Dental Startup Tip | How to Ask for an Online Review [FREE DOWNLOAD]
Word-of-Mouth
Our dental office has monthly meetings, and almost every meeting is centered around how our Harbor Team can make the patient experience better. From the convenience of online scheduling to the small details (Netflix, neck pillows, etc) that make each and every dental appointment more positive and stress-free.
The greatest metric to gauge our improvement is direct responses from the patients themselves - “Wow, that was easy!” or “Was that the shot?! I didn’t feel anything!” - we love this. Also, a lot of patients also find out about us through traditional word-of-mouth. This is tried and true, but not always the most efficient in the fast-moving world that we live in.
Online Reviews
As you might’ve guessed, one of our greatest methods of reaching new patients is through online reviews. Online reputation is changing the way younger generations interact with businesses. Everything we do from browsing Amazon to rating our Ubers is centered around feedback. There are many reputation management software companies - Birdeye, Swell, Podium to name a few - that practices can use to facilitate this process and filter out negativity. In my opinion, it’s a pseudo-organic method and can often come across as “spammy” to patients. I get it though, some people prefer to “shoot their shot” and aren’t afraid to swing and miss, no judgement if it works for you.
Google My Business
Instead of sending out mass emails and texts, our office has taken a more subtle, grassroots approach to generate reviews. Our basis is pretty simple - if a patient says something positive or nice about our office we send them a review link after their appointment. The link takes people straight to Google’s review platform can be found in your Google My Business listing.
PRO TIP: If someone has a Gmail listed in their submitted contact, they are more likely to yield a Google review since their smartphone is usually already logged on/synced with their Gmail app.
A quick aside about myself… I’m not the type of person that likes to ask for a review. Some people are, I’m not. I’ve told our team that if we truly deliver an exceptional experience, the reviews will take care of themselves. This is true, but also an oversimplification - there are often a lot of missed opportunities. The fact is, many patients are looking to reciprocate and don’t know how - reviews can mutually fill this void.
TL;DR | Our Tip
One of the best ways that we’ve been able to allow patients to reciprocate after their 5-star experiences is by having a simple sign at our checkout that tells them how they can help us out! It’s short and simple, and only takes a glance to get the point across.
“If you enjoyed your visit, the greatest compliment to us is an online review.”
We added a QR code to make it even easier for them to navigate to where they need to go. You can use any free QR generator app, we used QR Code Monkey. In this post-COVID era, even Boomers know how to use QR codes. Feel free to download and modify the file attached below for your practice and hopefully it will help your patients “spread the word” after their awesome experience.
Check out our Checkout Sign 😜
👇🏼 Free TEMPLATE Download 👇🏼
You create a FREE Canva account and CLICK HERE to download the template of this Checkout Sign and customize it towards your practice! A FREE custom QR code with your logo can be created with QR Code Monkey. 🤙🏼
You can get these Clear Stands from Amazon to help display notices and these types of messages. You can get a free stock background photo from Pexels.