As a dental clinic, a major goal for your office is building up your online reputation and establishing your credibility to bring in more new patients. One aspect that must be considered in your reputation management strategy is, of course, online patient reviews.
Reviews from your current patients fuel your local search engine optimization (SEO) tactics. Negative reviews are obviously a big concern and knowing how to handle them is just as important as knowing how to promote more positive reviews for your online listing.
Both positive and negative reviews play an important role in your reputation management strategy. Most review websites allow the business owner the ability to reply to reviews and share your experience with a patient, and that’s important. In fact, it is essential that you respond to and interact with both positive and negative reviews that are left for your practice.
Always think about your patients at the end of the day. Who is going to walk through your door if all you have is negative reviews or, perhaps even worse, no reviews at all? A mix of good and bad reviews is essential to building your reputation, with about 90% of people searching for a business online being influenced by a positive review just as much as they are a personal recommendation from a friend.
When it comes to SEO, search engines also give your business more attention when you have positive reviews online. Search engines are placing more and more importance on having recent, quality reviews from people that have visited your office.
To get more positive reviews, all you truly must do is ask. About 68% of survey respondents say they will leave a review if a local business asks them to. Your office can also take advantage of programs like the Patient Reviews & Reputation Management program from DIGI Search to make the process even easier. By sending the patient a text message, you can easily allow them to leave a 5-star review for your practice without having to search for your social pages.
At the end of the day, bringing in new reviews should be an on-going effort for your practice. Even once you have a sizable number of reviews published, always try to keep them coming in to keep driving new patients into your office.
