This page is part of a global project to create a better online reviews system. If you want to know more or give your feedback, write at [email protected] and we’ll grab a beer ;)

Most relationships between businesses and customers are balanced: businesses aim to make customers happy, and customers want businesses to perform well. However, reviews have introduced a new dynamic that slightly disturbs this balance.

As mentioned earlier, a study $^1$ suggests that on platforms like eBay, where buyers and sellers review each other, buyers may avoid criticizing sellers for poor performance due to fear of reprisal and concerns about their own reputation.

Fear of retaliation works both ways: customers may avoid leaving negative reviews out of fear, and businesses may go to great lengths to avoid bad reviews, sometimes leading to people-pleasing behaviors (which we'll discuss in a dedicated section at the business level). For now, let's focus on the reviewers’ experience.

Some customers might be very polite and thankful in private with the seller, only to leave a negative review later. This is because they don’t want to demotivate the business or provoke revenge (the myth of the waiter spitting in your food).

When businesses can also review customers, the potential for retaliation becomes real, worsening the situation: Airbnb and Uber are prime examples of platforms where relationships are on edge because both parties know the other can leave a bad review. This makes transactions feel less natural.

When taking an Uber, knowing they risk being refused by drivers when they look for a ride, customers fear that any part of their behavior could displease the driver, so they try to act perfectly. As a result, what should be a normal, straightforward ride becomes a social performance, with everyone pretending to be nicer than they are in reality.

Due to fear of retaliation, people often wait until the last moment to share their feedback.

<aside> 💡 Exploration

• Private comments. They make people who might not have left a review more likely to do so. However, it doesn’t solve all problems:
  • The public review may not fully reflect the user's experience, as private comments might contain details not shared publicly, leading to an incomplete representation of their experience.
  • Out of fear of retaliation, users might still wait until the last moment to share their private comments, fearing that early feedback could provoke revenge from the business owner.
• A system based solely on positive recommendations could mitigate the fear of retaliation. If users are disappointed with a service, they simply don't leave a recommendation instead of posting negative feedback, thus limiting the potential for retaliation. </aside>

$^1$ An Empirical Investigation of Third-Party Seller Rating Systems in E-Commerce: The Case of buySAFE, Clemson, 2007

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