Making website enquiry forms GDPR compliant

Website enquiry forms – Where do they go?

Have you ever wondered who is actually reading the website enquiry forms you fill in? Sometimes they ask for very personal information and before you know it, you are being bombarded with emails, newsletters and junk mail. It’s not until much later on that you realise your details have been passed onto a third party. Plus we generally do not even stop to think how our details are stored or what happens to them. Find out how you can protect your patient’s data and reassure them that their details are kept safe at your dental practice.

Does it affect your dental website?

The answer is highly likely. Most dental and orthodontic websites generate many patients through their website enquiry forms. Some of the bigger websites even contain more than one form such as referral forms, medical history forms and an ‘ask the dentist’ form.

As marketing online becomes more important these days, many dental websites offer seasonal promotions to launch a new product or service. These campaigns can be a costly and time-consuming exercise and therefore success is paramount. By providing a potential new patient with as many opportunities to contact, you are more likely to encourage them to enquire further. What better way to stay connected than by capturing all their contact details through an easy website enquiry form.

How to protect your patient’s data?

In order for your dental website to comply with the GDPR, you will have to include certain notifications on your website enquiry forms. They must include an opt-in checkbox to confirm the patient has read and agreed to your privacy policies. It would also be wise to include a link to a separate page which contains your privacy policies as this will make it easy for patients to find and read.

If you intend to send a new prospect with special offers or newsletters, make sure you are as specific as possible about the information you would like to send to them. Ensure it is an easy to understand notification and your checkboxes MUST be unchecked. The Privacy Policy notification should be part of the form filling process and the marketing notification is optional. Both need to be displayed before the submission button.

Your privacy policies have to state how patients data in which you capture online is stored, for how long and what you intend to use it for. You can find out more about the General Data Protection Regulation for dental websites by clicking the link below:
Find out more about GDPR for Dental Websites >

How to be more secure

All forms will be encrypted when sent but itll be safer if your website is on a secure server. Most dental websites are hosted on a standard website server as no financial transactions take place. With GDPR affecting all businesses, internet browsers are now informing the users of websites which are insecure. If your website address starts with the prefix ‘HTTP’ then your website is on a standard server. ‘HTTPS’ stands for secure and you can find out more by secure hosting by clicking the link below:
Find out more about Secure Website Hosting >

Who am I?

Alex Nicolaou is an expert Brand Designer and Creative Director who consults with marketers, dentists, specialists and entrepreneurs to grow their brands and businesses. Having 27 years of experience in dental marketing and a total of 39 years designing and advertising in all industry sectors, Alex knows how to make your brand stand out and communicate with your ideal target audience.

Alex has always been artistic, creative and passionate in everything he does. His natural talent enabled him to develop his career working on blue-chip accounts for successful London based advertising and marketing agencies. The skills learned and experience gained placed him in good stead for running his own business which he has successfully managed and directed for over 27 years.

His expertise has helped dental practices and other businesses to win national awards for design, branding and marketing. If you want your business to turn heads, he’s the man.

Read more about Alex Nicolaou here >

Dental branding & marketing

For more information call Alex Nicolaou on 01923 609770 to find out about making the most of your website marketing opportunities.
www.design4dentists.com >