How to get more Google reviews for your dental practice
The short answer: ask every patient, soon after their visit, with a direct link, and never stop. The fastest early gain is the patients you have already treated: a paced invitation campaign to your existing list typically lifts a quiet profile noticeably inside the first month. Keep the ask neutral, offer nothing in return, and never filter who gets invited. Then reply to what comes in, because 80% of people prefer a business that responds to its reviews.
The five moves, in order
- 01
Mine the goldmine you are sitting on
A practice open ten years has thousands of past patients who were never asked. A campaign inviting them to share their experience is the single biggest lever available, and most practices never pull it. Pace it over weeks: a sudden flood of reviews looks like spam to Google and can get reviews filtered. Check your consent position before messaging your list, since bulk email and SMS fall under the Spam Act.
- 02
Make the ask automatic, not heroic
If getting reviews depends on your front desk remembering during the 3pm rush, it will not happen. The practices that win send a short follow-up message after each visit with a one-tap link to their Google profile. Systems beat intentions.
- 03
Keep the wording neutral
Ask patients to share their experience. Do not prompt for outcomes, results or anything clinical, because soliciting clinical praise is where health advertising rules get involved. A neutral ask is also simply a better ask: it reads as confidence, not fishing.
- 04
Never incentivise, never gate
No discounts, gifts or prize draws for reviews, and no routing unhappy patients to a private form while happy ones go to Google. Both breach Google's review policy, and the ACCC treats undisclosed incentivised reviews as misleading. The shortcut is not worth your profile.
- 05
Reply to everything
A short, warm reply to every review, positive or negative, is a trust signal patients actively look for. It also signals to Google that the profile is managed. Careful with privacy: never confirm clinical details in a reply.
Consumer statistics: BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, a US consumer panel (n=1,002). Compliance detail: see our plain-English AHPRA and Google reviews guide.
Do it yourself, or hand it off?
Everything above is doable in-house, and if your practice manager has the bandwidth to own it permanently, you do not need us. The honest failure mode is not starting, it is stopping: most practices run an enthusiastic month, then the follow-ups quietly stop when the practice gets busy, and the review count goes static again.
What we sell is the system running without anyone at the practice having to remember it: the past-patient campaign, the ongoing right-moment asks, the replies, and a simple page where you watch it work. Here is how the service works.
Common questions
Why does my practice have so few reviews when patients love us?
Because nobody asks. Leaving a review takes effort, and even delighted patients rarely think of it on their own. Practices with hundreds of reviews are not providing better care than you. They ask, consistently, and they make it effortless. The gap between your care and your review count is an asking gap, not a quality gap.
When is the best moment to ask a patient for a review?
Soon after a positive visit, while the experience is fresh, and in a channel they can act on in seconds. A text or email with a direct link to your Google profile the same day works far better than a poster in the waiting room or a verbal ask at the desk, because the patient can act the moment they see it.
How many reviews per month should a dental practice aim for?
For most suburban practices, a steady 4 to 6 new reviews a month changes the picture completely. It keeps your most recent review inside the 3-month window that 74% of consumers say they require, and it compounds: two years of that rhythm puts you past 100 reviews, which is more than most competitors in a typical suburb.
Can we just ask our happiest patients?
No. Filtering who gets asked is review gating, which Google's policy prohibits and enforces against. Every patient gets the same neutral invitation. If your care is genuinely good, unfiltered asking still moves your rating up, because the silent majority of happy patients finally gets heard.
Do QR codes and tap-to-review cards at reception work?
They help as a supplement, not a system. A card at checkout catches some patients in the moment, and it gives your front desk a zero-effort way to point at the ask. But the reliable volume comes from the follow-up message after the visit, because it reaches every patient, not just the ones who linger at the desk.
See where your practice stands first.
We prepare a free one-page snapshot: your real Google numbers next to the practices around you. It is useful whether you do this yourself or hand it to us.
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