There is no published ranking factor called “review response rate,” and anyone telling you replies directly lift your map pack position is overstating what is known. The effect is real but indirect, and the indirect path is strong enough that responding is still one of the higher-return habits available to a local business.
The mechanisms that actually operate
Replies increase review volume. People check whether a business responds before deciding to leave one. A profile where every review has a reply signals that the owner is paying attention, and review volume and velocity are well-established prominence signals.
Replies change conversion, not just ranking. A searcher comparing three businesses in the map pack reads the negative reviews first, and then reads how you handled them. A measured, specific reply to a one-star review converts better than no negative reviews at all, because it demonstrates how you behave when something goes wrong.
Replies add relevant text to your profile. Your response is indexable content attached to the listing. This is a marginal effect and not worth keyword-stuffing over, but naturally mentioning the service and the city in a reply is free and honest.
What a useful reply looks like
Specific, short, and signed by a person. Reference the actual job. Skip the template — a profile where every reply opens “Thank you for your feedback!” reads as automated and does none of the work above.
On negative reviews: respond once, publicly, without arguing. Acknowledge the specific problem, state what you did or will do, and offer to continue offline. You are not writing to the angry reviewer, who is rarely persuadable; you are writing to the next fifty people who read it while deciding whether to call you.
Response speed matters more than polish. Within 48 hours is a reasonable standard, and it is one of the few things in local SEO you fully control.
The review response strategy guide has the templates and the handling patterns for the harder cases.