Called me and asked me to take down bad review

[TotalTired]

Just has a slightly intimidating call, disguised as finding out more facts, regarding a very honest review I wrote for my dentist which involved my kids. An incident happened yesterday and I wrote about it. I mentioned a lot of positives along with the incident.

practice manager just called me saying they will speak to the person. She then said will I please take it down as it doesn’t look good on the clinic. I told her it was 100% the truth and I stand by it. She said she wants me to take it down as it affects the surgery, I told her I will think about it.

aibu - take it down - yes
not being unreasonable don’t take down - no

I think your review is fine. It's factual and balanced. What's more it may even be beneficial to the clinic as the vile receptionist may become a bit of a joke.

Or they may get rid of her - even better.

Presumably they can leave a response if they want? They can then defend themselves if they think it was actually your child that was running riot or something.

In general though I would always complain directly first but it doesn't sound like it would have made much difference here.

Well if they want to be known as a family friendly clinic they need to address the issue with the receptionist. If I valued the clinic otherwise I might say I'd take it down if you can assure me this has been addressed with the person involved and she apologises for her inappropriate behaviour.

Put it back in their court.

The receptionists is the first person you meet, and they should be kind, calm and polite. This receptionist sounds horrible and you’ve very right to leave that review up because it’s true!

I always think you need to give an establishment time to right there wrongs, then write a factual review including how they handled it.

So if you didn't give them time, yabu, if you did yanbu

So frightened children have to be frightened in an appropriate way?

Unprovoked rudeness by anyone is unacceptable. The receptionist absolutely should not have snapped at a crying child. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are in jobs where contact with children is part of the role, but they seem to actively dislike them. The practice needs to deal with the receptionist rather than bothering you.

How you got that from the OP saying her child was crying as she was scared is beyond me.

@TotalTired - I stand even more by my first post with your updates, totally appropriate to include in a review especially as you had already mentioned it to management previously.

In this case, nothing wrong with the review. There's plenty of those online.

@Johnnysgirl Where on earth are you getting Sounds like your kids were running around from? The OP said her child was crying. That is all. A fairly normal reaction from a scared 5-year old.
I hate when posters invent a narrative that has no basis in what was posted.

@TotalTired - I would leave that up. It's a truthful review, which is what a review should be. If I was visiting a hotel and wrote a review that the room was filthy on arrival, I would put that in my review. Even if afterwards they sent up someone to clean it (which I would also mention). It wasn't clean when I arrived, which is what I would expect.

Same with the dental receptionist - I would expect them to be polite when I arrived - not just after I had had a word with the dentist. This is not the same as the receptionist making a genuine mistake.

Sounds like they need to sack the receptionist.

So the office manager knows the receptionist is unfriendly and unpleasant, multiple people have said so, yet she wants you to not say anything about it, rather than for her to address it.

No, I wouldn't take the review down. I'd tell her that parents deserve to know that forever lovely the dentist, it's not a family friendly environment in the all important waiting area.

However lovely the dentist, even

There are some odd comments here. OP, leave the review and particularly if the complaints are about the receptionist. Really they need to deal with that either by training or finding a more suitable member of staff for front of house. We have one of these at our GP surgery. She's an absolute hag. I've complained multiple times and Google reviews are awash with complaints yet she's still there. The mind boggles. If the practice are concerned about their reputation then they really must deal with the person who is affecting it.

That's really odd behaviour on the part of the receptionist and then by the manager. I don't get why you're getting a hard time here. Either they want reviews or they don't, if they want good reviews then they need to provide a good service. I would be tempted to add a review that the surgery rang you to discuss your concerns, and maybe even to add that you were asked to take down your review. If they're doing this a lot then it's abusive. Obviously that course of action may mean you have to change dentists, but it shouldn't. Highlighting two examples of bad practice is important.

I'd mostly think about yourself here ... how easy is it to find another dentist?

This practice won't have you back and if others know about your review they might not take you either. It's impossible here to find a dentist at the best of times, but you may not have that problem.

If you know you can join another practice then why not stick with the review, it sounds fairly even handed.

Leave it up. It's what you think, that's all that you need to have said.

You could also offer to update your review based on improved experiences in the future.

Personally I would only take it down once something had been done to rectify the situation - doesn't mean the receptionist needs to lose her job but that maybe some training, a formal warning, etc. etc. needs to be done so that she doesn't shout at anyone else moving forward. If you tell the manager this, then she will need to actually do something about it!

I had a different situation whereby I was able to discuss my thoughts following a negative review, the company dealt with the issue and I then took down my bad review.... everyone wins!

I agree with PP. There’s clearly a known issue with the receptionist, and this is what the practice should be addressing. If you take the review down, there’s no incentive for them to do anything about it. No one should be being mean to a scared 5-year-old, least of all in a medical setting.

Sounds like they think it's easier to get customers to remove bad reviews than address why they're getting bad reviews.

Leave it up. If enough do they'll have no choice but to deal with the problem.

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me! You've complained before and so have others and yet the practice manager makes excuses for her. It needs calling out, because she sounds horrendous. My DC is terrified of the dentist and needs to be cajoled to go and I'd be furious if someone shouted at her to stop being upset.

So no, I wouldn't take it down!

The office manager needs to give her head a wobble. If your review, in her opinion, makes it look like a unfriendly family clinic, it is because the receptionist's behaviour makes it an unfriendly family clinic!

If "Almost all negative reviews on there are about [the receptionist]", then the office manager needs to do her actual job and not try to just cover it up. She needs to either train the receptionist to behave appropriately, move her off reception and on to back-office admin only, or take the receptionist through disciplinary procedures and get someone new in. All of these options involve more effort on the part of the office manager than just calling you up and trying to persuade you to remove your review. In my opinion, your wonderful dentist employs a shit receptionist and a shit office manager.

The place is unfriendly to families if they have a receptionist that can’t be kind to nervous children. Your review is truthful and should be left up.

The practice can always respond that the staff member has been sacked, or received more training or whatever if they want to. If they want to keep the rude staff member, they can’t expect to have glowing reviews.