You bosom your hump every twenty-four hour period to accept an award-worthy dental do and spend significant funds to market information technology online. You're fifty-fifty going out of your way to get more reviews for your dental exercise. Then what happens? With a few keystrokes, an online troll dumps a devastating negative review on one of your profiles that threatens to wipe out all of your efforts. Ouch! Don't panic! All businesses will get negative reviews- specially ones who are winning the marketing game. Here's what to practise next.

Key Points to Recall

How should dentists answer to a negative review? Remember these key points:

  • All swell businesses get some negative reviews. Don't panic.
  • Unremarkably, yous desire to respond to reviews.
  • Your absurd, collected response makes the reviewer audio crazy.
  • Respond to positive reviews, kickoff personally and so online.
  • Don't cross HIPAA lines.
  • Nosotros are here to help!

Where the review popped up and what was said will dictate what y'all can and should do in response to the review. You cannot have the aforementioned approach on each platform since they all have different standards, processes, and online cultures attached to them.

animated troll laughing at computer

Inaction is Inadvisable

In all merely the rarest circumstances, it'due south all-time to answer to an online review. People who await at reviews are used to seeing negative reviews. By responding, you show these prospective patients that you care about how your patients feel about their feel at your role.

All the same, if the review is off-the-rails crazy, on some platforms (peculiarly Yelp) you lot may actually make things worse by responding because it will give the review more credibility and visibility. We will help y'all to identify the reviews that are okay to leave alone.

Be Cool
It's incredibly difficult, but you take to try to leave emotions at the door. If yous're the doctor, you shouldn't be responding to your own reviews. Information technology'due south almost incommunicable to resist fighting back online when you feel attacked. Let someone else (like your online reputation management team at Pro Impressions Marketing ) answer for yous.

Most of these REVIEWS Take ALL CAPS and lots of exclamation marks!!!!!! They are posted past emotionally compromised individuals who are venting. Y'all have an opportunity to be calm and collects and let the rage-fueled unhinged tone of the review brand you lot look similar a true professional person.

Report Inappropriate or Fraudulent Reviews

If a review is posted that you tin can't tie to an actual patient of record, depending on the platform, we may exist able to report the review as fraudulent or containing a conflict of involvement. This doesn't usually get the review taken down.

If the review contains inappropriate language or hate speech communication we tin can usually get the review taken down.

If yous experience that a review can be reported, do not answer to the review until we have flagged the review on the platform and given the review company enough time to review our claim. Responding to the review also early on may brand the review more likely to stick.

Pick Up the Telephone

If you know who posted the review, later a cooldown period of five-7 days, information technology's okay to phone call the patient. The cooldown flow provides you lot and the patient some time to let emotions settle so that the conversation is more productive. Information technology may be better to have someone other than the doctor telephone call, but having the doctor call can be more effective because reviews are usually criticisms of the doctor. When confronted with the human who they criticized, patients frequently choose to remove their review once they know that the dr. is enlightened of the situation.

Telephone call and, if they have the guts to answer your call, apply an inquisitive approach to seek to understand why they would say what they said. Allow your tone communicate that the words were very hurtful. Bring to low-cal any inaccuracies, one-half-truths, and all-out lies just do so without invalidating their emotions. Perception is a reality for the patient.

Be sure to speak accurately with incontrovertible statements. Instead of inflammatory emotional responses like, "You're a damn liar!", favor statements similar, " I feel like  your review is libelous and that you're hurting my online reputation with baseless accusations." No one tin say that you don't feel what you say you're feeling but they tin say, "No, I'thousand not a liar!"

Explain that y'all want to do everything within your power to make the situation correct (within reason, whatsoever you feel is appropriate). Close the conversation with a polite request that the patient removes the online review merely do not make threats that will inflame the state of affairs further.

Responding Online and Plough the Negative into a Positive

Once more, all dentists volition eventually get negative reviews, especially if they are being aggressive in their marketing and getting a lot of exposure online and higher new patient volume. When a negative review pops up, we can turn this negative outcome into a positive past turning our response into a cleverly crafted marketing message.

