Updated 2026-07-25 · 2 min read
For a dental practice, reviews are almost the first consultation: people compare before they write. And yet most practices with happy patients have very few — not for lack of merit, but because nobody asks.
Asking properly is a question of when, and of who.
The moment
The best moment is shortly after the visit, while the experience is fresh. Not at the desk in a rush, and not three weeks later when they've forgotten.
And once only. Asking twice for the same review turns a favour into a nuisance.
Who: ask first, then request
The right order is to ask how it went first, and only invite the ones who answer well to leave a review. That isn't filtering opinions: it's not asking a public favour of somebody who left unhappy.
With whoever wasn't happy there's something far more valuable to do: listen in private and put it right. A complaint dealt with in time avoids the one-star review and, very often, keeps the patient.
What not to do
Offering discounts or gifts in exchange for a review. It's against the platforms' rules, and besides, it shows.
Writing them yourself or asking friends to. The patterns get detected and the damage to your reputation is much worse than having no reviews at all.
Answering criticism badly. A calm reply, without going into clinical detail and offering to talk it over in private, leaves a better impression than the criticism itself.
How ClaudIA does it
It asks how the visit went a while after the appointment. If the answer is good, it invites them to leave a review with the practice's link. If it's poor, it sends no link at all: it takes down the reason and alerts the team so they can put it right before it becomes public.