Closing the feedback loop at Affordable Dentures & Implants

In the early days at Affordable Dentures & Implants, a 240 practice network of dental providers concentrating on denture and implant services, the staff wasn’t proactively asking patients for reviews. As a result, the reviews they received were often from the small percentage of patients that had a bad experience.

“Ninety to ninety-five percent of the people that come into any of our practices are going to have a great experience,” related Stewart Stearns, director of digital marketing at Affordable Dentures & Implants. “Because we weren’t asking people what they thought, what was happening was the small amount of people that had a bad time went online and talked about it.”

Because the business knew a vast majority of patients were leaving Affordable Dentures & Implants satisfied with the work they received, it started looking for a better way to reflect that in its online presence. They turned to Podium because of how simple the review process was, but also the ability to use text messaging to connect with patients.

They initially implemented Podium at 17 of their locations and experienced positive results almost immediately. “In about six weeks, we had a 32 percent increase in our overall star rating,” said Stearns. “We looked at that and said, ‘What’s not to love here?’ Why wouldn’t we want this across our entire network?”

After the success of the initial pilot, they set up a team dedicated to monitor and respond to patients who had a negative experience and left a negative review. With those pieces in place, Stearns began the process of rolling out Podium at 240 locations.

One of Stearns’ goals is to ensure that Affordable Dentures & Implants locations are the obvious choice to patients when they are searching online. Podium has helped them do just that. In a little under two years, Affordable Dentures & Implants has collected more than 22,300 reviews and improved its average overall star rating from 3.4 to 4.4. Online reputation has improved so dramatically, Stearns is now incorporating online reviews onto the website, which has contributed to higher conversion rates.

“Our feedback loop is getting better all the time because of Podium,” concluded Stearns. “Our staff now realizes that a lot of patients are coming in because of our reviews, so it pushes them to deliver the best possible experience for the patients. That’s had a huge impact for us.”