It’s no secret that shipping rates and fees continue to climb as the market stays highly competitive, eCommerce continues to gain importance, and shopping carts continue to be abandoned.
These days, trusted address data is a necessity for businesses to stay connected, deliver a memorable experience for their customers, and ultimately, grow their sales. Enter: An address validation solution.
Whether you are delivering packages, brochures, or flyers, you have one goal that is top of mind: Make the customer happy so they are motivated to do business with you now and in the future. With address validation, you can ensure that you have confidence that deliveries sent through major carriers will reach the intended destinations.
Partnering directly with USPS® and Experian’s address validation software not only helps you get your package from point A to point B, but can identify whether the addresses are commercial or residential, and verify both U.S. and global addresses are, in fact, existing. In turn, you can minimize address correction fees and keep customers happy.
What is address validation?
Address validation is just like how it sounds—it’s a software that verifies the mailing address based on correct formatting and classifies the address as commercial or residential. In other words, an address validation solution will make sure you have trustworthy and up-to-date customer addresses on file.
The steps of address validation
Address verification works in three steps. Addresses can either be verified in real-time—say, during your eCommerce checkout process—or an address list can be cleansed as needed.
Cleaning
Valid addresses rely on accurate formatting structure and correct spelling. A small typo could put the intended location on the other side of town, a different state, or even lead you to nowhere. This is why our address verification software first looks at cleansing the addresses.
Supplementing
An address format has crucial information, and if anything is missing, there’s a chance your package will be delayed or not make it to the right destination.
Think about the +4 ZIP code®. It’s not uncommon for this not to be found on letters or packages but, in fact, having the complete ZIP code® could enable your mail to arrive faster since it requires less human interaction.
Standardizing
So, we’ve talked about spelling errors and missing information, now let’s talk about the standard format. This varies by country. If you are shipping internationally to the U.K., a U.S. address format isn’t going to cut it. Our address validation software will ensure your addresses are standardized according to the correct global formats, so you don’t have to worry.
How does this impact my businesses sales
Bottom line: We can help drive the potential for increased business sales through our address verification solution. Not only will you have the right consumer contact data at your fingertips, but we can easily integrate data quality control into your tech stack whether in real-time or list form.
Increase engagement
You can increase customer engagement in a couple of ways when you have trusted address data. When capturing and verifying addresses in real time, you have the chance to increase engagement by guiding customers through the checkout process more quickly. Furthermore, when you are able to deliver more package to the right addresses in a timely manner, you are automatically increasing customer engagement.
Correctly format addresses
Address verification software ensures that each address is correctly formatted. This goes beyond getting the package or direct mail to the right location. Having correctly formatted addresses means you are minimizing the risk of address correction fees—which are upwards of $18 per package for the major carriers.
Reduce loss of revenue
Accurate address data can result in a reduction of unnecessary costs—like those daunting address correction fees and high shipping rates—and positively impact the customer experience. In other words, you’re keeping the customer coming back for more! Ultimately, with high-quality contact data, you will see a direct and positive impact to revenue.
Improve conversions
Consumers often abandon their online shopping carts because of the lengthy time it takes to checkout and verify their contact information. With real-time address validation software, you can efficiently move the customer through the checkout process and, in turn, increase conversions.
Getting started with address validation
With Experian’s address verification software, we can help make your data fit for purpose—creating an avenue to deliver a positive customer experience through trusted address data from online to their front door. This will ultimately increase your business sales and operational efficiency. So, how do you get started?
Fifty percent of business leaders believe only half of the CRM/ERP data is fully leverageable, according to our latest research. If your organization lands in this ballpark, a good place to start would be boosting the usability of your database with reliable address data. This will put you on the path to increase your sales.
Are you looking to verify your address list today? Experian can help!
