Marketing is different than it was five years ago, especially now that AI is firmly entrenched in so many communities. Kiera talks about how AI, online reviews, and local trust are more important than ever, and what you and your practice can do to keep patients coming your way.
Episode resources:
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Leave us a review
Transcript:
Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (00:00)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I hope you're having a great day. I am having a great day. I love being in office with offices. I love working with practices. I love being with our team. I love seeing my team elevate and grow. I love watching and seeing just wins. I love hearing how our clients are doing. I love to see the wins our clients are getting. Honestly, dentistry is so great and it's fun. It's fun to see the evolution of the Dental A Team. I remember when I started this, there is no way, shape, or form that I honestly thought.
That we would have this many clients that I get to celebrate and love on and just rally to see them hitting production goals that they never thought they'd do, having profitability, working through leadership team issues, ? revamping what they believe is their why and their power. very invigorating to see offices wanting to possibly sell to a DSO and then finding other alternatives, having offices sell to DSOs, having offices bring on partners and associates. To me, that is one of the most like
rewarding parts of owning Dental A Team is to see so many people and to get to be friends with so many of you and to truly watch I would say like the good guys and girls win. And ? my job and our company's mission is to truly like your success is our passion. So I'm excited. I hope that you're excited. I hope you remember the dentistry. We're so lucky to be a part of dentistry. We get the most incredible job and it's it's not just a job. I think it's a life changing experience we all get to be a part of. So today I just want to kind of like dive into like
AI reviews and ? trust are genuinely kind of changing how patients choose their dentists. And I've been watching this and we've been talking about it within our private doctor communities and ? just recognizing that the world's changing on how people are picking dentists now and how are they finding you? And this is a little ? I feel local. So some areas are gonna have more AI influence versus other areas are possibly going to have less AI influence.
But I think for all of us to just kind of figure out like how are patients choosing to go to the dentist? How are patients coming and picking dentists? Cause I do believe that marketing and the AI, it's different than it was five years ago. So I'm also finding that patients truly have already figured out who they're probably gonna call before they even call you. So like they're gonna determine do they trust you or not before they even make that first phone call. And before I used to feel like we could win them over, and I still believe we absolutely can, but a lot of it's already coming. And so it's coming before they talk to you.
And it's more than just having a website. It's you gotta be able to build that trust online with your patients before they even walk through the door, before they even want to make a phone call with you. So I just want to talk about like how is AI changing behavior, why our reviews like genuinely matter, how things are changing over there, things are shifting. there's some new algorithms if you're not familiar with how Google is switching it up for us, and really just trying to give you guys some preps because I believe that there are maybe some possibly three areas for a practice to focus on to really like
be the choice of your community. So we're big on making sure that we work. We work across the globe. We work across the nation. So seeing practices and how patients are making decisions from small boutique country villages to very metropolitan cities to places where there's not even like more than like five team members to choose from, to little isolated islands out in the Caribbean, you name it, we've seen it all. And so just really trying to help offices ?
look at things differently and to be observant. And so I want you guys to to realize that there's still ways to stand out. I think there's still ways for us to make big influences. And right now, AI is so new that we don't know all the ways of how it's working. And so just giving some tips and ideas to kind of have that healthy conversation of what is the innovative way for practices as of today, knowing that it could shift and change. But I believe that when we're on the cutting edge and we're being attentive to this, we're trying to stay
as up to date as possible without like killing ourselves off, I think is very important and very astute as CEOs. they have the phrase innovate or die. And I believe the practices do need to innovate. We do need to be on top of this. Otherwise we will get ? dated very quickly. So ? I think what was happening is patients are they used to rely a lot on referrals and I still think that that is a piece of it. But I will say it's a referrals and then it's a verify.
