To Claim or Not to Claim? Impact of Owner's Business Page Claiming on Customer Evaluation

Abstract

Local businesses increasingly use review platforms to monitor customer feedback on their business pages, often created by customers. Despite the benefits of claiming ownership of such pages, many remain unclaimed, raising the question: is there a downside to business page claiming? This study examines the impact of business page claiming on customer reviews using a unique dataset from Yelp. By leveraging the heterogeneous timing of owner business page claiming, we estimate that business page claiming lowers average customer rating. This is mainly driven by an increased chance of receiving the lowest customer ratings and a decreased chance of receiving the highest customer ratings. Moreover, customers who provide the lowest ratings tend to write lengthier reviews after business page claiming. While business page claiming may signal trustworthiness, this study cautions small businesses: claiming your business page is not costless even if it is free.