Dentists Dealing With Negative Reviews
Back in December 2011, an opera crooning Manhattan dentist made national headlines for all the wrong reasons; it wasn’t stellar cosmetic dentistry work but rather a sticky legal issue about a gag order imposed on an unhappy patient spreading negative digital word of mouth about his dental appointment.
Sure, the associated attention may have helped this dentist’s singing career but the damage done to the professional online reputation of her dental practice will live on forever.
There’s the rub, eternity….or at least how the search engines currently define time and space.
Dental practices need not feel under gunned in defense of all they worked for and earned serving the local community. In fact, a proactive diplomatic solution is not only preferable to the duck and cover volleys of online depth charge dental practice defense, but also a more beneficial course of connectivity between both local patients and community-minded dentists.
The only way to combat negativity is through transparency and continuity.
The Looking Glass
Give patients more credit; we’re smarter than you think we are despite the daily displays you experience to the contrary. Negative reviews will happen, nobody’s perfect and everyone understands that…but sometimes we need to be reminded.
For patients, the online world is now an easily accessible and multi-dimensional window into our chosen dental practices.
The clearer the window, the better the view – from both sides.
Enable interactive patient communications, elicit word of mouth at every opportunity, and don’t undervalue the social currency that has built your practice. This open exchange of information allows a genuine two-sided look into what it means and feels like to be a patient in your dental practice.
If people are overwhelmingly posting negative reviews about a dental practice, something systemic is probably manifesting itself in the balance sheet just as much as the daily patient interactions.
Fear is no way to go about acquiring new patients, remove the cloak of fear and bask in the glow of enlightened and educated dental patients.
Don’t be afraid to ask patients to publish reviews as part of normal communications!
Automatically Publish & Syndicate Digital Word of Mouth Like Keith Stone – ALWAYS!
The negative online review stings the ego and sticks around, but how can these more than annoying no see ums be further marginalized?
They don’t have to be, and furthermore we’re of the opinion they shouldn’t be at all; but rather a genuine part of your online dental practice reputation. Take steps to mitigate damage, respond if needed, and move on is the simple approach.
Fighting to get negative reviews removed from any environment is often more trouble than simply not taking any action, or properly (politely & professionally) educating the reviewer – and readers – with a well-timed clever compassionate and cautious fine tooth combed response.
Do nothing or craft a response; options, but that’s only the beginning.
By continually publishing and syndicating your digital dental practice word of mouth on a regular basis – automatically and genuinely, as it happens is most preferable – the online review PR machine for your practice is consistently collecting and communicating that peer experience social currency to your local neighborhood and the entire digital landscape.
According to this Washington Post article about doctors trying to squelch online reviews, which in turn prompted this dWOM dental digital marketing blog post;
80 percent of adults say they use the Internet to search for health information, only 16 percent use it to look for reviews of doctors and far fewer post such reviews. This in turn is according to a Pew Research Center survey cited in the Post article.
Given the current state of the Internet union, do you envision the percentages of review postings and review seeking to increase or decrease?
Answer in :30 or less!
Communication Breakdown
As we can see from the evolving dental online reputation case study discussed in the Washington Post article and elsewhere throughout digital dental circles, communication seemed pretty non-existent and dental diplomatic relations broke down in this most recently public dental review case.
An interesting aside that should tie all this online digital word of mouth mumbo jumbo into perspective came from Jeffrey Segel, neurosurgeon and founder of Medical Justice – the company that armed the offending NYC dentist with her legal dental gag order in exchange for something that should be SOP anyway – the promise on behalf of the dental practice to not market patient information to third parties.
The form in question basically loopholed a patient review into a copyright belonging to the doctor. If you’re still guessing which way the tide is running, those forms have been discontinued by the company.
When asked if Segel regrets using the tactic, he soothsayingly adds;
“I do not. Maybe, in hindsight, we would have retired them a little sooner. But we don’t regret having been the grain of sand in the mouth of the oyster to try and make a pearl out of the rating sites,” he said.
(Great line!)
“Even in 2012, we’re not there, yet. We’ll know we’re there when doctors and nurses use these sites to pick their doctor.”
Will this ever happen…is it happening now?
Patients don’t choose doctors from web pages, but it’s a beginning and essential ingredient.
We choose partners in personal health through insurance providers, effective engaging communication, proximity and location, referrals from those we know and love, and the professional respectful manner in which we’re treated from first prospecting phone call to every single in-office appointment.
Communicate transparently, elicit patient feedback, and never stop!
Online reviews for dentists will continue, how clear and genuine the picture is into your practice will define how complementary online reviews are to your digital marketing plan.
Marketing is communications, not selling somebody dentistry and not touting what you are not.
Take the care to craft your dental patient communications to maximize positive digital word mouth and start generating return on engagement on the social dental currency that is waiting to be tapped.
Spirited debate is essential to the progressive movement of digital dental diplomatic relations, is the deck really stacked against dentists when it comes to online reviews or is it just fear and perception?
How say you?
Social media has contributed greatly to recent overthrow of governments; do you really think it couldn’t generate a new patient or two over the next year?
Want More Google Reviews? Grab This Toolkit
Click Here to Grab Your Custom Branded Google Reviews Toolkit
