Not one of the 20 tattoo studios we read had answered any of its recent reviews. That is the finding for this group, and it sits on top of some substantial review files: the median studio carries 170.5 Google reviews, and the three most-reviewed listings we read hold 3541, 448 and 420. Those two things are measured over different windows. The reply counts are drawn from each business's most recent reviews; the review counts are the whole listing.
A typical business among the 50 we measured in what a searcher in Inver Grove Heights is shown answered 63% of its recent reviews. The 20 studios are part of that same catchment and were read the same way. Those two figures are worth putting side by side.
Tattoo is not the only trade that came back this way. We read 20 food trucks, 20 gyms and 20 pet groomers around Inver Grove Heights, and in each of those trades not one business had answered any of its recent reviews either. Elsewhere in the same catchment it reads differently: among cafés, bakeries, nail salons, dentists and orthodontists, the single business answering the most had answered 10 of its last 10.
Depth varies widely across what a searcher here is shown. The median tattoo studio's 170.5 reviews sits above the median day spa's 66 and below the median veterinarian's 425. The median rating across the 20 studios we read is 4.9, and a median is one figure for a whole set — it does not tell you which listing is which, and nothing here is ordered by stars. In the data we hold, the thing that separates one of these listings from another is whether anyone wrote anything back.
What to do about it
The gap to work on is between the size of these files and the silence under the recent end of them. A studio in this set carries 170.5 reviews at the median, and the most-reviewed listing we read holds 3541. Our reply count comes from each business's most recent reviews, so the newest ones are the place to start, and a handful answered is a different listing from none answered.
Answer the good ones as well as the difficult ones. Write each reply in your own words rather than pasting one sentence under every review — identical replies stack up on the listing one after another, and that is visible. Then keep going rather than clearing the backlog once and stopping. The recent end of a listing keeps moving, so the work is small and recurring rather than a single push, and a studio that answers the last few every week never has a backlog to clear again.
Tattoo studios
We read 20 tattoo studios businesses here and not one had answered a single one of its ten most recent reviews. The first owner here who replies is the only one doing it.