The Market for Service Assurance: A Model and Data Structure

Market transactions entail a certain level of risk. To mitigate the risk, third parties often provide independent evaluations to help patrons make decisions about whether to use a service or not. These "assurances" help stimulate more confidence and choice by would-be service consumers. Thus the extent of the service market is determined by the existence, use, and confidence in third party assurances. Assurances are the key because: a) the poorer services are driven out of business and b) the better services receive more feedback on how to improve. No longer do service organizations need to spend as much on surveys, etc. because there is a significant third-party network acting as a feedback loop or "cloud" database management system. We explore this topic and provide case studies of third party assurance providers as well as a paradigm for data structures in this industry.