From Being a Rater to Being Rated: The Influence of Customer Ratings on Customer Attitudes and Behavior

日益数字化导致现有行业的深刻变化，并出现了采用新型商业模式的公司。例如，使用基于平台的商业模式的公司，如在线零售商亚马逊和移动服务提供商优步，已经代表了世界十大最有价值公司中的七家。这些平台将市场供需双方的参与者联系起来，并协调他们的互动。由于在线平台上市场参与者的匿名性，信息不对称比传统服务交易中的信息不对称要高得多，客户和服务提供商都面临着相关的风险和不确定性。为了减少这些不确定性，一些平台使用了双向评级系统。一方面，这些评级系统允许平台的客户使用评论和评级作为关于同一平台上提供商的产品和服务的信息，从而减少不确定性。另一方面，双向评级系统还允许服务提供商访问同一平台上其他提供商的客户评级。因此，双向评级系统可以通过对积极行为的奖励和对负面行为的惩罚来引导市场参与者的行为。客户对产品和服务的评级，即市场的需求方，已经存在了很长一段时间。供应商对客户的客户评级，即市场的供应方，代表了一种目前研究不足的新现象。现有的关于在线平台领域客户评级的文献仅从公司的角度研究了这一现象，重点是供应商对客户评级的反应。然而，从客户角度考察客户对被评级的态度和行为反应的研究很少。本研究项目的总体目标是调查客户评级在平台上是如何起作用的，以及它们如何影响客户以及客户、服务提供商和平台之间的关系。这将导致理解客户评级如何影响客户态度和他们的行为，并潜在地防止平台市场的市场失灵。该项目旨在为研究和实践提供有价值的贡献。这个项目的结果将磨练我们对基于平台的商业模式背景下客户评级对相关客户相关变量的影响的理解。根据调查结果，该项目将为使用客户评级的公司提供建议，并就这些评级作为管理市场不确定性的机制的有效性提出建议。

The increasing digitalization leads to profound changes in established industries and to the emergence of companies employing new types of business models. For example, companies using platform-based business models, such as the online retailer Amazon and the mobility services provider Uber, already represent seven of the ten most valuable companies in the world. These platforms connect participants on the supply and demand side of the market and orchestrate their interaction.Due to the anonymity of market participants on online platforms, information asymmetries are considerably higher than in traditional service transactions, as are the associated risks and uncertainties for both customers and service providers. To reduce these uncertainties, some platforms use bidirectional rating systems. On the one hand, these rating systems allow customers of a platform to use reviews and ratings as information about products and services from providers on the same platform, thereby reducing uncertainties. On the other hand, bidirectional rating systems also allow service providers to access customer ratings by other providers on the same platform. Bidirectional rating systems, thus, can guide the behavior of market participants by rewarding positive behavior and penalizing negative behavior with respective ratings. Product and service ratings by customers, i.e., the demand side of the market, have existed for quite some time. Customer ratings of customers by providers, i.e., the supply side of the market, represent a new phenomenon which is currently understudied. Existing literature on customer ratings in the realm of online platforms has examined the phenomenon exclusively from a company’s perspective, focusing on providers’ reactions to customer ratings. However, there is paucity of research on the customer perspective to examine how customers react in attitude and behavior to being rated.The overall goal of this research project is to investigate how customer ratings work on platforms and how they affect customers and the relationships between customers, service providers, and platforms. This should lead to an understanding of how customer ratings influence customer attitudes and their behavior and potentially prevent market failures in platform markets.The project aims to provide valuable contributions to research and practice. The results of this project will hone our understanding of the effects of customer ratings on relevant customer-related variables in the context of platform-based business models. Based on the findings, the project will provide recommendations for companies using customer ratings and with regard to the effectiveness of these ratings as a mechanism for the management of market uncertainties.