Not one of the 20 gyms we read had answered any of its recent reviews. Not one. Those listings are not empty either: the three most-reviewed gyms in the set someone searching around Minnetonka is shown hold 538, 304 and 283 Google reviews, and the median across the 20 we read is 75.5. That is a lot of customer writing sitting under a listing with nothing written back beneath the recent entries.
Chiropractors in the same catchment read differently, at least among the ones we can name. Connection Chiropractic answered 10 of its last 10, on a listing holding 216 reviews. The Glen Chiropractic & Acupuncture answered 9 of its last 10, with 222 reviews. HealthSource Chiropractic of Minnetonka answered 8 of its last 10, with 236 reviews. We only ever list the businesses answering the most, so those three are what we know; the rest of the twenty we read are not described by them one way or the other. The median chiropractor listing in that set carries 126.5 reviews, and the three deepest carry 329, 236 and 222.
We measured 53 of the businesses someone searching in Minnetonka is shown; a typical one answered 80% of its recent reviews. That figure covers the businesses we measured, and we can't see which trades they came from, so it is not a line drawn under either group here.
Two different windows are in play and they are easy to blur. The reply counts are drawn from each business's most recent reviews. The review counts — 538, 216, 126.5 — are whole listings. The median ratings are 4.75 for gyms and 5 for chiropractors, both across the 20 we read in each; a median is one number for a whole trade and does not tell you which listing is which.
What to do about it
If you run a gym around here, the useful fact is not that your own listing is quiet. It is that among the 20 we read, none had answered a recent review. There is no reply on your listing that a customer can compare against a rival's reply, because on the evidence we collected there is nothing to compare it to yet. Start at the newest review and work backwards, and answer the good ones as well as the difficult ones — a review that says the room was clean and the staff knew everyone's name deserves a sentence back.
The harder part is the second month. Catching up once produces a block of replies and then silence again. Pick a fixed point in your week, open the listing, and deal with whatever arrived. Write them yourself, in the words you would use at the desk; a reply that could be pasted under any business in the set is worth roughly what it cost to write.
Gyms
We read 20 gyms 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.
Chiropractors
| # | Business | Answered | Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Connection Chiropractic | 10 of 10 | 216 | 4.9 |
| 2 | The Glen Chiropractic & Acupuncture | 9 of 10 | 222 | 4.9 |
| 3 | HealthSource Chiropractic of Minnetonka | 8 of 10 | 236 | 4.9 |