Get more Google reviews from patients who value their privacy.

Why Google reviews are the #1 growth lever for dermatology practices right now

Before a prospective patient calls your clinic, they've already made a preliminary judgment about you. They Googled "dermatologist near me," scanned the map results, looked at your star rating, and skimmed a handful of reviews. This happens before they see your website, your team photos, or your list of services.

According to a 2025 survey of 1,000+ US patients by rater8, 84% of patients check online reviews before selecting a healthcare provider, and 51% read at least 6 reviews before deciding. That's nearly 9 out of 10 people evaluating your practice before they ever pick up the phone. What they find determines whether they call you — or your competitor.

The review velocity problem

Here's something that catches most practices off guard: Google weights review recency heavily in local ranking. A practice that collected 60 reviews two years ago and stopped is being outranked right now by a competitor who has 35 reviews total but got 7 of them this month. Fresh review signals tell Google your practice is active and consistently delivering.

That's why a one-time email blast or "just ask at checkout" approach never sticks. You need a consistent, permanent system. That's exactly what Spokk automates — every visit generates a review request, every request is followed up if needed, and reviews keep arriving month after month without any effort from your team.

Unhappy patients deserve a direct path to resolution — not a review request.

Spokk collects feedback from every patient. All of it lands in your private dashboard first. The threshold you set controls whether Spokk proactively offers the Google review button as a next step. It doesn't prevent a patient from independently navigating to Google and leaving a review — that's always possible. What it does is route unhappy patients toward a direct service recovery channel instead of a review prompt they're already primed to use negatively.

When a patient who rated you 2 stars gets a service recovery message — "We're sorry to hear your experience didn't meet expectations. We'd genuinely like to understand what happened and make it right" — and someone from your team follows up within 24 hours, the outcome is dramatically different from doing nothing. Service recovery research consistently shows significantly higher patient retention when practices respond to negative experiences promptly and personally. Patients who felt heard after a poor experience often become among your most loyal.

A note on responding to reviews — especially the hard ones

This part doesn't get talked about enough. Responding to Google reviews is one of the highest-ROI things a dermatologist can do with 15 minutes a week. Not because of SEO (though Google does factor response rate into local ranking signals) — but because prospective patients read your responses as carefully as they read the reviews themselves.

A warm, thoughtful response to a positive review takes 30 seconds and reinforces that the experience described was real and that your practice cares. A composed, professional response to a critical review — one that doesn't get defensive, doesn't confirm clinical details, and offers a path to resolution — often does more to build trust with prospective patients than a string of five-star reviews.

The HIPAA consideration here is real. Never confirm or deny any clinical details in a public review response. You can't even acknowledge that someone is your patient. Keep responses in the register of: "We appreciate you sharing your experience and take all feedback seriously. Please reach out to us directly so we can address your concerns." That's all you need — and it lands well with the prospective patients reading it.