A dental listing in this set carries a median of 319 Google reviews. The orthodontists we read sit at a median of 46. The three most-reviewed dental listings hold 1,157, 979 and 561 reviews; the three most-reviewed orthodontic listings hold 292, 214 and 189. We read 20 businesses in each trade, 40 across the group, and the review counts beneath the two are the thing that separates them.
Reply counts come from a different window: they record how many of a business's most recent reviews the owner wrote back under, while the review counts above are the whole listing. Among the dentists, the two answering the most are Lake Ridge Dental Care, which answered 10 of its last 10 and shows 561 reviews, and Riverside Valley Dental Care, which answered 9 of its last 10 and shows 522. Those two are the best repliers of the 20 we read. We were not shown reply behaviour for the ones we did not name, so nothing here describes them.
Among the orthodontists, the two answering the most are Lakeville Orthodontics, 7 of its last 10, with 214 reviews, and Veil & Wild Orthodontics, 7 of its last 10, with 124 reviews. A second Veil & Wild Orthodontics listing answered 6 of its last 10 and shows 110 reviews.
The median rating is 4.9 across the 20 dentists and 5 across the 20 orthodontists. A median is one figure for a whole trade; it does not tell you which listing is which, and nothing on this page is ordered by stars. Reply behaviour is what it is ordered by. Across the 47 businesses we measured in the set someone searching around Prior Lake is shown, a typical one answered 79% of its recent reviews. That number belongs to those 47 and to no particular trade, including these two. Prior Lake's population is 27,832 and its median household income is $130,278.
What to do about it
Start at the newest reviews, because the newest ones are the window these counts describe — the last ten, not the 319 that sit under a median dental listing here. A file that size is not something to work through end to end, and it does not need to be. Answer the ones with nothing wrong in them as well as the ones carrying a complaint; a review with a sentence written back under it is a different object from the same review with nothing under it.
Write them differently from each other. On a listing holding 522 or 561 reviews, replies built from the same three sentences end up stacked on the same page as each other, and the fix is to quote something the reviewer actually said. Then decide which job you are doing: catching up once, or keeping up. The first has an end; the second is a standing habit, and it is the only one that keeps a count like 9 of the last 10 from sliding back.
Dentists
| # | Business | Answered | Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lake Ridge Dental Care | 10 of 10 | 561 | 4.9 |
| 2 | Riverside Valley Dental Care | 9 of 10 | 522 | 4.9 |
Orthodontists
| # | Business | Answered | Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lakeville Orthodontics | 7 of 10 | 214 | 4.9 |
| 2 | Veil & Wild Orthodontics | 7 of 10 | 124 | 4.9 |
| 3 | Veil & Wild Orthodontics | 6 of 10 | 110 | 5 |