A dentist’s online reputation is no longer an optional service called upon to fix a problem once it occurs; it is a vital element of a dental practice’s overall strategy for growth and for protecting the trust of its current and prospective patients. Today, most patients form opinions about a dental office before contacting it. Typically, patients will look at everything they can find online, including reviews, ratings, and how the dental office responds to reviews.
The purpose of this guide is to explain, in detail, how to implement an online reputation management system for a dental office. The guide is designed to serve as a “how-to” tool versus an overview. The guide’s focus is to create a repeatable system that produces long-term, sustained trust, visibility, and growth in your dental office without requiring excessive work from your staff.
Understanding How Online Reputation Management Works in Dentistry
Online reputation management (ORM) is the process of monitoring, influencing, and responding to how a dental office is perceived online. For dentists, this perception is largely shaped by patient reviews, business listings, and social engagement between patients and the dental office across multiple platforms.
While there are many platforms where a dental office may exist online, the three most influential for a dental office are Google, Yelp, and Facebook. These platforms are typically the top two or three that appear in search results, and they are the ones patients consult when comparing dental offices in their area.
Online reputation management for a dental office involves monitoring what patients say about your office, creating a system to encourage happy patients to write reviews about their experience, responding professionally to all reviews, and maintaining accurate business information for your office across all online platforms where it appears. Once you complete these tasks regularly, you begin to develop an online presence that reflects the quality of care you provide in your office.
Why Online Reputation Management Is Important to a Dental Office
Dentistry is a trust-based industry. When patients go to a dental office, they are selecting a service provider for their oral health needs, but they are also selecting a provider for their physical health, comfort, and appearance. The decision to choose a dental office is significantly influenced by other patients’ experiences.
Positive online reviews help eliminate uncertainty for new patients by providing them assurance that your office is professional, caring, and reliable. On the other hand, how a dental office responds to criticism is just as important as the positive comments received. A thoughtful response to a negative review can actually increase trust, rather than diminish it.
In addition to affecting how patients view your office, online reputation management also impacts how search engines view it. Search engines rank dental offices that demonstrate legitimacy and engagement higher than those that do not. Consistent reviews, active responses to reviews, and accurate business listings all contribute to higher local search rankings. Therefore, consistent online reputation management can help your dental office appear in local map results and local listings when potential patients search for a dentist near them.
Online reputation management is not just about image; it affects how patients acquire your services, retain them, and ultimately, the long-term viability of your practice.
Steps to Put Online Reputation Management Into Action for Your Dental Office
Here are the steps to put an online reputation management program into action at your dental office.
Step 1: Track Your Reviews and Ratings
Your first step in putting a successful online reputation management plan into effect at your dental office is to track what your patients are saying about your office. Most of the top review sites allow you to receive alerts whenever someone posts a new review of your practice. Most of these sites will also give you a dashboard to view all reviews of your practice.
There are many different types of software available that will help you manage your online reputation across multiple platforms. These programs let you see all your practice’s reviews and ratings in one place. This will help you see whether there is a trend in the reviews you receive and whether the types of reviews you receive have changed recently.
Step 2: Set Up Automated Requests for Reviews
You can ensure consistent review requests by setting up automated review requests for your dental office. Automating the process takes the burden off your staff of manually entering each patient into your review system. Automating the process also eliminates the chance that a patient will be asked to post a review too long after his/her visit.
A good time to ask for reviews is immediately after a patient leaves your office. A template can be used for the review request to get the patient to rate their experience and share their thoughts on how well they were treated during their visit. Be sure that the template makes it clear that the patient will remain anonymous. The less work required of the patient, the higher the likelihood that he/she will write a review.
Step 3: Establish Review Response Protocols
The protocols you establish for responding to reviews for your dental office will follow the same rules as your social media response protocols, but should include more detail since reviews are typically public and reflect how professionally your office operates. The protocols should address the following topics:
Always write your response in a professional manner. Never argue with a patient who has written a review of your practice. Never argue with another reviewer. Always remain calm and professional.
Privacy Concerns: Never refer to a specific patient by name or to any other form of personally identifiable information. Never discuss a patient’s treatment or medical history.
Moving to a Different Platform: If a patient wants to continue discussing the issue further, please inform them that you’d be happy to do so via telephone or email and answer any questions they might have.
Response Time Expectations: Respond to every review received within 24–48 hours of its receipt. If the review is negative, consider calling the patient directly to address any problems they may be experiencing.
Many offices will prepare a template to initiate their response to a review of their practice. Templates are advantageous because they provide a consistent format for the responses. However, you should always personalize the responses based upon the content of the review.
