Month: February 2013

Reduce Your Risk for Bad Reviews from Dental Patients

This article isn’t about reputation management, Yelp!, or choosing verbiage to respond to negative patient reviews. Instead, I want to discuss how your team members’ words and actions are interpreted by patients.

Most often, dentists who receive bad reviews that mention kind, caring, reputable team members feel betrayed by the reviewing patient. Doctors may also question what’s occurring at the front desk, on the phone, and at check-out, when he or she isn’t present. How can you know that your team is taking great care of your patients? How can you make sure that their words and actions are positive in the eyes of your patients?

How We Get Offended

In most cases, a feeling of being offended is the fault of the offended, not the offender. Think about it: Someone cuts you off in traffic and you get angry. Perhaps the rude driver did it on purpose, but most likely he was negligent rather than vengeful. What made you angry? You assumed the driver cut you off on purpose. You made an assumption that may or may not be true, and because of this assumption, you got angry. If you could write a review about that driver, it would surely be negative!

Now, let’s apply this to a scenario in your front office. Read More