A Workflow to Get Amazing Patient Testimonials for Your Dental Practice
If your marketing doesn’t evolve when the way people search for and choose dentists evolves, it’s only a matter of time before your practice struggles to attract new patients.
More people are searching for dentists online than ever, and patient testimonials have become one of the most effective ways to attract new patients. Unlike marketing messages directly from you and your team, which are naturally sometimes perceived as biased, genuine patient testimonials are seen as reliable expressions of what it’s like to have you as a dentist.
Because of that, every dentist looking to grow their practice should consider getting amazing testimonials from their patients. I recommend you start by collecting five high-impact testimonials, put them on a page on your website, and share them on social media. Here’s how you can get those five high-impact testimonials in no time!
1. Create an amazing patient experience.
If you want patients to say amazing things about you, you need to give them an amazing patient experience to talk about.
In my practice, we designed our entire patient experience to give each patient a WOW experience. When someone calls, we treat them with excitement and respect and make doing business with us simple and easy. When a patient comes in, our front desk team member walks around the counter to greet them, shake their hand, and offer to make them a cup of coffee or tea. If it’s their first time, they tell them about our practice, what makes us different, and how we believe every patient should be treated to a WOW experience. The team member then walks them to the back of our office, shows them our core values, and highlights which of our core values is their personal favorite.
When the tour is over, we invite them to look through a coffee-table book we prepared about our practice and encourage them to look through it to find more about our story and culture, see how we’re serving our community, learn about our doctors and our team, and witness before and after transformations.
During each appointment, we give our patients the VIP treatment, with iPads, massages, hot towels, and more.
2. Ask your patients about their experience.
When our patients’ appointments are over, our hygienist will ask them about their experience with us, as well as what they liked best about their experience that day. Then the doctor will come in and ask about their experience again, naming something specific about the WOW experience, such as “Did you like the massage?” Neither of us asks about their teeth. We ask about them and their experience and emphasize that we know dental visits can be unpleasant, but we want to ensure every patient leaves with a WOW experience and feeling like the VIP they are. That’s what makes us different.
Finally, as they approach the front desk on their way out, our front desk team member again asks them how their experience was with us.
When our front desk team member asks the patient about their experience, they know to listen for their excitement level. Some of our patients are naturally reserved or shy and will respond with a pleasant but muted, “It was great, thank you” or something to that effect. Others are more outgoing and enthusiastic and will boast excitedly about all the wonderful things they loved about being our patient.
3. Ask your most enthusiastic patients to share their experience with others and let them know why it’s important.
When someone enthusiastically boasts about their experience, we know they’re likely to be comfortable sharing their excitement with others, so we remind them that we do everything we do because we know going to a dentist can be an uncomfortable experience, and we want to make our patients’ experience different.
Finally, we ask our most enthusiastic patients who just finished a cleaning or some other service that doesn’t involve sedation or numbing for a testimonial. We do this by first emphasizing that some people are apprehensive about going to the dentist or even avoid going altogether, and then ask them if they would be willing to talk about the experience they just had on a quick video testimonial because seeing their video on our website and social media accounts could change those apprehensive people’s lives for the better.
4. Ask your most loyal patients to share their experience on a video testimonial.
In addition to your most enthusiastic patients, your best and most loyal patients are often happy to record a short video testimonial about their experience with you! Just like your most enthusiastic patients, your most loyal patients will often be happy to submit a testimonial letting people know how great their experience has been with you. With these patients, I suggest asking them to mention when they first became your patient (i.e. “since 2013”) in addition to what they like best about being your patient.
5. Share the testimonials on social media and store them in a safe place.
Once you’ve collected your amazing testimonials, share them on social media, thanking your patient for their awesome testimonial and letting them know how honored you are to be their dentist!
Here’s a challenge
If you haven’t collected video testimonials yet, I challenge you to start collecting them right away. Start walking through this workflow by serving your patients well, asking them about their experience, and then asking them if they’d be willing to share their experiences to help others.
TAKE ACTION TODAY:
Speaking of glowing video testimonials, if you still haven’t signed up for our Marketing Practice & Growth Challenge, take a look at what some of the practices had to say! Over 300 offices have participated and were able to transform their practice’s marketing and operations in just 21 days! Learn more here.
