How to Ask Your Patients for a Review

Even when you know how important Google reviews are for boosting your practice’s online visibility, it can be hard to build momentum of actually getting those reviews. What’s the best way for dental practices to ask their patients for reviews? 

We’ll quickly review why reviews matter so much, and then dig into the easiest way to get guaranteed reviews. 

Why Reviews Matter for Dental Practices

Prospective patients looking for a new dentist often turn to Google. When they search for your practice, they’ll trust your reviews to show how amazing (or dismal) your practice is. 

According to a Forbes article, when people see a business online, at least 87% of them will look at reviews before anything else.

If there are plenty of recent reviews and a high star rating, you’re more likely to get a call requesting to set up an appointment. Uberall found that a star rating increase of just 0.1 could increase the conversion rates of a business location by 25%.

It’s clear that reviews are a critical step in earning new patients and growing your practice.

Asking for Reviews

Many practices struggle to get reviews because they rely on in-person requests. It’s common to ask only the most enthusiastic patients to leave a review as they’re checking out from their appointment. This in-person strategy isn’t ideal for two reasons:

1. When you ask in person at the time of the appointment, patients are typically in a hurry to get on with their day and are likely to forget to go online and write out a Google review.
2. It assumes that only the most vocal patients can leave reviews. This isn’t true! Practices who ask every patient to leave a review have a much larger yield and sometimes see that 5 star ratings come from patients they wouldn’t expect.

Instead of asking in person, consider using a review management software to automatically source reviews with zero effort on your part. Here’s how software can help.

Using Reputation Management Software

Reputation management software helps you control how your practice shows up online. One main component is review management. 

The software sends automatic text messages to your patients after their appointments to invite them to leave a Google review. 

By sending a large number of customized texts at the right time and following up after 24 hours, your chance of getting completed reviews rises without your staff spending any extra time on it.

When you log in to your account online, you can see all your reviews in one place and respond right from your dashboard. You can keep an eye on your reputation and use trends you notice to make changes that improve your patient experience.

Tips for Asking Patients for Reviews

To wrap up, here are our top tips for earning more reviews:

1. Ask every patient to leave a review.
2. Make it easy for patients to leave a review by sending a link directly to Google.
3. Remind patients who haven’t left a review at least 24 hours after your first request.
4. Respond to every single review - this shows your gratitude and might encourage future patients to leave reviews.
5. Consider using reputation management software, like Swell, to send automatic review requests with absolutely no extra work for you.

To learn how Swell can help your practice successfully ask patients for reviews and build your online reputation, schedule a time so we can show you how it works.