Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are the lifeblood of many companies. Since the Gartner Group first coined the term in the 1990s, ERP has evolved from its base of managing manufacturing...
Does your business have a data privacy policy in place? If the answer is “not yet,” my next question is whether you do business with customers in California – because that state’s strict new...
A quick online search of the US white pages shows that there are over 1500 real people named George Washington, more than 50 named William Shakespeare, and a surprising number of Steven Spielbergs. There...
With the holidays fast approaching, your customers will soon be shopping online and breaking last year’s sales records. They will be counting on your business to make sure all of their packages are...
People will always debate whether stores put out their holiday merchandise too soon. (Not all of you like being reminded that the holidays are just around the corner!) But we can all agree on one thing: it...
Leads are the lifeblood of most businesses. And everyone knows that lead quality is important. But exactly how important? A recent survey from research-based marketing firm Ascend2 puts some real...
If you are a marketing, order fulfillment or data manager, there are some things you don’t want to be greeted with when you come to work in the morning – and a surprising number of them revolve around...
If you are a data professional, the word “compliance” has become a bigger part of your vocabulary than ever lately. Data privacy laws have proliferated in recent years, risks and potential penalties...
Your marketing efforts live or die on the quality of your leads. Automated lead scoring capabilities can help figure out who is a potential purchaser for your products or services, and substantially...
Not that many years ago, customer support meant one thing for most people: picking up the phone and contacting a call center. Times have changed a great deal since then. In this article, we will take a...
Your contact data assets represent the lifeblood of your company. Your organization probably has procedures in place to secure this data. But what about the third-party vendors you work with? Some...
Many products and services claim to always work. But when they don’t? Unfortunately, the answer is frequently, “sorry.” For our customers, “sorry” isn’t good enough – especially since we...
May 25, 2019 marks the one year anniversary of the implementation of GDPR: the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, a sweeping set of data privacy laws replacing a patchwork of...
What can a little latitude and longitude do for your marketing? A great deal, as it turns out. For starters, geotargeting – or the use of geographic coordinates to define your target market – has...
Do you use customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation platforms in your business? Or are you starting to dip your toe in the water and explore these tools? This blog post looks at how...
In most areas of life, negative motivation alone will not create good results. (If you don’t believe me, ask your employees, or your teenage children – or take a look at what research has to say.) When...
When you think of using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve customer experience, what comes to mind? Some people might (mistakenly) think of it as trying to replace human beings with Siri or Alexa,...
Cleaning up has always been a virtue. Thanks to Netflix and bestselling Japanese organizing expert Marie Kondo, who preaches a mindful approach to better living through tidying up, it has now also become a...
How well do you know your prospects and customers? You know their contact data, of course: their names, addresses and phone numbers help you keep in touch with them. But are they likely buyers of your...
If you do outbound marketing via telecommunications, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) has probably been part of your business agenda – particularly in recent years, as stiffer interpretations...
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you know that data privacy and security laws have become a big thing worldwide. Between Europe’s GDPR regulation, Canada’s PIPEDA...
No matter the industry, you likely have jargon or terminology that’s specific to the work you do. The email world has a nomenclature all of its own, too. Understanding the lingo can keep you on the right...
Change is a constant in life. And when it comes to your data, even more so. Given enough time, migrating your data to new systems and platforms will be a fact of life for most businesses. Whether it...
Service Objects takes our customers’ success very seriously, which is why we regularly create content to help organizations make heads or tails of their contact data and offer advice for implementing...
If you do business with customers in Canada, an important new privacy law has taken effect as of November 2018: The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). People are already...
What do you think of when it comes to marketing to Millennials? Terms like online, social media, viral video and crowdsourcing probably come to mind. But what about regular postal mail? The United...
Once upon a time, many businesses simply lived with bad email addresses as an inevitable cost of doing business. Today this has changed dramatically, in the face of increasing costs and regulatory...
Employee growth and wellbeing plays a pivotal role in Service Objects’ office culture and overall success. We truly believe in finding a balance between work-life and home-life, and a happy, healthy...
If you sell products nationally, do you need to collect state or local sales taxes? The answer may be more complicated than you think. In the United States sales taxes are levied at the state and local...
In 2017, Cyber Monday sales reached an all-time high – and trends show that we may see another record-breaking year. Service Objects broke its own record last Cyber Monday with the most transactions in a...
Few marketing channels share the power of email. It is immediate, urgent, personalized and inexpensive. And according to the Direct Marketing Association, it has the highest ROI of any marketing channel:...
The old saying “garbage in, garbage out” has been around since the early days of modern computing. Code for operator error or bad data, the adage implies that the output of a program is only as good as...
This week, October 1-5, was Customer Service Week: a nationally-recognized event first proclaimed by the US Congress in 1992. It was designed to recognize the work of customer service professionals in the...
