Customer Voice on Two-Sided Platforms: The Effect of Surge Pricing on Customer Complaints

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Xu, Linli; Wei, Yanhao (Max); Zhu, Yi
• 署名单位: University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; University of Southern California
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2024.4992
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: customer complaints; review system; ride-sharing; driver income; surge pricing; two-sided platforms

摘要

Two-sided platforms (e.g., ride-sharing, freelance labor, and lodging) match customers and service providers. Customers can voice their satisfaction level through review/rating systems, which the platforms use to monitor and screen service providers. However, customers may misdirect complaints about platform-level features toward individual service providers. We examine the extent and consequences of this issue in the context of a large ride-sharing platform. We focus on surge pricing as the platform-level feature. Our findings are as follows. First, for an average trip, surge pricing makes it 1.13 times more likely for the driver to receive a complaint (either a low rating or a formal complaint). Second, complaints negatively impact a driver's future income. Surge-induced complaints offset about 23% of a driver's immediate gain from the surged fare. Third, after the platform adopted a policy to cap the magnitude of surge prices, the effect of surge on customer complaints reduced. The policy also led to more usage of the platform. The results suggest a close interaction between the pricing and review systems on ride-sharing platforms. More broadly, they point to the importance for online two-sided platforms to identify and address customer complaints about platform-level features that may have been misdirected to service providers.