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[Interview] Local Dental SEO – #1 Most Google Reviewed Practice in the USA

By April 23, 2022August 8th, 2022No Comments

Child Smiles Family Smiles: #1 Most Google Reviewed Practice in the USA

At the end of 2021 the marketing team at My Social Practice did a study of the practices with the most Google reviews in the largest 100 cities in the USA. The #1 most reviewed practice in the USA was ChildSmiles – FamilySmiles, in Newark NJ. You can check out their Google reviews at this link.

This local dental SEO interview is with  Jessica Schirripa the marketing manager for Child Smiles Family Smiles. She is primarily responsible for establishing a patient first mentality, which has helped them to increase their Google review profile tremendously.

In this interview we ask Jessica about their practice methodology and how they acquired so many Google reviews.

Google Review In-Office Campaign Materials DL

Meet the Interviewer / Interviewee

dental marketing expert

Adrian Lefler

Vice President of My Social Practice

Adrian is the Vice President at My Social Practice, an agency providing expert SEO support, social media marketing content, and strategy to dental practices.

Adrian has been involved in Google maps SEO for more than 12 years and has helped thousands of companies grow and thrive through digital marketing. Adrian and his wife Emilie have four children and live in Suncrest, Utah.

Jessica Schirripa

Marketing Manager of ChildSmiles – FamilySmiles

Jessica Schirripa has been the marketing director at ChildSmiles Family Smiles since July of 2021.

Her resume prior to her work with ChildSmiles Family Smiles is impressive. She has held positions as a Radio Personality, PSA/Commercial Voice-overs, Video Blogging/Host, Event Coordination/Promotion, Senior Publicist, Writer, Media Correspondent, Social Media Director, Content Curator and most recent overall Project/Account Management leading a creative design and marketing team launching branding campaigns for clients of all levels, from concept to completion.

She loves to work with a team of individuals who share the same creative passions, which is why she enjoys and works so well at ChildSmiles – Family Smiles.

Watch The Interview

Webinar Transcript

Speaker 1:
So Jessica, how are you?

Jessica:
I’m good and yourself?

Speaker 1:
I’m doing well.

Jessica:
Good.

Speaker 1:
So, tell me… You guys were nominated… Well nominated. I don’t know if you want to call it a nomination, but you were the top reviewed practice of the largest 100 cities in the United States, when I did the research at the end of the year, end of 2021. And so I’m super excited to talk with you and get some information about why you guys have done so well, how you’ve done well and sharing any secrets you’re willing to share.

Jessica:
Yeah.

Speaker 1:
Some of these [inaudible 00:00:40] that are looking to… Or Google you. So, first of all, [crosstalk 00:00:46] yeah… I’m sorry.

Jessica:
Oh, no, I was going to say thank you. Thank you, it’s very exciting. I’ve been handling all of the marketing. I’m the Marketing Director since July of 2021. And since then, we’ve seen some big increases, but I think first and foremost more than anything, we lead with a patient-first mentality. So making sure… I always say that is priority number one, when it comes to any sort of marketing initiative, especially with Google reviews. This industry is heavily reliant on patient referrals and of course, reviews are a big part of that. That’s the first thing anybody ever does. Digitally speaking, they go online, they check the reviews. So it’s super important to make sure that our reviews are always positive. Of course, you can’t avoid the negative ones. You can’t please everybody, but just having a proactive approach to create that resolve for them. And that patient-first mentality is super important.

Speaker 1:
That’s awesome. So you’ve been there since last July, is that what you said? So about a year?

Jessica:
Yes. Well, we’re approaching that year mark.

Speaker 1:
OK. So… But you’ve been in the industry for longer than that though. Correct?

Jessica:
Yes, absolutely. I’ve been a Marketing Director, actually, in pediatric industry and orthodontics, about six years now.

Speaker 1:
OK, cool.

Jessica:
Yes.