So they're verifying referrals. They're looking to see, hey, my friend told me this dental office. I'm gonna go double check it. And the way I'm gonna double check it is I'm gonna go read the reviews. I'm gonna check their website. I'm gonna look at social media. I'm gonna search online. Do you how many people are looking? Like you guys, I just went on a trip. I asked Chat GPT. I said, build me out the best hotels, the best locations. So people are starting to use AI. It's not all algorithm from the reviews and different pieces. It's pulling from that, but it's also not there. So we're kind of all looking like AI tells me this and I'm gonna go check the reviews. So
We're starting to have a lot more pieces to that. And so I really do believe like your online presence is a lot of times the exact first impression. And we're looking at evaluating trust before they come in and they're going to like evaluate your treatment. So can I trust this? Do they have a good online presence? And I know that that's annoying because not all the best practices are the ones with the highest reviews. However, society and for years of training of five stars, we're starting to learn that that's what we trust.
So I believe that there can be two practices side by side, similar services. One has recent reviews and online engagement and like very clear online presence. The other one hasn't updated anything in years. Patients are gonna look at both of those side by side and they're most likely probably gonna choose the one with the great reviews. Even if they're identical practices, even if they do the great same dream, even if the one who doesn't have a strong online presence is better, people don't know that. And it like you have to be present, you have to be winning online in order for people to want to come and work with you. So
For me, it's you've got to make sure you're building that trust online. You've got places where people can see you. And we have to remember different types of buyers are going to look at this differently. So if your demographic and population is going to be a more senior patient base, you might still be newspaper flyers, ? having webinars, CE, things like that, where you're in person with them more. If your demographic is anything of like 60 and younger, they're probably online. not all the 60, like from the 50 to 60 range, that's still variable.
But anyone pushing that 50, they are in that realm where they have been trained with reviews and looking online and things like that. So, and regardless if your patient base is older, you have to remember that next wave of patients coming that are probably going to be your patients long term. They are that younger generation. So people don't want just recommendations anymore. They want confirmation. Like I want to trust. I think that in the world of AI where people are really questioning what's real, what's not real.
We're asking for referrals. We're verifying online. We're trying to put all the pieces together because we're inundated with so much noise that people are really trying to sift through the noise to figure it out. So ? I think if you one one call to action on that is like re review your online presence this week as if you're a brand new patient. What's our social media look like? What are our reviews saying? When was our most recent review? What's our worst review? It's okay to have a bad review. Like it truly is. How you respond to that bad review is actually going to weed out patients and it's also going to show people a lot about you.
It's okay to not have the best reviews. It's not okay to have a lot of bad reviews, but it is okay because guess what? Everybody goes on there and the first thing we do is we look for the newest and then we go for the worst. We want to see, we want to see what happened. That's what's also going to make you stand out is real. I don't want you having a lot of bad reviews, but it's okay if you do. It just depends on how you respond and also pay attention. Are there things that you can fix and change with those reviews? Sometimes even calling those patients can help with those reviews. But look at that, see, go ask people to like type into Chat GPT.
Go do it on your own. See if you pull up, see where things are at. Are you the most recommended dentist? Look at those items. If you're not pushing like five, six, seven, eight hundred reviews right now. A lot of people are going to gloss over because there are other dentists that are going to whoop you because they've got like they're going to beat you in the race because they have more reviews than you. So that leads into our second thing of reviews really are becoming word-of-mouth marketing. And they're not just nice to nice to have anymore. They truly are like part of the patient experience. And so
You've got to have consistent review generation. You've got to have reviews that are talking about patients' stories. You got to have team involvement asking for feedback. Now, a latest update with Google algorithm is if they have the team member's name in there, they're starting to like disqualify some of those. I did have a practice tell us that they lost like 15 reviews in one day. Now, this feels a little weird to me, and I hope Google's listening. Not that I think they care about Dental A Team podcast, but I hope they do. Because to me, I'm like, I actually want patients to talk about.
their team. I understand that there's ways that we can gamify the system and we can like have our team members try to get their names and reviews. However, a lot of people are going to talk great about it. So in our mastermind, we were talking, we do have a dentist who has over 1500 reviews and she said where she's actually getting the reviews is right at the end of the appointment when they're checking out. They are asking for reviews right then and there and the text message is going to that patient while they are still in the practice. And people are like, we don't want that. Like they're busy on that. And I was like, guys, she has 1500 reviews.
