Whether it’s the fault of the dentist or the disappointment of the patient at not having unrealistic expectations met, a single bad experience can translate into a world of trouble for any Dyer family dentist. Patient reviews and testimonials are a fundamental component of any medical healthcare professional’s reputation and can ultimately influence the success or failure of their practice. The problem is, a single bad review can outweigh hundreds of positive reviews and can crush a dentist’s business and sully their reputation for years to come.
It’s here that we, the audience and prospective patient, need to learn how to interpret family dentist testimonials and patient reviews: the good, the bad and the ugly. It would be a shame to miss out on the services of a really excellent dental healthcare professional because of the ramblings of one disgruntled client.
Taking Bad Reviews with a Pinch of Salt
A major problem has seeped in to the whole business of patient reviews. One bad review can deliver a huge amount of damage to a dentist’s reputation because people tend to remember bad news over good news. A single bad patient review can sit amongst a clutch of 20 or more positive reviews and yet, prospective patients are likely to exclusively hear the message of the bad review. Ideally, what we as prospective patients want to see is a spotless track record. We don’t want to think that our health lies in the hands of a mere mortal that, like us, has good and bad days. But is this realistic? It is fair?
In addition to our propensity to remember bad news over good, disgruntled patients are FAR more likely to take the time to go online and communicate their message with the world than happy patients are. This is oftentimes because it is one of the few avenues open to them to express their frustrations.
Just think about it: have you ever gone out of your way to write a glowingly positive review about a doctor or dentist after a good appointment? Probably not. Why? Well, because as happy as you were with the service, life goes on and to be honest, you wouldn’t expect any less of a medical health professional. On the other hand, if you had had a bad experience, you’d likely be upset about it for a long time afterwards and one of the ways you can effectively blow off steam is to tell the whole world about it. This is done via word-of-mouth, using online patient review and testimonial sites and, occasionally, by contacting the local news station.
Case Study: Dyer Family Dentist Dr. Irfan Atcha
On Friday 31st October, a well-known and respected Dyer family dentist, Dr. Irfan Atcha, received some bad press over a dental implant patient who was not happy or satisfied with the outcomes of her procedure. It made ABC7 Chicago news with Jason Knowles spearheading the investigative reporting on the whole debacle. This singular event has sent shockwaves throughout Dr. Atcha’s Dyer family dentistry practice and Chicago downtown practice and has brought upon them both a level of scrutiny that not one of his hundreds of positive reviews have done over the past almost 20 years of private practice.
This just highlights how potent a single bad review is. A brief Internet search of Dr. Atcha, however, reviews reams and reams of positive patient video testimonials on YouTube, Facebook and other social media accounts. But, unfortunately for Dr. Atcha, top of the list is the negative ABC7 Chicago report by Jason Knowles.
What’s the Take Home Message?
Bad patient reviews definitely tend to get more airtime and have a greater and more resounding effect than good patient reviews. This is what everyone needs to remember when researching a good Dyer family dentist. You probably will encounter one or even two bad reviews, whether it’s because the dentist really did drop the ball, or the patient simply didn’t have their unrealistic expectations met.
What’s important to acknowledge is how many bad reviews there are versus how many positive reviews. One bad review does not a bad dentist make, but only if there are many, many more good reviews to back up the dentist and prove that his or her service is consistently good, as would appear to be the case with Dr. Irfan Atcha. However, if the dentist you’re investigating does have quite a few bad reviews and fewer positive reviews, the message is loud and clear: take your business elsewhere.