Your business gets a large order for one of its products, with a delivery address of “123 Main Street, New York, NY 12345.” But there is one problem: 123 Main Street is a large office building with...
The world as we know it is rapidly changing in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and nowhere is it more evident than in how we shop: more and more people are having food, prescriptions and other...
DOTS Lead Validation is an ever-evolving service that helps companies improve lead quality at the point of entry, using combinations of name, address, email, phone, IP address and business name for...
Nearly a century ago, US President Calvin Coolidge – a man of few words – came back from church and was asked what the sermon was about. He replied, “Sin.” Then he was asked what the preacher said...
Introduction Zoho CRM is a powerful CRM platform that is often a favorite of small and large businesses around the world. For good reason too! Zoho CRM offers a useful, easily extensible tool that allows...
For cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics instances, a custom connector can be created using their Power Automate tools. The available Microsoft Dynamics' tools allow you to easily integrate our web services into...
Your company’s revenue most likely depends on having accurate, genuine and up-to-date contact data. In fact, this is probably one of the biggest factors in the overall ROI of your contact database. In...
Did you know that in 2014, there were almost 64 million vehicles recalled due to safety issues? According to NHTSA, the number of vehicles recalled in 2014 exceeded the past three years combined. To add to...
Service Objects currently offers a total of 25 data quality products, ranging from contact data validation to detailed sales and use tax calculation. But our roots began in 2001 with address validation,...
According to Investopedia, business logic is defined as “the custom rules or algorithms that handle the exchange of information between a database and user interface.” In the world of data quality,...
We love educating our clients. And we did quite a bit of it in 2019, with over 100 blog posts. Our blog, featuring informative articles and detailed user tips, is one of the most popular features of the...
Fraud is big business nowadays, and 2019 has been no exception. According to IDology’s Seventh Annual Fraud Report, overall levels of fraud remain similar to previous years, with online fraud reported to...
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines an address as “directions for delivery on the outside of an object (such as a letter or package).” But when is an address not really an address? The answer is...
The 2019 holiday shopping season has kicked off with record-breaking sales numbers. According to Adobe Analytics, Black Friday sales were up 20% to $7.4 billion and Cyber Monday grew 17% over last year...
Our DOTS Address Detective service is an address-based service looking to help clients clean up the most challenging of addresses. It works well as a secondary check to our DOTS Address Validation - US...
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...
Once upon a time, mail was delivered to residences, workplaces, or a Post Office (PO) box that are provided by the United States Postal Service. More recently, there is also a third option: private mail...
The United States Postal Service (USPS) has an acronym for almost everything and this leads to some pretty interesting conversations around the Service Objects' water cooler. You might overhear our...
If you have ever run into a unique ZIP code while doing address lookups or validation, then there is a good chance that they may have caused some confusing results for you. Take the following address as...
We recently revamped our developer guides to make them more user-friendly. The information for each service has been broken into its component parts, to make each feature more comprehensible. In this...
Some terms sound similar but aren’t actually interchangeable – like sympathy versus empathy or good versus well. In the data quality business, two similar phrases with totally separate meanings are...
We have many mission-critical applications for our products. But every year in May, one of the most critical ones is keeping moms happy on Mother’s Day. After all, customer satisfaction is important in...
You’ve got questions? We’ve got answers! This is the first in a series of articles exploring common user questions about our products and how they can be used in business use cases, based on what...
Addresses in the United States used to be a simple matter of a street location, a city and state, and perhaps a city-specific postal zone. But by the 1960s, between massive increases in mail volume and the...
What time is it? The answer isn’t always a simple one – particularly in states like Arizona and Hawaii that do not observe daylight saving time (DST). And this can be important for your business:...
Accurate address autocomplete At Service Objects, our mission is to ensure contact data is ‘genuine, accurate and up-to-date.’ This can be challenging when it comes to our clients wanting to use an...
When are two addresses actually the same? And when can you remove one of them from your contact database? The answer isn’t as simple as it sounds. Suppose you have two addresses as follows: 429 East...
Below is a full transcript of the video Tutorial: Address Suggestor using Google's Places API & Service Objects' Address Validation API. Today we are going to be building out an address suggestion...
The holidays are fast approaching. Soon you’ll be celebrating the season and sending holiday gift baskets and cards to people you have enjoyed working with this year. So here at Service Objects, we’ve...
Service Objects has been returning location-based tax rates in the DOTS FastTax API since 2001. Back then, we identified sales tax rates using only zip code. Since zip codes could cross multiple city and...
Service Objects is committed to fighting fraud and bad data wherever we see it. Through our APIs, best practices when handling sensitive data, or through recommendations on clients’ business logic, we...
