As a dental professional, you may see other practices with dozens of positive patient reviews and think “How can I get there?” Make it a step-by-step team effort, and set clear, attainable goals.
If you’ve been reading our blog posts, you know that we talk a lot about the value of online reviews in dental digital marketing. It can’t be overstated: positive, credible online patient reviews are among your most powerful marketing tools. How many you have can be the deciding factor between potential patients scheduling an appointment with you or choosing one of your local competitors. In fact, 84 percent of people say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
We trust we don’t need to say much to convince you of how important positive reviews and word-of-mouth are for growing your practice. But when the rubber hits the road and you actually have to request a review from a patient, things can get a little more complicated. When’s the right time to bring it up? Should you be asking EVERY patient for a review? How can you make sure they actually write one?
Effectively obtaining a review from a patient doesn’t start during their appointment. It starts by creating a plan with your entire team. Don’t set your team up to fail by just saying “OK everyone, we need to get out there today and ask for lots of reviews!” Instead, decide together who will be asking for reviews that day and have them report on how it goes. You know which team members have the closest relationships with each patient. Set them up for success!
Don’t think you have to get a review from every patient to be successful. Many of our clients who have had the most success with reviews only get a few each week. They ask the patients who love their practice and who they suspect would be happy to leave a review. Over time, the number of reviews grows — just three per week will leave you with over 100 by the end of the year!
Begin with a goal of two patients writing you a review from their phone each week. If a patient writes you a review from their phone during their appointment, you don’t need to worry about them forgetting to do it once they return to their busy lives. Our MSP Reviews service offers seamless integration with the three biggest platforms for dental practice reviews — Google, Facebook, and Healthgrades — allowing patients to leave you a review from their phone in just a few taps.
While these tips are a great place to start, we’ve just scratched the surface of how to implement an effective reviews strategy in your practice. We suggest you read our free ebook below for more in-depth strategy, and speak with us about how MSP Reviews can help you easily obtain patient reviews and grow your business.
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About the Author: Blake Hadley is a dental digital marketing expert and one of the founding members of My Social Practice. My Social Practice is a dental marketing services company located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Blake is passionate about helping dental practices grow. If you’d like to book Blake or one of the other members of My Social Practice’s speaking team, you can do that HERE. Interested in learning more about the benefits of SEO for dental practices or our agile dental website development service, you can learn more here.
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