I think she's got something going really, really well for her. She's figured it out. She's doing an incredible job and they're going for it. So this is something where like mistakes on reviews are where we only ask occasionally. You've got to be very consistent. We've got to be asking every single time. ? we don't want reviews to be an extra task. Like, we don't want to ask for reviews when there's a problem. We're like once in a blue moon. You've got to have a steady stream of consistent reviews coming through. I love Swell. Swell's been one of my best best.
Review generators across the board. I've tried tons of them. I personally love Swell. You guys can tell them Dental A Team sent you. We still get like OG back at the very beginning when Zeke and Kiera met when we were just babies building our businesses. And Zeke still honors that pricing over there. So definitely would recommend them. It's Swell ? dot I think it's CX. It's been a while since I've said their website, Swell dot CX. sorry, Sw Swell CX.com, I believe is their website. And
Head on over there, the SwellCx.com, let them Dental A Team sent you. It is truly one of the absolute best review places, but putting it right then and there, asking for it, having them go through. Some people use their computer softwares. Regardless, you need to be attracting and getting reviews on a consistent basis. And I'm talking like one, two, three, four, five a day. Yes, I said a day, because think about it. If you have two hygienists, if you've got four hygienists, if you've got six hygienists,
We are seeing eight patients a day. So minimum you're probably seeing 16 patients a day on hygiene side. Doctor side's probably pulling in at least eight more. You're seeing like 30 to 50 patients per day on a low end, up to like 100, 150 on a high end, even up to 200. Pediatric, you're seeing a ton. So think about if we're only getting like even 5% of those patients are leaving a review. That's a very small amount that I believe that we can all get trickling in there. So reviews.
At scale, they are going to build trust. So think about it: the best restaurants, the best thing, but be a practice that's review-worthy. We've talked about this on so many other podcasts. We can link some of those for you. But make sure that your practice is doing an incredible experience because you want to have a consistent review process instead of hoping that reviews will happen naturally. You've got to be asking for it. And I know that that's annoying, I know it's awkward.
Do believe me. Do you think I like coming on here and be like, hey guys, leave us a review? So if you want to feel good about a review, go leave us a review. Give five stars on Dental A Team, give five stars on our podcast. It feels good to leave reviews. And so that way you can also feel good asking for it. And it's something where just like working out doesn't feel good at the beginning, but then it feels real good. This is just asking people to like share their great experience with the world about you. There is nothing wrong. If you've done a great service, ask those people to share about it. It's a great way for more patients like them to find you.
So that's gonna be like step two. And then step three around that is going to be like, I do believe that local trust is becoming a very big competitive advantage. So technology is growing, AI is growing, but I still believe that like trust still wins and having local people and consistent people like building that local trust. So having those reviews, having those referrals, having raving patients. I just came from an office. I'm so proud of them. They've grown from four ops into 15 ops, and now they're looking to add on to 25 ops. So
it's only been a couple of years. I think we've been together about four and a half years. So really fun. And to see them, they're getting patients looking at their reviews, having people tell them that they're a great dentist and they want to go. But it's just a consistent patient experience. It's community involvement, strong referrals, team consistency, follow-through. And I'll say just being good humans, like treating patients like humans. ? patients, I believe they want confidence, they want connection, and they want credibility and they want to know that you're you're authentic.
Again, we talked about there's so much out there that's not authentic. We've got so many people and it's like, what's real? I went, I was doing a gym photo shoot and they're like, pick photos that you like. And I showed my trainer which ones and she's like, Kiera, you picked all AI photos. And I was like, Well, shoot, that's not even fun. Like, we don't even know what's real or not real. Things look so real and they're not. So people still want to know that it's real and authentic. And so having a great patient experience, having it where you're involved in the community, ? being the dentist that the community chooses, being a part of things.
