While using DemandForce, I recommend you take the initiative with other review sites like Yelp, Insider Pages, Citysearch, Yahoo Local, etc.

Also try to get happy patients to post reviews on those sites. Unlike DemandForce, you don’t have to pay Yelp, IP, CS, YL, indefinitely to keep your reviews up.

I’d be happy to hear from you.

I believe that if a potential client reads only the top review, it wouldn’t matter what the review says. Your chance of that client being a “good” client (or patient, in DDS terms…. grin) is somewhere between slim and none.

????

Keep getting the reviews – over a period of time is the focus. Reviews (and word-of-mouth) is a long term game. The ROI is not immediate, but are longer lasting than advertising (and way cheaper). The big plus is a strong network of referral sources makes you nearly recession resistant (fortunately we are not timber reliant in this area anymore, so the wild economic swings are far less often and not as severe. Using only WOM, we built a practice that had increased sales for 22 of the 23 years we owned it (if I wasn’t such a lousy manager, we would have had increased profits every year as well.) Yep. In little Ashland. Or maybe because we are in little Ashland. Hmmm….

Thanks for the input. I think you have great suggestions. I will start to work on writing responses to each review, this time having it proofread before I publish. Anyone interested in proofreading for me?

An interesting note: We did have some positive reviews posted subsequent to Christalyn’s, but, even though they were more recent, Google put them further down on the list!!! Christalyn’s review stayed right at the top!!! I was flabbergasted…so just burying them with more recent positive reviews doesn’t always work.

Jared

….and no, I had no intention of suing Google over this. My understanding is that they already are being sued for just this sort of thing, and it is working it’s way through the higher courts. Even though it may seem they are protected, I can’t help but think they are going to get sued anyway. I’ve heard of stranger things.

Jared

Jared – I am truly sorry about the very real stress this situation has caused you. User reviews have real-world effects and this is why I am very much a proponent of Google re-thinking their ideas about customer service, and possibly, arbitrage.

I think you’ve got two tasks in front of you:

1) Responding to the review accusing you of inappropriate behavior. In a completely bland, calm fashion I think a response that a female hygienist is always present during patients’ appointments, precisely to prevent such instances from ever occurring to any female patient who ever visits any dentist. I would follow this up by mentioning, again, completely blandly, that as the dentist voted Ashland’s Favorite, your patients can be certain that all such laws are strictly upheld in your office.

Now for the kicker – and I don’t know if others here would agree, but I think you final statement needs to go just one tiny step beyond bland, and be along these lines:

‘My staff was genuinely shocked and concerned to encounter this review. We do not currently find a patient anywhere on our roster named ‘Martha’, but Martha, if you’re out there, please feel free to call us as we are concerned that you may have confused our office with that of another dentist or some such mistake and we are absolutely ready to listen to your story and figure out where the confusion lies. The whole caring staff at our office is inviting you to contact us.”

And, I’d leave it at that. What do other readers here think of this approach? My goal is to state the laws and then throw the ball back in Martha’s court with a concerned appeal that the staff is ready to listen to her to discover where it actually was that she had such a disagreeable experience. I also think it creates an image of a whole staff of skilled and caring women and men who have been negatively impacted by this review – taking it out of a person-to-person knock-down context. Any thoughts on that?

2. The other review is a lot more complex, Jared, and depersonalizing is probably the best tactic, but I am wondering if there is some way to delicately hint at the fact that the review stems from a personal problem and not a patient problem. The response needs to be extremely well-thought-out and edited. Can anyone here suggest how to hint at this without giving any personal details?

Finally, the whole thing needs to be buried in an avalanche of newer reviews, unless you want to find the budget to take it to court. Frankly, I think Martha’s review is the most worrisome of the two as it accuses you of very serious misconduct. But, taken together, the two negative reviews are extremely problematic and this is the time to leverage your loyal patient base and start burying this stuff with legitimate positive reviews.

Sincerely wishing you good luck!

Google is categorically and unequivocally protected with immunity by federal law (Title 47 Section 230 of the ironically named “Communications Decency Act”) from the use of their platform by 3rd parties. This is true EVEN IF THEY KNOW a review to be false and refuse to remove it or pull it down.

So there is no % in going down that route.

Your only legal action is directly against the person that wronged you. Which, assuming she is unwilling to listen to you, might listen to a lawyer or a judge.

Either resign yourself to local legal action now or move on and just keep plugging (Like Glenn recommends) at the review issue. This should involve a simple ask of every patient that comes and goes from your clinic from now till forever.

I would also suggest that you contact Miriam Ellis and have her help you craft your response and get it posted correctly.

I am strongly with Glenn on this: Time to get on with your life.

Mike

Take a look at Jared’s Places page:

As of this moment, 22 reviews. Primarily 4 and 5 star ratings. I dare say a better review presence than average for dentists.

But are the dates of the reviews a bit skewed? With the exception of the reviews on Demand Force, all are nestled within a rather narrow date range. Does it look like Jared went on a “please review me” kick for a while, then later settled on getting a trickle of reviews through Demand Force as his primary location for leaving reviews? Is the preponderance of good reviews, though narrow in location and dates, good enough to overcome the couple bombs dropped a few months later – with few reviews immediately before or since (to counterbalance)?

As much as I hate to admit it, Mike is right. You gotta keep asking for reviews. Always. It minimizes situations like Jared is (overly?) embroiled in. Business owners are prone to forget to keep asking – which is why I take small issue with Mike’s suggestion, not because he is wrong but because so few of “us” will be so diligent. Is there a realistic prod to be found?

@Jared
As a fellow Ashlander and co-owner of a professional services business (no, not that kind of professional service), I sympathize with your situation but feel compelled to ask – are you taking this too personally? Forget crazy woman for a moment. People in town will figure out what is going on, it’s not the big, immense issue you are making it out to be, and the majority are too wrapped in their lives so they won’t give a rat’s ass either way. Instead, glance at the other reviews. There are valuable tidbits in there, enough to work on in the coming months to become even better and more responsive.

-Glenn Street
Barika Audiology

Thanks for the suggestions. I suppose a professional response would be a good start, but I’m still left talking about a very bad subject that people can read, and then click on another dentist. Yes, office procedure is definitely to have a staff person in the operatory at all times. However, I am reluctant to respond to these accusations in a way that makes it sound like they might possibly have occured, because they absolutely have not…ever…with her or any other patients.

As for trying to contact her and see if we can come to a resolution….well let’s consider what type of person writes something like that after a breakup of over a year ago. Without bringing up too much of my personal life, I will say the movie ‘fatal attraction’ is a very good reference to the woman I’m dealing with. She’s a powderkeg with absolutely nothing to lose.

I’m between a rock and a very hard place. I am not and will not be the only one. Google has handed a tremendous amount of power over to a whole bunch of people who aren’t fit to use it, and it will result in a legal battle for them if they don’t start managing it very soon. I understand they are busy, but they are going to be even busier managing more class action lawsuits than they know what to do with. This is a very REAL problem. It will probably be easier for them to start addressing these concerns, than it will to defend against them later in court….