Speaker 1:
So you’re familiar with the industry. It wasn’t like you just jumped in and…

Jessica:
No. Yeah. I mean, I have a marketing background, more so agency experience with a wide variety of industries, but I fell into a position of pediatric dentistry a while back just because there were so many creative elements to it that made it really fun and exciting. And I just found a niche there and that carried with me and it’s been a really amazing experience watching all the practices grow. And now that I’m in this current role, when I came on board, we started out… We’re both pediatric dentistry, orthodontics, and primary care offices. And we have since then acquired four more offices since I came on board with the intent of opening up, I believe it’s three more by the end of the year and creating more of a regional brand.

Speaker 1:
And your managing all of those? The marketing manager? Oh, good luck!

Jessica:
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. We are… The exciting part is we are starting to grow our team, finally. Again, when I came on board, there was essentially no dental marketing, no streamlining of the dental SEO efforts whatsoever. So as challenging as it is to lay down the train tracks while the train is coming, it was still an opportunity for a reset and process is really, really big, especially when you have so many different offices and a lot of times using different programs and running in different directions, but bringing it all together was an opportunity for a real reset and we’re on track and we’re seeing good things. So we’re excited.

Speaker 1:
That’s awesome. That’s great. So in terms of a broad brush stroke on your marketing, what are… I mean, outside of getting Google reviews, are you guys running ads? Have you got billboards? Do you have other different types of marketing?

Jessica:
Absolutely. We do a little bit of everything. A lot of times we lead with digital marketing for dentists because we feel like that is the most trackable, when it comes to budgeting and getting your ROI together. But I think more than anything, especially as we’re approaching a rebrand, saturation is super important with your target demographic. So I definitely don’t shy away from billboards, don’t shy away from print advertising. If budget allows, we are exploring opportunities for commercial media, YouTube ads, television, radio. Like I said, from a marketing perspective, the bigger the budget you have, the more room you have to play. But definitely in today’s world, we do lead with digital just because it is more of a trackable service or initiative. There’s also grassroots efforts that people tend to fall… Not pay so much attention to, which are super important, including professional referrals, paying attention, from my perspective of pediatric dentistry, involvement with the school systems, with the community, with family events, and just making sure that there’s always an opportunity for your audience to see your presence.
And now that we are marrying a few different brands together and working under an umbrella brand, again, it’s an opportunity for us to reset that and really establish that brand identity and start streamlining all of our initiatives in a bigger way. But as I mentioned before, we do know that we are a patient referral type of industry. That it’s super important that your online SEO presence, your practice website, your dental practice social media, being responsive, engagement… Super important, always creating that bubble for your audience to reach you.

Speaker 1:
So in all of the dental marketing initiatives that you have, how does getting more Google reviews fit in? Meaning, in acquiring more Google reviews and trying to make that an initiative, where does that fit?

Jessica:
Sure. Well, I definitely think that starts in office more than anything else, right? Again, leading with the patient-first mentality and making sure that every patient visit is as top quality service as we’re able to provide. And then when you see that and you see the positivity come from your patients and the families, of course we have programs in place where they get automated surveys, reviews directly linked to their cell phone, text messaging, emails. And it’s an opportunity for us to get feedback. I think in the past, if you go back, maybe even a decade when Yelp was one of the biggest review platforms and trumped Google, it became a hub of negativity, right? Because you had to do something almost really bad to get somebody to prompt them. Like, “Oh, this restaurant was terrible or the service was horrible.” I’m going to go… I’m going to make that effort. I’m going to take that extra step to go and bad Mount them. And get that out there.
The world has changed a little bit for the better where people are now aware of that. And Google reviews have helped us filter the bad and in a sense, and be able to provide a direct connection with the patient. So if they do have an experience… It’s also how you communicate with them. When a patient has a bad experience, we don’t immediately get on the defense. We open up and say, “This is an opportunity for ourselves to improve too. Please allow us an opportunity to connect with you, to find out more about this situation, how we can help resolve.” We always lead with the fact that we’re so apologetic that you felt this way while leaving your appointment. It’s not who we are, it’s not a representation of who we are. And we hope you will allow us the opportunity to regain that trust, to find out what happened so we can provide resolve. Now, as you know, you can’t please everybody there’s always…

Speaker 1:
But everybody knows that. Everybody knows that there’s crazy people out there.

