Prior to the age of the Internet, businesses relied predominantly on word-of-mouth reviews from clients and personal recommendations, along with professional reviews and customer testimonials published in newspapers to a lesser extent. In today’s digital landscape, online reviews serve as a modern-day word-of-mouth recommendation, assisting website visitors in building expectations, helping them decide whether or not to spend their money/time at a certain establishment. In BrightLocal’s 2025 Survey, they found that 71% of consumers self-report that they, at minimum, regularly read reviews when looking at businesses/services online, and 29% of consumers within that same group report that they always read online reviews before making a decision.
Notably, online reviews are not only applicable to all industries, including healthcare providers/services, but are also often the key to acquiring new patients or customers, depending on the types of services provided. Dental practices, specifically, hugely benefit from garnering positive online reviews. Patients tend to switch dental providers as needed, especially for convenience (for example, moving to another area). This means that, depending on your practice’s location and availability for accepting new patients, your office has the potential to acquire new patients regularly. A strong online presence with many positive reviews will encourage patients to choose your practice over others in the area.
ABELDent Reputation Management Service (RMS) can help your practice acquire positive reviews while simultaneously helping to keep negative reviews private. RMS encourages patients with negative feedback to submit a form directly to your practice rather than publish their critical feedback online, preventing it from putting off potential new patients. Additionally, ABELDent RMS seamlessly integrates into your ABELDent program, eliminating the need for third-party software.
How to use ABELDent RMS
In ABELDent, you can view a list of patients treated today. You can select specific patients to send a text or email review request to. This review request can link to any review website of your choosing, including, but not limited to, Google, Facebook, RateMDS, etc.
Patients who select a higher rating will automatically be linked to your review website’s URL. Patients who select a lower rating will be linked to an internal review form. This prevents their negative review from being publicly available, while still allowing patients to voice their concerns and ensuring that your practice can improve your patients’ experiences. This also allows you to reach out to the patient and respond to their concerns directly to help smooth out the experience.
Utilizing a reputation management service such as ABELDent RMS will help your practice compile positive personalized recommendations, helping your practice grow over time. Your practice will stand out online and encourage new patients to book appointments with your practice. A roster of positive online reviews is a great starting point in acquiring patient trust and gives your practice a head start toward building and maintaining strong patient-provider relationships.