Google Maps is an amazing service. Much of the civilized world has now been mapped through its data sources, ranging from satellite data to its ubiquitous camera-mounted vehicles. The result is a tool that...
Most people think that they mail or ship things to addresses – and they would be wrong. And the reasons for this might be very important to your bottom line. First, let’s look at one actual address...
Service Objects is pleased to welcome a new service to our lineup, DOTS Address Insight - US. Built on the core of our USPS CASS Certified DOTS Address Validation - US and DOTS Address Geocode - US...
Labor Day is much more than the traditional end of summer in America: it pays tribute to the efforts of working people. It dates back well over a century, with one labor leader in the 1800s describing it...
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...
The country of Australia, officially known as the Commonwealth of Australia, consists of six states and two territories. There are over 13 million known deliverable addresses in Australia. This article...
In a previous blog, we discussed the benefits of using DOTS Address Detective - International to detect a contact’s country. This blog will discuss some of the challenges surrounding country detection in...
I have a superpower that most people don’t have. In my position here at Service Objects, I have had the privilege of being a fly on the wall with many companies while helping them create clean and...
Is a mailing address the same as a physical address? No, not always. In general, a mailing address can often be the same as a street address, but this is not always the case. To understand why, we...
Service Objects has been providing USPS CASS-Certified Address Validation services for over 17 years. Over this time, we have developed one of the best systems for validating, correcting and appending...
Some things are just better together. Like milk and cookies. Or peanut butter and jelly. Or, if you do online sales and marketing, ecommerce platforms and data validation services. Integrating live,...
Data gets stale over time. You rely on us to keep this data fresh, and we in turn rely on a host of others – including you! The information we serve you is the product of partnerships at many levels, and...
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 want to use our National Change-of-Address web service, DOTS NCOA Live, for contact address validation but are hesitant to dive in due to the complex nature of the service; this article is meant to...
Knowing the geographical location of contact data records is crucial for compliance with the over 100 different Data Protection laws currently in force around the globe. While Europe’s General Data...
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...
“Can’t you just add that feature today!?” “Can you add a simple update for this!?” “It’s obvious, it really shouldn’t take very long to implement!” Software developers hear...
DOTS Address Validation 3 is one of our most popular services – for good reason! This service is robust and good at what it does. Our powerful CASS certified engine provides our customers with quick and...
“Nobody is perfect. And my company wasn’t even talking about things like data quality ten years ago. So, what is the big deal if there are a few problems with my contact data? That’s life, isn’t...
“Online retailers of all sizes are constantly under attack by sophisticated fraudsters. In fact, credit card fraud costs US online retailers an estimated $3.9 billion each year.” - Geoff Grow, Founder...
The word “deprecated” is thrown around frequently in the software development world. It is used to indicate a product or service that is either not going to continue being maintained or it is going to...
Many of us use Google Maps to quickly verify that a location exists or give us an idea of what that location looks like. However, there is a common misconception that it will validate that the address...
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?...
If you are using an Address Validation service for shipping labels, then you may occasionally run into character count limitations with the Address1 field. Whether you are using UPS, FedEx, ShipStation or...
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...
Customer Service Above All. It is one of our core values here at Service Objects. Recently, we've received several requests for a list of the unique zip codes throughout the US and Canada. By leveraging...
If you were to make a list of the things people love to do, data cleanup would usually rank pretty low on the list. (Except for us here at Service Objects. We rather enjoy data cleanup. But then again,...
If you market to or serve people by mail, there are two acronyms you should get to know: CASS and DPV. Here is a quick summary of both of them: CASS stands for the Coding Accuracy Support System™....
So many reports focus on spitting out data that they often overlook the importance of being able to quickly digest the information and present a clear action plan. At Service Objects, we want you spending...
All right, we are finally going to admit it: there are some bad mailing addresses out there that even Service Objects can’t fix. Of course, we’re talking about cases like illegible handwriting,...
What is DOTS FastTax? DOTS FastTax web service provides sales and use tax rate information for all US areas based on several different inputs. The operations that are offered within FastTax take input...
The Service Objects’ team watched the steady stream of images from Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath and we wanted to know, ‘What can we do to help?’ We realized the best thing we could do is...
“Did you know that nearly 30 million Americans move each year? Did you also know that government agencies like counties, cities, and states are required to keep accurate and up to date records of their...
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...
You probably know what omnichannel means, but a quick definition is always helpful. It refers to the various touch points by which a business/organization can reach a customer. The idea — and the ideal...
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...
In this demonstration I am going to show you how to implement our DOTS Address Validation 3 web service with JavaScript and no Asp.Net markup tags using Visual Studio. We are going to create a form for...
This is where the US government comes in. The federal universal service high-cost program – also known as the Alternative-Connect America Cost Model (A-CAM) – is designed to ensure that consumers in...
