It might sound like a silly question, but do the reviews you share on your website appear genuine to the prospective patients reading them?
Bright Local has studied the impact customer reviews are on purchasing decisions for years. In 2010 they found that less than 7 out of 10 consumers trusted reviews as much as a personal recommendation. However, in 2023, they found around 91% of consumers say positive reviews make them more likely to choose one business over the competition. 84% of of users also felt reviews are important for businesses in the Healthcare industry.
As the importance of reviews grows, unfortunately, so has the trend in companies posting fake reviews to get ahead of the game (62% of consumers claim to have read a fake review, despite them not always being easy to spot)
Often the reviews displayed on a website are those cherry-picked to give the best impression. While this is understandable, if they are displayed with no social proof, how are readers to know if they are real or fake?
Third party proof reinforces your messaging, substantiates your claims, and will increase your new patient enquiries.
The best way to make sure your website builds more trust and increases the number of patients through your door is to put as much proof behind your marketing as possible. One great way to do this? By adding a responsive review widget to your website.
Google review widgets help promote authenticity and realness in reviews by pulling in automatically from the My Business platform, they will also help keep your site up to date with the latest patient feedback.
By being completely transparent with your website visitors, you will prove how trustworthy you are as a business. The header of the widget displays your overall star rating, the total amount of people who have recommended your business and the profile picture of the people who have left the reviews if they have that setting enabled.
With each of these elements being clickable, it takes the reader directly to the review where it was posted on the original platform, further cementing their authenticity.
With the option to include a prominent call to action to leave a review, most clients utilising the widgets have seen an increase in the number of reviews they receive.
Dental Design have also launched a review garnering service, Easy Review Pro, which is an automated system that links to your patient management software to send out review requests to patients that have completed treatment, taking the hassle out of constantly having to ask your patients for feedback.
One of our clients has achieved a 400% increase in Google reviews since signing up to the service. If this is of interest, please contact your account manager for more information.