There was a time when you built your reputation as a dental practitioner solely on word-of-mouth reviews of your patients. However, people rely on online reviews of dental practitioners to judge their value and reputation. Regardless of how well you treat your patients or how great your skill is, what your patients say about your service is more important than what you think about your practice.
It takes a patient just 1 to 6 reviews to form an opinion about their doctor’s practice. Moreover, the reason why dental marketing is important is because 71% of patients turn to online reviews when finding a new doctor.
Effective Habits to Get More Reviews
1. Set up a Business Profile
34% of the respondents said they went to dental websites to look for reviews, while 29% reached out to Google. Since Google takes a chunk of the pie, you should create your dental practice profile on Google maps. Make the profile look professional by including the address, link to your website, pictures and years of experience and more. Create a review shortcut link and paste it on your web page.
2. Ask for Reviews
The easy way to get reviews for your dental practice is by asking for them. You can send review requests either by text message or email. A review request is generally sent a day after the appointment. The content of the text need not be too wordy; a simple request with a review link would suffice.
However, if you choose email requests, you can be more descriptive and connect with your entire patient contact list with a single mail.
3. Automate the Requests
By automating this task, you can routinely send review requests to your patients after their appointment. This way, you can avoid errors or delays in sending the requests.
4. Keep an eye on the Reviews Written.
It is not enough to garner reviews; you should also monitor those comments. Reviews could be both positive and negative, and there could be trolls creating negative reviews. Positive reviews can help you understand your dental practice more thoroughly, and negative ones can let you know where you might need improvement.
5. Keep up the Conversation with the Reviewers
Engaging with your online reviewers creates a positive image of your dental practice and makes it seem more approachable and credible. You needn’t react to every negative post out there, but you can certainly address genuine patients to find out the reasons for their disapproval.
6. Try to Provide a Wholesome Experience to Patients
Above all, in addition to dental SEO, try to provide a wholesome and satisfactory journey to your patients. A happy and satisfied patient is more bound to give you positive reviews without being asked for it.
Wrapping Up
When you improve the healthcare experience of your patients, your practice can reap many benefits from dental marketing. Since patients take online recommendations and reviews seriously, you should use them to your advantage. Take it slow, and make it a habit.