in organizations such as Lambda Theta Alpha, Central/North Florida Alzheimers Association, Leadership West Orange C/O 2013-2014, Voci Del Coure in 2017, Garden Community Choir, and her neighborhood social committee.
She is currently the Founding President of the Central Florida Dental Connection, DPLN, and was inducted as MAADOM class of 2022 and DAADOM class of 2024.
During her time off, Vanessa enjoys spending time with her husband, Ricardo, and her kids. She has two dogs, Princess and Balto. She also enjoys singing, traveling, trying new restaurants, and indoor cycling.
