Tips for Responding to Negative Reviews of Your Dental Practice

Around 85% of dental patients will do online research before they schedule a dental appointment. This means that your online reviews will have a huge impact on the success of your dental practice. You need to be aware of your online reputation and what you can do to respond to any negative reviews your dental practice may receive.

Avoid Negative Reviews

The best defense is a great offense! It’s smart to do whatever you can to avoid getting negative online reviews to begin with. The best way to do this is to show your patients that you value their concerns and truly listen to them. Most negative dental reviews stem from a patient feeling like he or she was not listened to or valued at their appointment. Make sure you and your staff are taking patient suggestions and concerns seriously.

Even the best dental practice may come up against negative reviews. The way you handle these concerns can make all the difference.

Dealing with Negative Patient Reviews

Below are a few ways to successfully deal with negative online reviews:

• Stay calm – You may want to impulsively respond to the review in defense of yourself. However, it’s not all bad. In fact, one negative review among many glowing ones can actually validate the positive reviews. Take a breather for as long as you need to calm down and think about the situation rationally.
• Write a professional response – When you’re ready to write a response, it needs to be professional and non-emotional. The response should acknowledge the patient’s concerns and let him or her know that you’ll be following up to discuss the problem.
• Contact the patient offline – Don’t allow it to turn into a back-and-forth online. Instead, contact the patient over the phone so you can discuss the concerns one-on-one.
• Closure – Lastly, the conversation could go one of two ways. If it goes well, your patient may agree to remove the negative review. If not, other prospective patients will see that you handled the review kindly and professionally. 

It can be emotional and distressing to see a negative review of your dental practice. But it doesn’t have to be all bad. You can use a negative review as a learning experience and prove to your patients that you take them and their concerns seriously.

For help with reputation management or dealing with negative dental reviews, please don’t hesitate to contact CTC National. We can help your dental practice reach its highest success!