Adore Dog Salon carries 515 Google reviews and answered 1 of its last 10. It is one of the two pet grooming businesses, out of the 20 we read, that answered the most of their recent reviews. The other is Hound Dog Pet Hotel - East, which answered 9 of its last 10 and carries 236 reviews. Two figures, pointing in different directions, from listings of very different sizes.
In pet boarding, the three businesses answering the most of their recent reviews were Pampered Pooch Playground, which answered 10 of its last 10 and carries 407 reviews, Camp Bow Wow Eden Prairie, which answered 10 of its last 10 and carries 268, and Dogtopia of Bloomington, which answered 8 of its last 10 and carries 385. Dogtopia appearing in that list is worth explaining: these counts describe the set someone searching around Eden Prairie is shown, which is a catchment rather than a list of addresses, so a business from a neighbouring town belongs in it. The median boarding listing we read carries 100 reviews, against 65 for grooming.
Of the three trades here, the veterinary listings carry the largest counts. The median is 200 reviews and the three biggest files hold 2,261, 568 and 492. Flying Cloud Animal Hospital answered 10 of its last 10 and carries 445 reviews; Allied Veterinary Emergency & Referral answered 9 of its last 10 and carries 407. The median rating across the 20 vets we read is 4.75, which is one figure for the whole set and tells you nothing about which listing is which.
For a backdrop: across the 46 businesses we measured in the set someone searching in Eden Prairie is shown, a typical one answered 81% of its recent reviews. That number covers every trade together rather than pets on their own. We read 60 businesses across these three pet trades, and 460 across every trade in this catchment.
What to do about it
If you own one of these listings and your reply count is low, the job is smaller than your review total makes it look. Our counts come from each business's ten most recent reviews, so a listing carrying 515 and a listing carrying 236 are both facing the same short stack. Start at the newest and work back.
Answer the ordinary good ones as well as the difficult ones, and write each one in your own words. The reply goes out under your business name and sits directly beneath what the customer wrote, so a stock sentence repeated down the page is the one thing a reply cannot afford to be. Then decide how the next ones get handled, because catching up once and keeping up are separate jobs. The ten we count is a window that keeps sliding, and Pampered Pooch Playground and Camp Bow Wow Eden Prairie each answered 10 of their last 10 on that same sliding window.
Pet grooming
| # | Business | Answered | Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hound Dog Pet Hotel - East | 9 of 10 | 236 | 4.7 |
| 2 | Adore Dog Salon | 1 of 10 | 515 | 4.9 |
Pet boarding
| # | Business | Answered | Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pampered Pooch Playground | 10 of 10 | 407 | 4.8 |
| 2 | Camp Bow Wow Eden Prairie | 10 of 10 | 268 | 4.9 |
| 3 | Dogtopia of Bloomington | 8 of 10 | 385 | 4.7 |
Veterinarians
| # | Business | Answered | Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Flying Cloud Animal Hospital | 10 of 10 | 445 | 4.8 |
| 2 | Allied Veterinary Emergency & Referral | 9 of 10 | 407 | 4.5 |