Step 4: Promote Positive Reviews
A dental office should not limit positive reviews to the original posting platform. Your office should promote them wherever it is reasonable to do so. Positive reviews provide social proof that your office can deliver high-quality care to potential patients.
However, remember to always keep patient confidentiality when promoting positive reviews. Never post a review that contains any personally identifiable information about a patient. Only post reviews that contain general statements about the patient’s experience at your office.
Promoting positive reviews is a great way to increase the number of reviews your office receives. Positive reviews are also a great way to showcase the quality of care you deliver to your patients.
Step 5: Conduct Regular Audits of Listings
Conducting regular audits of your office’s listings is essential to ensuring that your office’s online reputation remains strong. Audits can be conducted quarterly and involve checking all listings for your office to ensure that they are up-to-date and accurate. Some items to verify during an audit include:
Hours of Operation: Ensure that the listed hours for your office are correct.
Phone Number: Ensure that the phone number listed for your office is correct.
Address: Ensure that the address listed for your office is correct.
Regularly auditing listings is an easy way to prevent lost leads and strengthen your reputation signals. Auditing your listings can also help you find errors that could harm your office’s reputation.
Monitoring Your Online Presence
Monitoring your online presence is the foundation of online reputation management for a dental office. You cannot manage what you do not see. Being aware of what is happening to your online presence allows you to respond promptly to reviews and identify trends that may affect your office.
Monitoring involves tracking reviews, ratings, and mentions across all platforms your office uses. This includes reviews and ratings, as well as any direct or indirect mentions of your office on social media and in healthcare directories. Direct feedback and indirect mentions of your office can influence your reputation and should therefore be tracked.
Many offices utilize alerts and monitoring tools to save staff time and guarantee they don’t overlook any reviews or mentions. Alerts and monitoring tools can be configured to provide automatic notifications to staff when a new review or mention is detected. Staff can then respond promptly without spending time each day manually checking the platforms.
The ultimate goal is not to constantly monitor your online presence but to have consistent awareness of what is occurring.
Patterns will emerge over time as you continue to monitor your online presence. Positive or negative trends in comments about your office can reveal issues that require attention. Identifying and addressing these issues can reduce future complaints and improve patient satisfaction.
Online Reputation Management Becomes a Feedback Loop
As you continue to monitor your online presence, you will begin to notice trends and patterns. As you identify trends and patterns, you will begin to understand that your online reputation is not static. It is a dynamic entity affected by a variety of factors, including how you handle criticism, respond to feedback, and communicate with patients and potential patients.
By understanding these dynamics, you will begin to appreciate that online reputation management for a dental office is a feedback loop. The feedback loop refers to the cycle of collecting and acting on data that flows back and forth between the patient and the dental office.
When you collect data on how patients feel about your office and take action to improve their experience, subsequent interactions will indicate whether your actions had a positive effect. This cycle continues to evolve until your office reaches a state of equilibrium.
Therefore, online reputation management for a dental office is not a static process but a continuous evolution. It is a process that supports both marketing and patient experience.
Encouraging Reviews From Happy Patients
Reviews from satisfied patients are a key component of online reputation management for a dental office. However, not all satisfied patients will leave a review. Most patients do not leave reviews unless prompted to do so.
Therefore, the primary challenge is to prompt pleased patients to leave a review. This is accomplished by making it easy and convenient for happy patients to leave a review.
Happy patients are more likely to leave a review when prompted shortly after their appointment. An automated text or email request can prompt pleased patients to leave a review shortly after their appointment. These requests ought to be courteous, concise, and direct.
The invitation should be to leave an honest review, not to ask for a positive one specifically. This is because review platforms discourage incentivizing reviewers. A steady stream of reviews is always more valuable than a burst of reviews generated by incentives.
Some offices use QR codes at the front desk or in follow-up materials to connect patients directly to their review page. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for happy patients to leave a review.
Avoid Pressuring Patients to Leave a Review
Patients should never be pressured to leave a review. The goal is to get honest reviews from happy patients. Therefore, never offer incentives to patients to leave a review. Never pressure patients to leave a review. Patient reviews should always be voluntary.
Responding to Reviews Professionally
Responding to reviews is perhaps the most visible aspect of online reputation management for a dental office. Patients researching a dental office will read responses to reviews just as carefully as they read the reviews themselves. Therefore, responses to reviews reflect how a dental office communicates and handles feedback.
Responses to positive reviews should be appreciated and personalized whenever possible. A simple thank-you, along with a brief acknowledgement of the patient’s experience, reinforces goodwill and indicates that you value your patients’ feedback.
