Thursday

Ratings are really important

I had to go to the dentist recently, hadn’t been in awhile and suddenly had to go. I was flossing with this really great floss -- EcoDenT Vegan Cinnamon, I love that floss! -- and somehow I got it up under my crown. My teeth are very tight, and I could tell the floss wasn’t going to come out easy... thought to myself, ‘I need to just pull this through instead of trying to wiggle it back up’, but too late! -- I had already pulled so hard, the crown popped off! That was the weirdest, scariest feeling, but I grabbed it and shoved it right back on as good as I could. Great, now I had to go to the dentist!

Actually, I’d been needing to go and putting if off for awhile... I do mean awhile. I hate going to the dentist, maybe because I had to go often when I was young. I’d been asking around for recommendations, but seems like a lot of people were in my same shoes; no one really had someone they liked either, except one person whose dentist I already knew and didn’t want to see. So what to do?

We’re on a sort of a plan -- it’s one that dentists sign up on, then give discounted rates instead of you having insurance. So we picked one from the list, a real shot in the dark! But thankfully, he turned out to be great, not so much his staff. Let me tell you about it:


They sent the “new patient” forms by email, so didn’t have to go early to do that, which was very handy. Noe talked to them on the phone and says they were very polite and helpful, friendly enough. But I was kinda let down by the front desk staff’s reception -- granted, they seemed a little busy. You’d think, though, that they would have done something to welcome a new patient... maybe a ‘Hi, it’s so nice to have you, my name is---’ sort of thing, but that didn’t happen, even though there’s a sign in the waiting area saying ‘our best patients are recommended by our best patients’ or something like that, which you’d think would cause the staff to put their best foot forward. Oh, well.

The main thing is the dentist, and I couldn’t say enough about how much I liked him. He was in a happy mood, introduced himself, talked about the area of town we live in -- his mom had lived there awhile too. Now even though it was obvious I hadn’t seen a dentist in some time, he didn’t say anything about it (I was dreading that; thought he might chastise me a bit). He asked if I wanted him to also fix a cavity I had while I was there … of course, I knew I needed that done, but I figured, they’re gonna make me come back so I’ll have to pay for two visits, and here he just told me he could do both of these things on this one visit! It was all done in less than an hour, and I was super pleased.

I went home and searched for a place online to brag about this guy. If I had been able to read something about him first, I think I wouldn’t have been so anxious about trying him, so I really wanted to go rate him. I found two places, one that I was even able to blab a little on. I only said about the staff that they ‘weren’t particularly friendly or unfriendly’, because maybe it had been a hard day or something. I mentioned they took me on Tuesday (it happened Sunday night!), the cost was quite reasonable, and the dentist was great.

So.... ratings are really important! Noe and I always look for those, don’t you? And we try to read a lot, not just the first one or two. It’s good to be specific, but not too detailed. Give the reasons why you’re saying you like what you’re rating, or why you don’t. Help the people that are searching for your help to find the best thing -- or dentist, or whatever -- to choose one they can afford.

That brings me to our books. Honestly, I think Amazon was one of the first places I remember having ratings on things, and that is so helpful. Anyway, we have sold more books than we have ratings for, and I wonder why some haven’t put in their thoughts... we’d like to hear what people think, even if they have some “negative” criticism. If it can help us as authors do a better job next time, that’s great! Of course, we also appreciate the praise -- that helps you feel like continuing to try, not to mention, makes you feel good.

If you’ve read one -- or all -- of our Sarah’s World books and haven’t rated them yet, please do. Noe and I, and all the other hundreds of readers looking for a good book for their kids to read, would really appreciate it!

cindy

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