Twenty barbershops were read in the set someone searching around St. Louis Park is shown, and not one of them had answered any of its recent reviews. That is not a quiet corner of the market going unnoticed. The median barbershop in that group carries 118.5 Google reviews, and the three most-reviewed listings hold 970, 569 and 489. Two different windows are in play there: the reply counts are drawn from each business's most recent reviews, while those totals are the whole listing.
Twenty nail salons were read as well, and the counts there look different. Two of the businesses answering the most are Nail Bar & Spa, which answered 10 of its last 10 against a listing of 973 reviews, and T-luxe Nails, which answered 9 of its last 10 against 602. Nail salons also hold the deepest files of the three trades on this page, a median of 401.5 reviews, against 118.5 for barbershops and 81.5 for hair salons, with the three biggest nail listings at 1542, 1291 and 973.
Among the twenty hair salons read, the businesses answering the most are The Beauty Lounge Minneapolis, which answered 1 of its last 10 against a listing of 207 reviews, and Salon Moda, which answered 1 of its last 10 against 150. We measured 55 of the businesses someone searching in St. Louis Park is shown; a typical one answered 60% of its recent reviews. That figure covers the businesses we measured, not this group of trades specifically.
Star ratings are not what orders anything here. The median rating is 4.85 across the twenty barbershops, 4.9 across the twenty hair salons and 4.55 across the twenty nail salons. A median is one figure for a whole trade; it does not tell you which listing is which, or what sits above and below it. The reply counts do distinguish one listing from another, and on this page they are the only thing that does.
What to do about it
The reply counts here come from each business's most recent reviews, which is the practical place to start. A listing sized like the barbershop median of 118.5 reviews holds far more than ten, and you do not need to work backwards through all of it. Take the newest ones in order and write to those.
Answer the ordinary five-star ones alongside the difficult ones, and write each reply in your own words rather than dropping the same two sentences under every review. Nail Bar & Spa sits at 10 of its last 10 and T-luxe Nails at 9 of 10 against listings of 973 and 602 reviews; a count like that is about where a listing stands now, not about the whole file underneath it. Catching up once moves the number. Keeping it there means opening the listing again next week and answering whatever arrived since.
Barbershops
We read 20 barbershops 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.
Hair salons
| # | Business | Answered | Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Beauty Lounge Minneapolis | 1 of 10 | 207 | 4.6 |
| 2 | Salon Moda | 1 of 10 | 150 | 4.9 |
Nail salons
| # | Business | Answered | Reviews | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nail Bar & Spa | 10 of 10 | 973 | 4.3 |
| 2 | Mainstreet Nails in Hopkins | 10 of 10 | 722 | 4.8 |
| 3 | T-luxe Nails | 9 of 10 | 602 | 4.6 |