Grow Your Dental Practice With Online Reviews

For decades, consumers turn to friends, family, and neighbors for recommendations on local service professionals, such as doctors and dentists. 

Today, the online world has made it even easier for consumers to get social proof. They can gather information on review sites and social media to guide their decision-making. In fact:

• 85% of consumers rely on online reviews as much as they do personal recommendations and 73% of them trust a business more after reading positive reviews.
• 80% of consumers would change their minds about using a service provider based on online reviews and ratings.
• Two-thirds of people won’t visit a business if it has 1-3 bad reviews.
• 80% of consumers use social media to get advice on products and services.
• Displaying online reviews can increase conversion rates by as much as 270%.

Getting stellar reviews helps you build an online reputation that will give you a competitive advantage. It allows you to build brand awareness, increase trust, and boost your search engine ranking.

How To Build an Online Reputation with Reviews To Get More Patients

When potential patients search online, they should see accurate information about your practice. You need to actively manage your online image by creating content that appeals to prospects, as well as monitoring comments, feedback, and mentions so you can respond to them promptly. Here’s how:

• Post positive reviews to your online profiles regularly. Most consumers only read recent reviews while fresh content helps improve SEO ranking.
• Share helpful and valuable information on your website and online profiles (e.g., social media, third-party sites) to build trust and credibility.
• Publish press release on news about your practice, such as upgraded treatment offerings, new hires, and participation in local community events, to show that your business is active.
• Optimize your profiles on social media, third-party review sites (e.g., Yelp, Google), and online directories. Complete your profile, update the information regularly, and add photos and videos to accelerate the “like, know, and trust” factor.
• Claim your listing on sites such as Google My Business and Yelp so you can proactively manage reviews, track page views, and update your business information.
• Monitor all your profiles and respond to reviews and comments, as 30% of consumers considering this important. Many use average response time and response rate to gauge the quality of a business’s customer service and decide if they’d get in touch or book an appointment.
• Use reviews to aid staff training and identify minor issues before they turn into major problems. Respond to comments promptly and use the opportunity to position your business as a patient-centered practice. 

How To Implement an Online Review Strategy

Don’t leave your online reputation up to chance. Instead, implement an online review strategy to proactively ask for reviews and manage your online profiles:

• Implement a standard workflow to gather patient feedback immediately after a visit. While writing a review may not be top of mind for your patients, 68% of consumers would leave a local business review when asked.
• Train your staff to ask for patient reviews. E.g., by having a friendly conversation at checkout and asking patients that are happy with the experience to write a review right away.
• Use a patient survey tool, such as tab32’s HelloPatient module, which allows you to integrate with Google’s survey and publish patient reviews directly to Google.
• Automate post-treatment follow-up emails that include links to your online profiles and encourage patients to post a review.
• Share links, screenshots, or videos of positive customer reviews on your website, social media pages, and email newsletter. 
• Encourage patients to use their real names and locations when posting reviews. These reviews are perceived to be more trustworthy and are 15% more effective in driving conversions.

80% of patients use online reviews to evaluate dentists. Positive reviews help you increase visibility, attract new patients, and improve your local SEO.

Using tab32’s HelloPatient module, you can integrate your online review strategy seamlessly into your internal workflow and patient experience so you can build patient relationships, leverage word-of-mouth marketing, and reinforce your online reputation to drive sustainable growth.

Patient Communications

Delivering a care experience that extends beyond the four walls of your clinic and the time of the visit can help you cultivate long-term patient relationships so you can improve loyalty and retention rates. 

Responsive, timely, and targeted patient communication is key to building trust and relationships with your patients. You need to implement the right technologies so you can deliver such personalized experience at scale without putting a strain on your resources.

tab32’s HelloPatient module allows you to manage patient communications so you can stay top of mind between visits, deliver comprehensive pre- and post-visit information to improve patient outcomes, and provide on-demand care to augment the patient experience.

With our 2-way text, email, and secure messaging, you can automate workflows for appointment confirmation and reminders, online patient intake, re-care reminders, patient surveys, and easy online scheduling.