Being a human, having authentic connection to your patients, giving them confidence and having a team that really backs you is, I believe, a lot of great ways for you to still be competitive, even in spite of a world that's so, so advanced in technology. ? and I really do believe that private practices have a huge competitive advantage of treating people like people. ? I think it's like the Ritz-Carlton's tagline is ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. Like, what if it was like,
Dental professionals serving, like human beings serving human beings. We're just here to serve them and to love them and help them have this amazing experience at a place where most people don't even enjoy being. So I believe that technology might help patients find you. I believe that trust, connection, consistency, continuity is what's going to help them continue to choose you long term. And I want you to remember that just because a patient's been seeing you forever doesn't mean that they're with you forever.
I do believe that every time they come to you, it is an opportunity to rewin their trust to bring them in, to help them, to help them see that this is ? the the best decision that they could ever make. So really truly you've got to be visible because visibility gets attention, the trust, the connection, the community, it keeps the patients with you. So look at your practice and see like, what are we doing every week to build trust with our patients? How are we making sure that we're genuine and authentic? What is that our culture? Is that what we preach?
go read the reviews, see what people are saying about you, ? look to see where people are referring and just be good humans. Like I I know that seems so silly, but be a great human goes a long way. I think it's starting to become the currency that people are looking for of being kind, being considerate, being connected, being authentic. ? so again, remember patients are looking for that proof before they even make the phone call. So you've got to be visible, you've got to have reviews, you've got to have things out there. ?
Reviews are like your modern word of mouth. So they're gonna read, people are gonna look at it, they're going to see. And then having that local trust, that community connection can be a great differentiator. So that's a great way to stand out. It's a good way for people to talk. Have your care to share cards, give them to people. We had podcasts on that. Like remind people to share you with their friends and their family because I still believe that referrals are one of the fastest ways to grow your practice and be the dentist that people want to refer. I think that that's probably my like final line. Like
Be the dentist, be the dental practice that people want to refer to. And I think if that's your mantra, that's your mindset, you're gonna win every single day. I wanna be the dental consulting company that people refer to. I wanna be the consulting company that when you need help, you think about us. I wanna be your best friend in the industry. I wanna be the person that you can count on to always give you non-filtered advice to truly give you the best of the advice. I will constantly be elevating myself and I wanna be that person for you. I wanna be the dental consulting company that dentists choose and the teams choose, ? that they trust that they know that are gonna take care of them.
And I hope that you want to be the dental practice that your community chooses. So go out because really you can continue to win patients over. AI is coming in, technology's coming in. You've got to be visible. It's non-negotiable. You have to do it. It's just what it is. You got to check yourself there. You've got to be present there first. And then you got to make sure that that what we say online is what we really do. And in person is actually better than out there. If we can help you guys, this is what we do. We improve patient experiences, we improve.
How to ask. We help get your teams on board to ask for those reviews. we help make it very fun for teams and for owners. So reach out. I'd love to help you out. As always, guys, don't fall behind. Innovate or die. Be the dentist that the community chooses. Be the dentist that you're proud of. Be the practice that you're proud of. ? be authentic to you, but make sure that you're visible because I would hate for somebody who's not as great as you.
Just because they have a stronger online presence, patients are going to them when I know you're the better dentist. I know that you have the great hand skills. And I'm not here to pit dentists against each other. I'm here to say, I want the best dentist, which is you listening, to win. You're the best dentist, you get the best treatment. Patients only have 32 teeth, and most of the time they only have 28. And I want those 28 teeth to be taken care of for as long as possible from the best dentist. And that's you. So get yourself visible. You have an obligation to share yourself with other people because they deserve to have the best clinician. They deserve to have that.
Get the review so people know about you, post on social media, and then make sure that you've got a great connection and a great community. If we can help you out, reach out. I'd love to help you. Like I said, I want to be the dental consulting company that you choose, that you share with. And I believe that that's how most of our practices feel about us. So come be a part of it. I'd love to have you be a part of us. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening. And I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.