Dental practices live and die on trust. A patient choosing a new dentist is going to check your reviews before they ever call. Practices with 100+ Google reviews at 4.8 stars fill new patient slots consistently. Those with 12 reviews at 4.2 stars lose those patients to the practice down the street.
The practices with the most reviews aren't getting lucky — they've built a system.
Why most dental practices don't have enough reviews
The typical approach: hope that happy patients remember to leave a review. Some do. Most don't. The practices that have accumulated 200+ reviews did it by asking — at the right moment.
The right moment to ask
- At checkout: "Is it okay if we text you a quick link to leave us a Google review? It really helps us."
- In the checkout confirmation text: Include a direct link to your Google review page
- In the post-appointment follow-up: "How was your visit today? If we took great care of you, a quick Google review would mean the world: [direct link]"
Automating the ask
- Appointment marked "complete" in your PMS
- Text fires 1 hour later: "Thank you for visiting [practice]! If we took great care of you today, a quick Google review would mean a lot: [link]"
- Email backup fires 24 hours later
Practices that implement this typically go from 2–3 new reviews per month to 15–25 per month within 90 days — without adding a single staff responsibility.
What about negative reviews?
The best defense against a negative review hurting your rating is volume. A practice with 180 reviews at 4.7 stars is barely affected by one bad review. A practice with 14 reviews at 4.4 stars is devastated by it.
Build the volume, and the system protects itself.