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Professional Courtesy: A 5-Star Future? by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD

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Professional Courtesy Header

The world is smitten with reviews.
I'm guilty of consulting Rotten Tomatoes to read opinions about movies, Yelp for restaurants, Amazon for products and Google for other businesses. This barely scratches the surface for places where we can find reviews—for example, numerous sites include reviews of dental practices.

There's no end to this review culture; in fact, I'd suggest that we're headed for an expansion. We might be on a trajectory that will change human interaction forever. (Yes, that last sentence was deliberately dramatic.)

If you travel a bit or live near a major metropolitan area, you've heard of Uber, the app that provides car service on demand. I know that Uber provides an experience superior to the ubiquitous taxi, because taxi drivers hate Uber. I love that you can hail a ride and instantly see how soon your driver is expected to arrive.

Another interesting feature of Uber is that it includes ratings: At the end of your trip you receive a notification to rate your driver's service on a scale of one to five stars. This ensures recognition for the drivers who are doing a great job getting passengers from point A to point B. I can't tell you how many times I would have appreciated that feature in a cab!

The flip side of this feature is that the driver has the opportunity to rate you as a passenger, as well. If you're rude or leave a mess in the car, you might get a low rating and the next time you need a lift, the drivers who see your request may choose to pick someone else up instead. Some people may think that's unfair, but it's really a sign of things to come.

The reviews are in
Technology has enabled many wonderful conveniences in our lives, but it's also on a path to define us in ways we've never seen before. For example, Facebook has penetrated the Internet-accessible population better than any other social network. In the process, it's giving your Facebook "friends" access to your likes and dislikes, and is generating mounds of data on the population at large. Employers now routinely use it to screen job applicants. Facebook may not provide a one-to-five-star rating, but people are drawing their own conclusions.

LinkedIn provides the ability for your contacts to endorse you for specific skills, or to write a recommendation based on their experience working with you. All of this information can be very positive and quite helpful.

Reviewing the future
Let's take a step into the world of fantasy. How much longer will it be before someone develops a platform that provides reviews on dental patients? Wouldn't it be terrific if you could see that your new patient tomorrow is frequently late for his appointments? Patients would be unable to leave one dentist with an unpaid balance and simply start over in another office. What about patients who've been rude to team members?

This dental rating would follow them everywhere, just like their credit rating. Think for a moment how this system would affect marketing a practice. There could be incentives to attract the best patients, and financial penalties for the patients who have not been kind. Would this affect patient behavior? How would dentists react to having ratings that go both ways?

While my silly dental fantasy would violate many HIPAA regulations, I know there are frustrated business owners who have been held hostage by a malicious person posting a bad review. Reviewers act with impunity because they are not subject to having their own behavior reviewed publicly. I can only hope these reviewers will heed the words of Uncle Ben to Peter Parker: "With great power comes great responsibility."

Where do you think our review culture is headed? Post your comments to the digital version of this article on Dentaltown.com. I can also be reached via email:tom@dentaltown.com.




Dentaltown Magazine
April 2024
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