We read 20 gyms among the businesses someone searching in Port Hueneme, CA is shown, and the name we can credit for answering its reviews is Holiday Inn Express Port Hueneme by IHG. It replied to 6 of its 10 most recent Google reviews. That is the one gym listing we can name for replies. We can't see how the other gyms we read handled theirs, so a single name here is not a count of how many answered.
The review counts tell a separate story, measured over each listing's whole history rather than its most recent reviews. The median gym we read carries 63.5 reviews and a median rating of 4.6 stars. The three most-reviewed gym listings carry 877, 774 and 619 reviews. Holiday Inn Express Port Hueneme by IHG holds 877, the same figure as the top of that list, so the listing we can name for replies is also sitting on the largest review count among the gyms in this section.
The median of 63.5 is a middle point, not a picture of every gym. It says nothing about how the listings around it are spread, or what any single gym's listing looks like. The rating works the same way: 4.6 is the middle of the ratings we read, not a description of each one. Neither number says anything about replies, which are measured separately and only over the most recent reviews.
The reply benchmark measured here is 66%: the share of recent reviews a typical measured business answered, across 23 businesses. That figure is measured across all trades together, not gyms alone. Set beside it, the gym listing we could name answered 6 of 10 of its own most recent reviews.
What to do about it
If you run a gym, open your Google listing and count how many of your last 10 reviews carry a reply from you. That is the same measure behind every reply figure above: Holiday Inn Express Port Hueneme by IHG answered 6 of 10, and the benchmark measured here is 66%, measured across all trades together.
You do not write the review, but you do write the reply. Start with the reviews already sitting on your listing, including the short ones. Keep each reply specific to what the person said: the class they took, the equipment they mentioned, the staff member they named. When a review is critical, answer it calmly and briefly, without arguing the details. Then make it part of the week, so that whenever you count your last 10 again, each one has an answer. Never offer anything in exchange for a review.
Gyms
| # | Business | Answered | Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Holiday Inn Express Port Hueneme by IHG | 6 of 10 | 877 | 4.3 |