The Internet is a double edged sword. On the one side, we see a nearly limitless pool of potential new clients and customers. But on the other, we find that the ability to communicate almost instantly means that word of mouth can travel at roughly the speed of light As such, customer reviews can make or break any endeavor.
Say you are a dentist. And a really good one. You just graduated from the best dentisting school, you have an office full of the finest dentisting equipment, and you are absolutely up to date on all the latest and greatest dentisting procedures. You know that once people sit in your chair and experience your dental wizardry, they will come back for more, and yet business is still slow to pick up. What is the best way to get more people through the door?
Word of mouth will get you only so far. In this modern, interconnected, Internetted world of ours, the best thing you could do would be to encourage the patients you have now to go online to your website and write a dental review. Prospective patients in your area are more and more turning to online dentist office reviews to choose a good dentist. By encouraging your current patients to write dentist reviews, you are spreading your name and reputation exponentially faster than word of mouth ever could.
Dental reviews are the marketing equivalent of a million billboards on a million roads, but way less annoying. But even better than the proliferation of your reviews is the fact that you do not have to go out of your way to put them in front of potential customers. The search engines will do that for you. Assuming your page is optimized, user friendly, and genuine, anyone searching for a good dental review will automatically be shown your page as an option. And the more positive reviews you have, the higher you can rank in the results page when people search for “Greatest dentist in the history of dentisting”.
But now the onus is on you to maintain your high standard of dental work. Once you open yourself up to dental reviews, the pendulum can swing both ways. One bad dental review from one unsatisfied customer can be a mighty big stumbling block to any online marketing campaign. So keep your standards high, treat your patients right, and sit back and let the business come to you.