Jessica:
And it really helps us, or any practice or business in any industry when they get that feedback, because they know where some of their shortcomings are. A lot of times it has nothing to do with the actual medical or dental service. Maybe it’s the wait times were too long, some things like that we can’t control or we try to control it as best we can to make sure that the appointments are efficient. Sometimes it has to do with billing, their insurance or this or that. So there’s a lot of elements. But the more information you get from your patients, the better you are going to be as a practice, because you can help to filter that, connect with the right team members who can help provide resolve, and just make sure that everybody is there with that patient-first mentality to deliver the best possible service they can.

Speaker 1:
That’s great. That’s awesome. So in terms of actually getting reviews, so in the industry, there’s automated systems, there’s texting systems you’re obviously using something like that. What I found that works best to improve your dental practice SEO, and I’d like for you to comment back on what I’m saying, I’m just trying to give you some direction here. You can automate the review process, you just send an automatic text to everybody.

Jessica:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Speaker 1:
Are you doing that? Or do you have an internal team initiative where you’re asking patients to give your dental office a review. This would require some involvement inside the practice. Can you comment on that as how you’re doing it?

Jessica:
Absolutely. So I’m actually really glad that you brought that point up because when I first came on board, our dental SEO efforts as well as our online reputation management where just an automated process. After your appointment, you get pinged this, or you get a survey, email, whatever it may be. And people were going on at their leisure, manually responding. But since I’ve come on board, again I’m big on process, I’m big on streamline. We’re actually working to build out a patient experience team. That way they’re the sole people that are going to be responsible to engage with them, to help to bridge that gap, to create resolution. Because as you can imagine, especially if you have multiple offices or even one office that just happens to be a very large practice, it’s important to engage. That’s the number one priority, but it takes time away from office managers, from front desk staff and everybody.
And if you take time away from them doing their job, essentially what happens, you run into more negative situations. So efficiency is key, which is why we are just in the process now, as we are growing tremendously to actually build out a specific patient experience team that will be able to help us manage this. Not just automated through our platforms, but be able to be hands on in responsiveness, to find out more information about what happened from our team, from the patient’s side and create that resolution for them.

Speaker 1:
So this patient experience team, is this more than one person at each office, or is it a group that handles all of your practices?

Jessica:
So as of right now, it’s been one person at each office, but I would say within the last three months, it is now going to be a group that manages all offices as we are coming under the umbrella of our new brand identity. But it is important… Every office has to have quality care control, right? So we have to make sure that every office provides the same level of care, quality service. And that’s why it’s really important to allow them the opportunity and the time to do their specific job roles and be able to deliver to the best of their ability. So we’ll have an in-house team that will be able to filter and monitor from the outside looking in.

Speaker 1:
So, give me an example of some of the dental SEO tasks of this individual that’s in the practice, this patient experience individual, what are they doing?

Jessica:
Well, I would definitely say monitoring the reviews on a daily basis is super important for your reputation and your SEO. I think when people write a review, they either anticipate some type of automated response or no response at all. We want to let them know that if they took the time out to write a review on us, whether good or bad we’re taking the time back to respond, and making it personalized and customized. If somebody writes, “I brought my son, Johnny, he’s terrified of the dentist and you guys did an amazing job. And Dr. So, And So did wonderful.” We want to be able to respond back, not with automation, but with an opportunity, “We are so happy that Johnny had a little apprehension before and we were…” People appreciate that personalization and being addressed. That they’re not just a patient in the door, they’re part of our dental family, so to speak. So the person is essentially responsible for responding in a very personalized manner.
And also, filtering back if we have any negatives, to address those immediately, to make sure that there is a connection. Again, we always lead with the idea that we never want to be on the defensive, “Oh, this part… There’s no way our doctors did this. Or there’s no way that.” “We’re so sorry. You felt this way. Please allow us the opportunity to find out more. We’ll get to the bottom of it.” And I think people have a real appreciation when you’re just as engaged with them as they are with you. And again, it’s not a… And this goes across Google, this goes across social media, Facebook, Instagram, comments, everything. They want to know that they’re actually going to be speaking to a human being on the other end.