Enterprises are dealing with more data than ever before, which means that proper information architecture and storage is crucial. What’s more, the quality of the data you store affects your business more...
We talk a lot on these pages about how data quality affects your business. But once in a while, we also feel it is important to look at how data quality affects society as a whole. And one of the best...
The golden rule of marketing has always been, “know your customer.” In today’s regulatory environment, however, it might be more accurate to say, “know your customer – or else!” Nowadays...
What is location intelligence, or LI for short? According to geomarketing firm Carto, it is the process of transforming location data into business outcomes. Today LI has become a very hot field, with...
What do you think of when you hear the term “artificial intelligence” (or AI for short)? For many people, it conjures up images of robots, science fiction, and movies like “2001 – A Space...
In a world of big data, information for sale, and people oversharing on social media, this past decade has lulled many marketers into believing in a post-privacy era of virtually unfettered access to...
Being based in the college town of Santa Barbara, California, we notice something interesting: the students seem to get younger every year. Of course, it is actually our own ages that continue to change....
Once upon a time data was just … data. Today it has become a strategic asset for most organizations, underpinning areas such as market analysis, strategic planning, product targeting and segmentation,...
In previous blogs, we have talked about what you can do to comply with modern data privacy standards, such as the European Union’s GDPR regulations. Today, we’re going to share what we have done lately...
If you are an online retailer, your world just changed in a big way. In a narrow 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court recently ruled that states now have a right to force out-of-state business...
New privacy regulations in Europe have recently become a very hot topic again within the business community. And no, we aren’t talking about the recent GDPR law. A new privacy initiative, known as the...
Have you noticed that more of us are talking with inanimate objects lately? When we ask Siri for directions on our smartphone, command Alexa to order more toilet paper, or tell Google Home to play Ed...
What is one of the biggest growth industries in the United States today? Hint: It isn’t something most of you would want your kids to major in at school, unless you want them to go to the state pen...
If you work with data, you have certainly heard by now about GDPR: the new European Union laws surrounding consumer data privacy that went into effect May 25, 2018. But how about PIPEDA, NDB, APPI, CCPA,...
Hitting a new all-time high for customer service, Service Objects recently earned a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 65, placing the company shoulder-to-shoulder with other tech industry leaders. With a score...
Once upon a time, customer service and support operations were viewed as the “complaint department” – a back-office function, a necessary evil, and above all a cost center whose role should be...
As the May 25, 2018, deadline looms, Service Objects, the leading provider of real-time global contact validation solutions, is offering a GDPR Data Quality Assessment to help companies evaluate their if...
With 2.1 billion active users, Facebook presents an exceptional opportunity for targeted marketing and businesses interested in harnessing the power of consumer data. In fact, there are now entire...
In March 2018, Service Objects reached a major milestone in the company’s history by validating over 3 billion transactions. Since 2001, Service Objects has enabled businesses located around the world to...
For most people, regulatory compliance sounds about as exciting as doing your taxes. And this is actually a pretty good analogy, because compliance and taxes are both obligations that won’t go away if...
A lot of you – like many of us here are Service Objects – are enjoying watching the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea this month. Every Olympics is a spectacle where people perform incredible...
Every year, February 14th is a time when our thoughts turn to things like true love, flowers, chocolates … and data quality. In fact, there is more in common between these things than you might think....
Is your business ready for the GDPR? On May 25, 2018 a sweeping change in global consumer privacy, one that will fundamentally change the way companies around the world perform outbound marketing, will...
With the arrival of 2018, many businesses are realizing the deadline to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is looming in the not too distant future. In fact, according to Forrester...
A brand new year is upon us – and once again, many of us are making resolutions for 2018. Perhaps eating better, working harder, or even blowing a thick layer of dust off that exercise machine in our...
Christmas is, of course, a major religious holiday celebrated around the world. And also one of the busiest and most profitable times of year for your business. But do you know how it first got that way?...
Cyber Monday 2017 was a busy day for many online retailers, including Service Objects. We were so busy, in fact, that we processed a record number of contact data validation transactions. Looking at the...
Imagine that your company runs an online ad for a product. But when your customer gets to your website, this product has actually been discontinued. And from thereon in, every time the customer surfs the...
Do you sell products online? If you do, you have a great opportunity in front of you. An opportunity to boost revenues, increase market share, and create visibility for your business. Or an equally great...
Service Objects is excited to announce that we have launched a newly redesigned website, www.serviceobjects.com. The redesign effort was undertaken to enhance the user experience and features a new...
Most of us here in North America grew up trick-or-treating on Halloween. But did you know the history behind this day? In early Celtic culture, the feast of All Hallows Eve (or Allhallowe’en) was a...
How well do you know your prospects and customers? This question lies at the heart of what we call data-driven marketing. Because the more you know about the people you contact, the better you can...
If you conduct business in Europe, May 2018 will be an important date. This is when the planned introduction of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is scheduled to take effect....