The reality about any set of residential customer data is that given enough time, addresses and the people living there are bound to change. Occasionally, businesses and organizations can rely on the...
While Mother’s Day is all about the Moms in our lives, it’s an even bigger day for retailers. This year the National Retail Federation estimates Mother's Day spending to reach an all-time high of $23.6...
Before moving to my current home, making sure I completed a change of address form with the Post Office was on the top of my “to do” list. Although most mail received these days is typically coupons...
Java is easily one of the most popular programming languages in the world. It is a general purpose language that users have managed to implement in a variety of applications. It is popular with web...
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...
Our professions don’t exempt us from real life. Doctors get sick, contractors have leaky roofs – and people who work at Service Objects receive misaddressed mail, just like the rest of us. But one...
In November of 2016, Google started rolling out updates to more clearly distinguish their Geocoding and Places APIs, both of which are a part of the Google Maps API suite. The Places API was introduced in...
What do medical centers have in common with businesses like with Uber, Travelocity, or Amazon? They have a treasure trove of data, that's what! The quality of that data and what's done with it can help...
Service Objects, Inc. has been standardizing and cleansing even the messiest of USPS valid addresses for years. The core purpose of our DOTS Address Validation-US service is determining if addresses are...
Service Objects runs an agile Engineering team that likes to be ready to run with a great new idea at any given moment. We view it as one of the cornerstones of our fanatical customer service plan. As...
In a recent blog we discussed how to identify Incorporated and Unincorporated places. There are a number of reasons this is important, one of them being to determine accurate area tax rates. As mentioned...
Dealing with international addresses is no simple task. An address can often be misspelled, incorrectly formatted or simply written in a foreign language that you do not understand. The simple fact that...
Our USPS CASS Certified™ Address Validation service improves internal mail processes and delivery rates by standardizing contact records against USPS data and flagging for vacancy, addresses returning...
Here at Service Objects, we are constantly working to improve or add useful features to our services so we can continue to be an industry leader in providing our customers with quality data. We are always...
Residents in many smaller towns and rural areas in the United States do not receive residential mail delivery from the USPS. They're living off the grid, the postal grid, that is. In communities such as...
If you are using an Address Validation service for shipping labels, then you may occasionally run into character limitations with the Address1 field. Whether you are using UPS, Fedex or another shipping...
Getting Your Mail Delivered In 2014, the United States Postal Service reported that 4.3% of all mail was ‘Undeliverable as Addressed’ (UAA). At first glance, this doesn’t seem too bad, BUT this...
Having validated and standardized addresses within your CRM will improve business efficiency, cut down on bogus leads, and help reduce waste. Let our new DOTS Address Validation Chrome Extension for...
Working with international address data can be difficult and confusing. Even when you have an application available to validate an address, and it tells you that it's deliverable, you still have to deal...
Remember watching Star Trek as a kid and dreaming of talking to a computer throughout the day? Then PCs arrived, and while you couldn't control them with your voice, information was at your fingertips. And...
One benefit or problem, depending on your inclinations, of being in the marketing business is that you become acutely aware of the marketing that goes on around you. In many ways, that awareness is a great...
When dividing the countries of the world into regions and sub-regions for the purpose of Address Validation, it is important to find common ground and to use a set of widely adopted terms and definitions....
Thinking about moving to Canada after this election? All jokes aside, there are some things you should know about sending or receiving mail to our northerly neighbor. We have compiled some of the key...
Every year Mr. Santa Claus faces enormous pressure to deliver billions of presents around the world. He has just one night—just one chance to ensure delivery of all the toys to children all over the...
Each year, over 140 million pieces of mail are marked as undeliverable. This happens for several reasons which include incorrect address format, address no longer exists, and mail refused by an addressee...
The real estate industry can gain a competitive edge with data validation Data-based marketing, outreach and lead generation isn’t only for cutting-edge B2B companies anymore. Data runs the world these...
You see address line 2 all the time. Your own web forms probably even have a field for it. However, did you know that address line 2 doesn't really exist -- at least in the U.S. Postal Service's eyes? Not...
If you're like most business owners, finding ways to save time and money is one of your top priorities. After all, a penny saved is a penny earned. One area you might not have paid too much attention to is...
Street, avenue, boulevard, and court are but a few of the many suffixes used in addresses. Add in Spanish or French variations like corte or rue and the list gets even longer. If you use the wrong suffix,...
Canada has several privacy laws regulating the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information in the course of commercial activities. Under Canada's private sector privacy laws, personal...
It happens all the time: customers accidentally provide incorrect addresses. Sometimes autocorrect on their phones or computers is to blame. Other times, it's an honest mistake. Whatever the reason, most...
