How to Handle a Negative Review

Handle Your Negative Reviews With Confidence

It’s inevitable that your dental practice will receive a negative review at some point. It is like getting a cavity, you can brush your teeth, floss regularly and always see your dentist every 6 months, but the inevitable will happen, and you will somehow end up with a cavity. It’s how you handle the cavity is what counts. Are you going to let it spread or are you going to nip it in the bud and have a filling? We want to provide our clients with solutions for their negative reviews so the problem never gets out of hand. Read on to learn more about how to handle your negative reviews.

So, You Got a Negative Review, What is the First Step?

Your first reaction will probably be anger or disappointment because the patient didn’t seem like they were having a bad experience. Think back to their appointment and try to remember if what they wrote in their review is accurate or not—this will determine your next step. If their review is accurate and their experience is indeed you or your staff’s fault, you can move onto making things right. In addition, you can correct these problems from ever happening again. If the patient’s review is inaccurate, however, you will need to still reach out to the patient to get a better understanding of their situation. If you are overridden with anger, take a day or two to let your emotions calm down before contacting the patient to try and make amends, otherwise you might respond in a way you can regret down the road.

Reaching Out

Whether the patients wrote a true or false negative review about your practice, it’s best that you try to reach out. Upon contact, hopefully you can find out further details of their bad experience. This can help you as a business owner learn how to make the experience for other patients better. Next, try to find a way to make amends with the patient, offer them something for free at their next appointment, or send a hand-written apology to prove your sincerity. Once you have made amends (if possible), kindly request for them to delete their negative review. They may or may not delete it, but it’s worth a try.

When Reaching Out Doesn’t Work

Not every patient will take your apology to heart and will unfortunately keep their negative review posted for everyone to see. There are a few solutions to this problem. First, you can write a response on the review, giving your prospective to show any people reading the review that you are an honest practice and this one bad patient experience doesn’t prove anything. Second, you can encourage all your other patients to write a positive review for your practice. An abundance of positive reviews will override one negative review, making this one upset patient look discredited. Reacting to this negative review in a positive way shows true professionalism. A negative reaction will make you look unprofessional so it’s best to keep emotions aside.

Implement ReviewDoor to Prevent Negative Reviews from Going Public

If you are concerned about more negative reviews appearing on your review pages, we recommend implementing a review software like ReviewDoor. Think of ReviewDoor as the fluoride protecting your teeth from cavities. It’s always better to take as much prevention possible than to wait for the negative outcome. ReviewDoor works by sending your patients text messages or emails after their appointment asking them to write a review about their experience. From there, reviews will need to be approved before being posted. This is also a great way to gain more reviews on websites such as Google+, Facebook and Yelp! If you are experiencing a problem with negative reviews, contact Dental Affiliate today to implement ReviewDoor or ask advice.