Special to the WSDA News · Diana P. Friedman, Sesame Communications For most consumers, online reviews have become integral to their buying decisions. A recent study found that 70 percent of people consult online reviews before making a purchase.1 More than 80 percent of consumers considered user generated reviews valuable or extremely valuable.1 Consumers searching for dentists are no exception to this trend, as 70 percent of patients say that online reviews are as important as the dentist’s credentials.2 It’s evident that online reviews influence prospective patients when they choose a new dental care provider. The challenge for practices is to ensure their patient reviews get in front of the right audience at the right time in the decision making process —those actively seeking to find a new dental care provider and schedule an appointment. There is so much discussion today around online reviews, at times it can be overwhelming. Here are three easy ways to use online reviews to generate more new patient appointments.
Three valuable online review strategies
Publish your reviews where prospective patients are looking for a new dental care provider—This may seem like a simple step but not all published reviews get in front of prospective patients outside of major search engine results. The easiest way to do this is to make sure the site that publishes your online reviews generates its own prospective patient search traffic and offers tools for conversion. A recent entry into the dental industry, Healthgrades serves as a powerful example of this. Healthgrades drives 220 million consumer visitors each year, and on the medical front has demonstrated an impressive 54 percent conversion to appointments. Healthgrades has offered free standard dental profiles for years and recently partnered with Sesame Communications to bring Enhanced Profiles to dental care providers. With an Enhanced Profile, your high quality, verified patient reviews are automatically populated along with functionality for prospective patients to click-to-request an appointment. With more than 20 million dental searches per year, this is the type of site where you want your online review published. Monitor all reviews to guard your reputation—As much as you try to offer the best possible patient experience, there are times when a negative review surfaces. While it’s easy to identify negative reviews from your verified post appointment surveys, it’s a little trickier to keep track of reviews across the Internet. Your best bet here is to get help from a vendor with software that does the scanning for you. An effective strategy to combat negative reviews is to generate and publish enough positive reviews to place the odd negative one in the right perspective. With the overwhelming influence that online reviews have on prospective patients, you want to make sure you know when less than stellar reviews take place. Be quick to address all negative reviews—Dental care providers, like most people, do not like conflict. Dealing with negative reviews is never fun. However, the speed in which you contact patients who post negative reviews can have a dramatic impact on your practice. When a negative review is identified, contact the reviewer as soon as possible. Seek to understand the issue, apologize when appropriate (even when it may feel unreasonable) and then ask the reviewer to re-submit a revised review. The best review sites (including the one where you publish reviews) will override an older review with a later review from the same patient. This will ensure your practice is presented in the best (and accurate) light. The longer you wait to address the negative review, the more difficult it will be to reach a mutually beneficial resolution.
Final thoughts
Online reviews are second only to personal recommendations when prospective patients are choosing a new dental care provider.3 Therefore, where you publish your reviews and how you monitor and address negative reviews can dramatically impact new patient flow. By making sure your verified, high quality reviews are seen where people are searching for dentist, your practice can use these reviews to help drive new patient acquisition and minimize the impact of any negative reviews.
BOOTH 131 at the PNDC · SPONSOR
Is your practice ready to connect with your patients in a 24-7 online world? Contact us and we’ll walk you through an online presentation that usually takes 20 minutes (and does not require you to download any software). Our presentation is the best way to understand exactly how Sesame 24-7™ is your complete online solution in Patient Connection Systems. To request information, please call us at (877) 633-5193 or email us at wsda@sesamecommunications.com 1. http://www.dr4ward.com/ dr4ward/2013/03/what-are-some-interestingstatistics-about-online-consumer-reviewsinfographic.html 2. http://www.reviewtrackers.com/dentalpatients-want-things-online-reviews-patients/ 3. http://www.reviewtrackers.com/dentalpatients-want-things-online-reviews-patients/
th e wsda ne w s · issue 6, may · 2014 · www.wsda.org · 25
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Three ways to use online reviews