The so-called Millennial generation now represents the single largest population group in the United States. If they don’t already, they will soon represent your largest base of customers, and a majority...
If you are old enough to remember the disco era, one of its biggest hits was “Got to Be Real” by Cheryl Lynn. (And if you’re younger, it’s been sampled over 100 times since.) Decades later, if you...
In today’s era of online ecommerce, international sales represent a huge potential market for US vendors. According to research firm eMarketer, international sales represent three-quarters of a nearly US...
There has always been one eternal question in marketing: what is the shortest path between you and your next paying customer? We already know the right answer to this question: “It depends.” But a...
Good marketing is the bedrock of most business’ revenue pipelines; their number one job in many instances is to generate high quality leads through a variety of channels that can be converted into sales....
History is full of famous “frenemies,” from opposing politicians to the latest Hollywood gossip – people who work closely together but get under each other’s skin. But in your workplace, one of the...
Just a few decades ago the concept of a “channel” didn’t exist, other than on your television. If a customer or prospect wanted to contact you, they called you or wrote you a letter. And if you...
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation intended to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the European Union (EU). It also addresses the export of...
For businesses engaged in commerce, it is a real challenge to stay on top of ever changing sales and use tax rates. One minor tax rate change can have a direct impact on your customers, costing your...
Some things are – sadly – a fact of life. Less than a third of people floss their teeth every day. The average US household has over $16,000 in credit card debt. And according to the United States...
Service Objects is very proud to have been recently selected as one of CIOReview’s Top 20 Most Promising API Solution Providers for 2016, judged by a distinguished panel comprised of CEOs, CIOs and VPs...
Recent trends such as the increase in households with mobile phones only and the rise of consumer lawsuits related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) have companies such as Uber and Facebook...
Asking whether data quality is important to your marketing efforts is a little like asking if apple pie and motherhood are important – of course, the answer will always be “yes.” Recently, however,...
Everyone knows that Michael Dell built a giant computer business from scratch in a college dorm room. Less well known is how he got started: by selling newspaper subscriptions in his hometown of Houston....
Enterprise resource planning, or ERP for short, integrates the functions of an organization around a common database and applications suite. A brainchild of the late 20th century – the term was coined by...
According to a recent article in Information Management, nearly two-thirds of CIOs want to hire Chief Data Officers (CDO) over the next year. Why is this dramatic transformation taking place, and what does...
Imagine that someone calls your contact center – and before they even get to “Hello,” you know what they might be calling about, how frustrated they might be, and what additional products and...
If you have ever dined at a *really* fine restaurant, it may have featured a wine steward: a person formally trained and certified to oversee every aspect of the restaurant’s wine collection. A...
How do you get millennials interested in a cause? For starters, you don’t use traditional direct marketing techniques. Millennials won’t even answer a call from an unknown phone number more than 95...
A new year is upon us once again. What are your resolutions for 2017? Hit the gym more often? Get organized? Improve the state of your bank account? Guess what: your data has a very similar set of...
The holidays are upon us. One of the busiest seasons for many businesses, particularly in the consumer sector. According to the National Retail Federation, as much as 40 percent of annual sales for small...
Cyber Monday shattered previous online sales records and set a new all-time high, with consumers opening their wallets and spending $3.45 billion, marking a 12.1% jump over last year's figure and earning...
Good news – someone wants to place a large online order for one of your company’s products, shipped to their business in the United States. But in reality, this person is a scammer from some boiler...
What is the best marketing database of all? Statistically, it is your own customers. It has long been common wisdom that existing customers are much easier to sell to than new prospects – but what you...
Have you ever been to gamil.com? Or gmial.com? Or gmali.com? Well, many of your prospects and customers have, without even knowing it. These are just a few of the misspellings of “Gmail” alone that pop...
For many people, managing data quality seems like a daunting task. They may realize that it is an important issue with financial consequences for their organization, but they don’t know how to proceed in...
Collecting visitor and customer data through a variety of channels allows you to quickly grow your contact list. When contact information comes in, your company is provided many new opportunities to expand...
What are your customers telling you about your business? This question has always been the key argument for customer relationship management, or CRM for short. Capturing data about your customers can...
Few industries or investments grow at a year-over-year rate exceeding ten percent nowadays. But one area that – unfortunately – has had bright growth prospects is retail fraud. Which means that one of...
The holidays are approaching. For many merchants, this is the busiest and most profitable time of year. Especially if you sell high-ticket items that are popular as gifts. Unfortunately, the holidays are...
Data governance has become another trendy buzz-phrase among information technology professionals. Twenty years ago, it was a rarely heard term. Nowadays, there are professional societies, best practices,...
Why focus on customer success? Retaining customers, maintaining customer loyalty, and getting new customers requires a holistic approach that goes beyond the basics of providing service, ensuring...
Before you buy a product or service from a company – particularly one you may need customer support from – be sure to do some research and find out their Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is a metric that...