Speaker 1:
The way that you’re responding to… That you’ve explained and how you respond to a negative experience is absolutely brilliant. The reason why you… Even if the person isn’t your patient. Right?

Jessica:
Right.

Speaker 1:
I mean, I’ve had some doctors call and say, I just got a bad review, I don’t even know who this person is.

Jessica:
Right.

Speaker 1:
And my response is, “Respond kindly.” Don’t say [crosstalk 00:15:05] or whatever. Because when somebody else goes and looks at the review, they don’t need to know the story that the person’s not a patient. They just need to know how the practice is going to respond.

Jessica:
Respond to it. Absolutely. And I think there is a level that it’s okay to say that to an extent. Sometimes I’ll word it like, “I’m so sorry I looked into this, but we cannot find, based on the name that you’ve provided, we cannot find your account here. But we want resolve this for you. So please, what should the best form of contact so we can reach out to you so we can find out more.” Because especially when it’s a pediatric practice wanting to improve their reputation, a lot of times the parents’ names don’t match the patient name or whatever it may be. So there’s definitely, always potential that you don’t know who the patient is and you’ve got to do a little investigation. But absolutely to your point, I think it’s really important in your response to make sure that you are showcasing that you are doing your absolute best to create resolve.
And you’re not just on the defensive all the time. Because I noticed that a lot in practices, they immediately, “No, there’s no way we did this. There’s no way we did that.” And they actually put it publicly out there on their forum. And I understand everybody’s sensitive about their business, but again, when you always lead, and I hate to keep beating a dead horse, with that patient-first mentality, that’s just the game changer. It’s a game changer for everything. And especially with dentists it’s a review-based industry.
I would say that is the biggest initiative that we put our energy into, for that reason. We know The Marketing Wheel, we know that we need to do billboards. We know we need to put money at Google ads. We know this, we know that. We didn’t invent The Wheel, we just follow it. But the thing is that we can do, is we can create that connection with our patients to really establish that this is a place that they can come for their dental service. It’s a place that they trust. And it’s a place where they know if they do have an issue, we’re not going to be combative about it. We want to resolve it for them.

Speaker 1:
Brilliant. Okay. So I have something I want to do, that’s kind of funny. So I talked to another Marketing Manager yesterday about local dental SEO, his name is Oscar. Their practice is in Houston and they have, I think it was something like 2800 reviews. They’re number four on the list. So when I interviewed him, he was great. When you see the video, you’ll think that this guy’s super cool. But he said, “Well, we’re going to be number one. We’re going to be number one.” I said, “Well, I’m talking to Jessica tomorrow and I’ll let her know that you’re coming after.” So here’s what I wanted, so this guy [crosstalk 00:17:55] Okay. So just, you could be funny, you could be catty, I don’t care, whatever, but I want you to say something to Oscar and I’m going to play these back against each other. I’m going to have his clip saying, “I’m going to be number one.” And I just want you to say something. You could be kind, whatever, whatever you want to do. Just say, “Oscar, I’m here for you. I’ll be watching.” or whatever.

Jessica:
Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, all I got to say to Oscar is we are so thankful that we are motivating people like you to catch up to our level. So thank you so much. It’s the biggest compliment in the world. Thank you. I feel like that was mean.

Speaker 1:
No, that’s actually… It’s kind and…

Jessica:
It’s passive aggressive, okay. Well, if he gets offended, apologize, because I’m actually a kind person by nature.

Speaker 1:
I know. I know you are. Okay cool. All right, well, I really appreciate your time.

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