Customer reviews, both positive and negative, can be powerful tools to manage your online reputation and build trust. Customer review responses show that your practice takes an active interest in what patients think and is willing to take their feedback seriously. 

However, keeping track of all the review sites can be challenging. Having a tool for managing these reviews like online reviews by Dental Intelligence can be a great asset to ensure you stay in control of how people view your practice. 

Reasons to Respond to Reviews

If you have a busy practice, the idea of responding to each and every review can feel overwhelming, and many practices simply give up. Some will still try to respond to negative reviews, but this uneven approach may seem disingenuous to potential customers who only see you trying to downplay bad comments. 

The key reasons to respond to reviews include the following:

• Staying in control of the narrative: Customer review responses are an opportunity to give context to a bad situation. Your response can shape how other customers see the review, which is especially important when dealing with negative comments. 
• Build loyalty: Customers want to see that you care, and if they’ve taken a couple of minutes to review your practice, you should be able to do the same. Unique and genuine responses to comments show that you value your patients. They are also a great way to foster loyalty and create life-long customers.
• ‍Reviews get the ball rolling: A business with plenty of reviews will automatically seem more reputable than one with one or two. Responding to reviews will encourage other patients to leave a review, making it much easier to gather reviews, especially in the early stages of the strategy. 

Responding to Positive Reviews

The key to responding to positive reviews is to keep your responses sincere and personal. Spamming “thanks!” to every positive review seems disingenuous and fake and will likely cause patients to distrust your practice.

Personalized responses show that you value the customer leaving the review, but remember to stick to HIPAA guidelines about giving out private treatment information. So instead of saying, “Thanks for the amazing review, Bob, we look forward to seeing you to finalize your crowns,” stick to something like, “We appreciate the detailed review, Bob, and can’t wait to see you again next time!” 

One great aspect of responding to positive feedback is that you can share it with the team. Many patients will compliment specific team members in their comments, providing a great opportunity to share the compliment and motivate the practice. You can even include the team member’s response in your review comment. 

Responding to Negative Reviews

Very few dental practices have exclusively positive reviews, and in fact, negative reviews make your business seem more genuine. The most important aspect is handling them appropriately without being defensive or dismissive. 

When responding to negative reviews, keep these best practices in mind:

• Give yourself time to cool down: Even warranted comments can be hurtful, and it’s often tempting to try and defend yourself. However, this knee-jerk reaction will often do more harm than good for your practice reputation. Instead, take a few hours to cool down, see the situation from the customer’s perspective, and formulate a sincere and appropriate response. 
• Keep your customer review responses simple: Avoid getting into long discussions, as they will make you sound defensive and won’t resolve anything. Rather, stick to short, appreciative responses that acknowledge the problem and outline what you plan to do to prevent a similar situation from happening again.
• Resolve complex issues privately: If you see a negative review, reach out to the customer by phone and see if you can come to an agreement. In most cases, patients just want their comments acknowledged, and if you are willing to admit your mistake and attempt to make up for it, most customers will either edit their review or remove it completely. 

Use Management Tools to Stay Ahead

Customer review responses can be rewarding and provide valuable insight into what your customers think of your practice. At Dental Intelligence, we believe that customer review management is one of the most important and successful patient retention strategies for your dental practice, and we’re ready to help you implement your own. Schedule a free demo today and find out how our tools can keep your business thriving.