Responses to negative reviews should be approached differently. The goal is not to debate or defend yourself. The goal is to demonstrate empathy and professionalism. The response should acknowledge the patient’s concern and express your commitment to resolving the issue. If appropriate, the response should suggest continuing the conversation offline.
Patient privacy must always be respected. Avoid mentioning any treatment details or confirming a patient’s identity. Maintaining a calm and respectful tone in your response to a negative review protects your brand and builds trust with potential patients.
Handling Criticism Properly
Criticism will occur in some form, even for the highest-performing dental offices. Handling criticism effectively distinguishes a strong online reputation from a weak one.
An effective method for managing negative reviews involves de-escalation and resolution. Responding promptly to negative reviews demonstrates attentiveness. Using empathetic language in your response can help de-escalate tensions. Offering to discuss the issue further in private allows complex issues to be resolved without causing a public controversy.
Additionally, a negative review can be treated as data. While not all criticism is valid, repeated criticisms can identify legitimate areas for improvement in your office. By addressing these areas, you can improve patient satisfaction and decrease future criticisms.
If a patient sees that you take their criticism seriously, you can preserve trust, even in the face of occasional criticism.
Role of Content and Social Media in Dental ORM
Your online reputation management for a dental office extends beyond reviews. Your entire online presence impacts how patients view your office.
Active and professional social media accounts can add credibility to your office. Creating educational content, posting practice updates, and participating in community activities will provide your patients with a more comprehensive view of your values.
You don’t have to be active on social media to be effective. What matters is consistency and relevance. Posts that educate your patients, highlight your staff’s expertise, or demonstrate your involvement in the community will establish familiarity and build trust over time.
Additional Interaction Opportunities
Engagement on social media creates additional opportunities for patients to interact with your office. This can enhance your overall reputation and visibility.
Consistent Business Information Across All Platforms
Accurate and consistent business information is an important but often overlooked aspect of online reputation management for a dental office. The name, address, and phone number of your office should be identical across all platforms.
Inconsistent listings will confuse your patients and potentially undermine search engines’ confidence in your office. This can result in missed calls, inaccurate driving instructions, and lower visibility in local search results.
Dentist-Specific Directories
Google Business Profile (https://www.business.google.com/)
The most important – will show up in Google Search and Maps when people are searching for “dentist near me.” Claim your business to add photos, hours of operation, and the services you offer, as well as to be able to respond to reviews.
Zocdoc (https://www.zocdoc.com/)
Leading dental scheduling website allowing a patient to find a dentist, read reviews, and make an appointment.
Healthgrades (https://www.healthgrades.com/)
A large healthcare directory that contains dentist profiles, reviews, and ratings and allows for the booking of an appointment.
Yelp (https://www.yelp.com/)
Very high traffic for reviews of local businesses, including dentists. Claiming a Yelp listing will allow you to control photos, responses, and the accuracy of your information.
Vitals (https://www.vitals.com/)
Review site focused on healthcare with very detailed profiles of dentists, including patient ratings and search capabilities for doctors by specialty or insurance.
RateMDs (https://www.ratemds.com/)
A website dedicated solely to reviews of doctors and dentists, where patients can rate and comment on their experience.
CareDash (https://www.caredash.com/)
A healthcare provider directory that offers reviews and is committed to providing transparent and verifiable feedback from patients.
1-800-DENTIST (https://www.1800dentist.com/)
Referral and directory service for dentists; claiming a listing will improve the number of referrals you receive.
Dentistry.com (https://www.dentistry.com/)
A directory specific to dentistry with listings of practices, education resources for patients, and tools to help patients find a dentist.
Apple Business Connect (https://businessconnect.apple.com/)
Required for showing up in Apple Maps; claiming will allow you to control the information that appears about your business to iPhone users.
Regularly auditing your listings will ensure accuracy. Update your listings to reflect any changes to your hours, contact information, or services offered.
Supporting Local SEO Through Listing Accuracy
Accurate and consistent business information is also an important factor in supporting your local SEO efforts. Search engines consider reviews, ratings, and engagement as trust signals. Offices that continually generate reviews, respond to reviews, and have accurate listings generally rank higher in local search results.
Therefore, developing an accurate and consistent listing strategy for your office will support your reputation management efforts and your local SEO efforts.
Delphia is the staff writer for the NewReputation Help Center, Sales & Service blog. She has a background in content creation and writes clear, informative articles on reputation management, online visibility, trust building, and how they relate to each other. As an efficient writer who produces high-quality content, Delphia assists with a variety of editorial projects. When she is not working, you can find her traveling, taking pictures, or reading a good book.