In March 2020, popular review websites, including Google and Yelp, temporarily disabled business reviews to avoid misconceptions and bad reviews due to COVID-19 spreading in North America. While this measure did not last long, it reinforced the impact that public reviews have on small businesses such as dental practices.
We have discussed the prevalence of reviews for dental practices before. Online reviews and public ratings of your practice are a significant factor for appealing to prospective patients. Learning about your patients’ perspectives also help your team improve their social skills and treatment quality by providing an opportunity for more empathy and understanding, which, in turn, may alleviate patient anxieties. On top of using reviews to improve patient experiences, reviews are an excellent resource when establishing your practice’s KPIs. Understanding patient perceptions can often be just as insightful as numerical data.
Reviews are just as important as ever, but dental providers and their teams do not have much time to focus on reputation management. Catching up on dental treatments has taken the forefront for thousands of offices where patients are months behind their due dates for hygiene, restorations, and various other procedures. Having a review management system in place works in the background while your team focuses on providing outstanding treatment. Having a review manager is generally simple to maintain, especially if incorporated directly into your practice management software.
How does review management software work?
There are different processes for different review management systems. Typically, emails or texts prompt patients to select a pre-made rating (for instance, a thumbs up/thumbs down option) or ask patients to click a button, leading them to a web page where they can leave their review. Webpage reviews allow for more in-depth reviews but may result in fewer responses.
Once you have your software set up to fit your office’s unique needs, you can send a follow-up email or text message to patients that you have treated on a specific day. Sending same-day emails and texts is typically the best course of action because the experience is still fresh in your patient’s mind. The email messages invite patients to navigate to a page where they can rate their experience at your clinic.
Positive reviews result in encouragement to post online, such as to Google Business or Yelp. Negative or neutral feedback encourages the patient to reach out to your office by leaving a comment or calling your office instead of posting a harsh review. Your team can personally reach out to any ratings that are not positive, allowing the patient to feel heard. Personalized responses to bad reviews also provide an excellent opportunity to evaluate which aspects your practice may require improvement.
If you are interested in ABELDent’s review management software, feel free to reach out to get in control of your practice’s online reputation.
