HotDoc Reviews has been created to automatically send out a request via email, push notification or SMS, that encourages a patient to leave a Google Review after they have attended your practice.

We understand that there is some confusion around what practitioners can or cannot do when it comes to reviews. HotDoc Reviews has been created with this in mind to remove any ambiguity and help you to promote your practice within the recommended RACGP guidelines. 

HotDoc Reviews works simply by removing the manual step of asking a patient to leave a Google Review. This saves your reception team time and makes sure all patients are asked, increasing the possibility of a review being left.  By increasing the amount of Google Reviews your practice receives, you are more likely to:

• Increase your search ranking - the more high star reviews you have, the higher your practice will show up in local search
• Increase patient recommendations for your practice - patient verbatim is incredibly powerful when a patient is looking for a new practice

This guide covers the essentials of setting up HotDoc Reviews. If you are doing this for the first time, you will be required to complete all sections below.

Once set up, you will be able to automatically ask patients to leave a Google Review for your practice and increase your marketing presence and reputation for new patients.

1. Is HotDoc Reviews ok to use?

When considering whether you can use a reviews product to promote your practice, our general advice is the following:

HotDoc Reviews is built to remove the manual task of asking and encouraging patients to leave a honest review on Google. The product itself is very simple:

1. HotDoc syncs when a patient has been seen for an appointment
2. HotDoc automatically sends the patient an email, push notification (if applicable) or SMS with a link to your Google Reviews page, encouraging them to leave a review if they so wish

Because HotDoc Reviews attempts to send a review request to all patients who have had an appointment, the product itself is impartial. The sole purpose of Reviews is to make it as easy as possible for a patient to leave a review, that's it!

In doing so, we hope to encourage as many reviews to come through for your practice, allowing new patients to more easily search for your services.

To read more about Google reviews and how other practices are using HotDoc Reviews, see Why Google Reviews Matter for Practices.

2. What does the patient see?

Knowing what the patient will receive will help remove any confusion and will also help your staff to anticipate any questions that may come from your patients.

1. Firstly, a review will send based on the following:
   1. if your practice is using Best Practice, Medical Director, Zedmed or Genie: Once the patient has been marked as 'seen' in the appointment book, they then qualify for a Reviews request to be sent two hours after their appointment time has passed.
      
      
   2. If your practice is the HotDoc Calendar, they will receive a review request regardless of the patient arrival status two hours after their appointment time has passed.
      
      
2. The patient will receive a request, either to their email address, mobile number on their patient file, or via push notification to their HotDoc app:
   
   
   
3. If the patient is logged into their Google account already, we will take them straight to your practice's Reviews page. If they are not logged in, we will prompt them to log in with their Google details.
   
   
4. After logging in, the patient is then able to write and submit a review:
   
   
   

3. How to set up Reviews

Setting up Reviews is all done through the HotDoc Dashboard.

1. Log into your HotDoc Dashboard and navigate to Reputation > Reviews and select Sign in with Google to get started:
   
   
   
   
2. If you are not already logged into your practice's Google My Business account, you will be prompted to do so at this stage. If you do not have a Google My Business account, please see How to setup or update your Google My Business Listing.
   
   
3. Grant HotDoc access to the reviews section of your Google account by selecting Allow:
   
   
   
4. You will then be guided back to the HotDoc Dashboard where you can view your existing Reviews as well as keep track of any new Reviews that come in. If you have no current reviews to populate, you will see a success screen instead:
   
   
   
5. If your Google My Business account is attached to multiple locations, you may be requested to pick the correct location for this HotDoc Dashboard, similar to the example below:
   
   
   
   
6. By default, we will automatically start sending a review request to eligible 'seen' patients. If you would like to switch this off at any time, please toggle the Ask patients for reviews button to Off:
   
   

4. Notify practitioner when a patient leaves a review

We can send an email notification to your practitioners each time a patient leaves a review following an appointment with them. This notification easily allows for your practitioners to see:

• The patient's name 
• The rating they provided
• The review comment 

Please see the following instructions to set up email notifications for your practitioners:

1. In the HotDoc Dashboard, go to Reputation > Review notifications.
   
   
   
   
2. Click Edit next to the practitioners name. 
   
   
   
   
3. Type the practitioners preferred email and select the check box next to Send emails for Reviews to enable notifications, then click Save. 
   
   
   
   
4. These changes will then be reflected in the Dashboard. Repeat the step above for all other practitioners who would like this feature enabled.
   
   
   
   
5. Once the patient has been seen for their appointment and submits a review via the request, we will send their practitioner an email with the following details: 
   
   
   
   
6. If at any time you would like to disable emails from being sent to the practitioner, click Edit next to their name, deselect the check box then click Save. 
   
   
   

5. Guidelines and Recommendations  

Congratulations! You have now completed the set up for HotDoc Reviews. From here, we recommend the following:

• Read through the RACGP guidelines on responding to reviews, especially if you happen to receive a negative review
  
• Make sure you are familiar with how to manage your reviews via Google My Business
• Remember that any review you receive via Google should not be uploaded to your website for promotional reasons
• It is not recommended to ask a patient about their experience before sending them a review request and could be seen as a breach of the Google My Business' review guidelines
• A review request is sent to all types of appointments at the practice, it is not advisable to select only specific types of appointments or patients from a specific practitioner to receive the review request as this could be seen as review gating.

For answers to some frequently asked questions and further information, see Reviews FAQs.