Data Quality from First Contact Outreach to Delivery

A strong uptick is happening with SMBs and larger mid-tier organizations that are integrating real-time data quality services into the interfaces of their contact databases and customer-facing applications to validate and increase the quality of their contact and customer data, and deliver better service to their customers.

When it comes to contact data, it starts with a name. You don’t want to make a bad first (and possibly last) impression. Customers appreciate a personalized experience, and the most impersonal customer experience is when you get their name wrong.

If creating a personalized experience involves delivering something to your customers by mail, address validation software is essential. First consider the tangible costs. According to research on undeliverable mail, the United States Postal Service (USPS) annually receives 6.9 billion pieces of mail that are undeliverable-as-addressed. This costs the USPS approximately $1.4 billion a year, and costs US businesses approximately $611 billion a year in postage and printing. Then when you consider the less tangible, but much higher, costs associated with annoying and possibly losing a customer because their delivery was lost in the mail, validate and deliver will become your mailing mantra.

Furthermore, since undeliverable mail adds an estimated 300 million pounds of paper waste to landfills every year, it’s no exaggeration to say save the address, save the world. Some addresses could be saved, saving undeliverable mail from the landfill, by filling in the gaps of an incomplete address by utilizing other available data points, such as name and phone number, to search and cross-reference other databases and append accurate address data.

Ensuring data quality from first contact outreach to delivery will deliver on the service promise you make to your customers.

This blog post is sponsored by Service Objects, the leading provider of real-time contact data quality solutions including name validation and address verification software. Their APIs allow businesses to easily reduce waste and increase data quality by identifying fraudulent records, standardizing and appending contact information, and processing transactions in a more efficient manner.