Offering incentives to stimulate positive online reviews: A critical evaluation

在线评论是客户的重要信息来源。由于在线评论无处不在，并且与营销人员主导的来源相比被认为是高度可信的，因此客户严重依赖其他消费者的产品评价。因此，积极的网上评论积极影响客户的购买意愿，以及他们的支付意愿，并作为一个结果，公司的业绩。因此，公司关心的是增加他们的积极的在线评论。刺激在线评论的一个可能的策略是为撰写在线评论提供激励。为了做到这一点，公司向客户提供货币或非货币奖励，以换取撰写评论。因此，他们通常不会明确指出在线评论必须是积极的。由于没有证据表明这种激励策略是否会产生预期的后果，而且公司实际上会通过提供激励措施从积极的在线评论中获利，因此这种策略似乎有风险。基于交换理论和多方法，将回答以下三个研究问题：（a）激励措施是否会增加在线评论的数量？(b)激励措施会改变在线评论的价值吗？以及（c）哪些背景因素会影响激励与已发表评论数量及其效价之间的关系？虽然激励措施可能会增加在线评论的数量，但对效价的影响尚不清楚。一方面，客户可能会对公司提供的激励措施感到感激。因此，客户可能会想要回报，并会写一个更积极的评价。另一方面，激励措施可能会降低在线评论的积极性，因为如果客户写了一个非常积极的评论并获得激励，他们会预期心理成本。为了避免被收买的感觉，他们会消极地调整他们的评论。哪种激励策略是否以及何时对增加积极的在线评论有效，与营销研究和实践高度相关。

Online reviews are an important source of information for customers. As online reviews are ubiquitously accessible and perceived as highly trustworthy in comparison to marketer dominated sources, customers heavily rely on product evaluations of other consumers. Consequently, positive online reviews positively affect customers purchase intention as well as their willingness to pay and as a consequence firm performance. Therefore, firms are concerned with increasing their positive online reviews. One possible strategy to stimulate online reviews is offering incentives for writing online reviews. To do so, companies offer monetary or non-monetary rewards to their customers in return for writing a review. Hereby, they typically do not explicitly state that the online review has to be necessarily positive. As there is no evidence if such an incentive strategy will have the intended consequences and companies will actually profit from an increase in positive online reviews by offering incentives, this strategy seems to be risky. Based on exchange theory and a multi-method approach, the following three research questions will be answered: (a) Will incentives increase the number of published online reviews?, (b) will incentives change the valence of the published online reviews?, and (c) which context factors will influence the relationships between incentives and the number of published reviews as well as their valence? While incentives will likely increase the number of published online reviews, the effect on the valence is less clear. On the one hand, customers might feel gratitude towards the firm for offering incentives. As a consequence customers might want to reciprocate and will write a more positive review. On the other hand, incentives might decrease the positivity of online reviews because customers will anticipate psychological costs if they write a very positive review and receive an incentive. To avoid feelings of being bought, they will negatively adapt their reviews. If and when which kind of incentive strategy is effective for increasing positive online reviews is highly relevant for marketing research and practice.