Each negative point in the review is a marketing opportunity. Hither an example:

Rating: 1 out 5 ⭐

I had a lot of pain in my mouth and went to run across this office in January. The md said the pain was due to TMJ and recommended an upper mouth splint for $2600 and the office visit was $300 subsequently insurance. I agreed to pre-pay for it gear up up an appt for the following week to get information technology washed. Over the weekend my pain got a lot worse and I could barely eat. I went to get a second stance the other dentist said I had an infection in one tooth and a tiny crack in another tooth and then I had to get an emergency root culvert. Afterward that, my pain went abroad so I called this dentist to cancel my engagement and get a refund for my treatment. They said they didn't misdiagnose anything and would only refund me function of the fee. The other dentist I saw was very skeptical that simply a TMJ splint was $2900 after insurance. Do not trust this dentist. The staff was squeamish so I don't blame them but don't get annihilation done here.

Hither's how I would answer:

Thank you for your review. We love to help patients identify the crusade of jaw pain and dysfunction in their bite that tin can cause the issues described in this review. A bad bite can weaken teeth, crusade cracks that eventually become painful, and crave a root culvert or fifty-fifty extraction if the tooth is so far gone and bone loss has occurred. This doesn't have to be the case for the remainder of the teeth! We protect teeth by treating the source of the dysfunction. This eliminates jaw pain, headaches and migraines, neck pain, and other TMD symptoms and also prevents damage to teeth and bone loss in the jaw. Not all dentists take the focused grooming and experience that we do which allows usa to provide the treatments nosotros offer. Many of our patients meet a dentist for their hygiene appointments and the occasional filling simply trust their TMJ care to our md. They love the results! It's sad that we did not have the opportunity to do that in this case. Please contact our function so that nosotros tin help you protect your oral wellness.

See how I went item by item and addressed the attacks in a style that was informative and professional?

  • Don't trust this dentist? > Well, hundreds of people trust us!
  • Another dentist said I am getting ripped off? > Nosotros are a different kind of office and provide services that yous can't get anywhere else!

I didn't go into the details of the refund considering that would only turn the situation into a he-said, she-said story that would not enhance my marketing and online reputation.

HIPAA Concerns

There are dissimilar schools of thought on what you tin and tin can't say online. You lot certainly don't want to disclose details of a patient's care, peculiarly if they aren't details that the patient didn't mention in their review. Instead, you can reply to reviews with a general approach, saying what is typical in your care and the types of symptoms that you lot see on a regular basis. Some people experience that you shouldn't fifty-fifty respond to reviews because it acknowledges that the individual came to your office and therefore you're disclosing that they are a patient. I don't believe that this would EVER hold up in courtroom and is unlikely to generate a claim of a HIPAA breach on its own. Just keep your olfactory organ clean in the other areas of your response and you should exist okay. Y'all may want to run this article by your attorney if you lot're still concerned.

Y'all Can Exercise This And Nosotros Are Here To Assist!

If you're an Online Practice Center user, you have probably received notifications about negative reviews. Or perchance you lot found us by other ways. In either example, y'all can utilise Online Practice Middle to track your reviews and answer to them on Google and other platforms. Whenever possible, we want to assist you reply to these reviews and then that you don't have to. We help our online reputation direction clients respond to reviews all the time, but you can do it yourself also. To whatever extent yous demand help, nosotros love to help dentists answer to both positive and negative reviews. These responses show the search engines and prospective patients that your office is a trustworthy, active, savvy business that cares virtually the people who you serve. We are honored to be part of this try!

If you lot're a dentist, consider the membership options available to you in our marketing packages here. We're prepare to aid you cease wasting time and coin on marketing that doesn't piece of work, and that includes the headaches that can come with negative reviews! Schedule a consultation or telephone call us at 970-672-1212.