Customer Motivation and Response Bias in Online Reviews

Abstract

The voluntary nature of online customer review platforms self-selects customers with strong opinions, resulting in an underreporting bias. However, little research has been conducted on the relationship between postpurchase satisfaction and the propensity to share one’s opinion. The goal of this study is to empirically examine the relationship between customer satisfaction and reporting motivation in online review platforms. The results of this study demonstrate that customer intention to post an online hotel review varies depending on the level of customer satisfaction. Online reviewers are more motivated to post extreme and negative ratings. However, this underreporting bias is mitigated when ratings are generated by reviewers who are familiar with the online review posting process. The relationship between individual familiarity with the review platform and the underreporting bias can be explained using the benefit-cost theory.