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 Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect May 25, 2018, many other international Data Protection rules and regulations already govern the collection, management and use of customer data, including Canada’s PIPEDA, Australia’s NDB, and Japan’s APPI. Meanwhile, in the US, both California and New York have already passed data protection laws, with more states likely to enact their own rules in the near future. Unfortunately, the consequences of noncompliance are significant, including costly fines and other penalties.

To help achieve compliance, Service Objects recently released Country Detective, a new service which enables businesses to correct or append country of origin information to existing contact records. Companies can try out the service by requesting a free Global Data Assessment. With more accurate information on the geographic location of clients and prospects, companies can adapt their processes and protocols to satisfy current and future Data Privacy laws.

Knowing the Location of Customers and Prospects is Key to Compliance

Because these regulations vary across different industries and regions, knowing the geographical location of contact records in a database is the first step to compliance.  Many organizations maintain large databases full of incomplete contact records. Without a solid understanding of where customers and prospects are located, businesses risk running afoul of global Data Protection laws.

Contact data is also constantly changing, making accuracy particularly challenging. For example, Convince & Convert reports up to 34% of Americans will create a new address within the next year. According to USPS, mail determined to be “undeliverable as addressed” costs the Postal Service about $1.5 billion per year.

US businesses already lose more than $3.1 trillion every year due to bad contact data, and the newest slate of global data protection laws will only add another layer of expense. That’s why it remains critical that companies maintain up-to-date contact records.

“Contact information ages incredibly fast, and it remains critical that organizations take a proactive approach to data management,” says Geoff Grow, CEO, Service Objects.

Contact Data Quality is Key to Reducing Liability

Service Objects’ Country Detective service is designed to help businesses comply with Data Protection laws around the globe. The service will append and correct the country in each contact record and evaluate other data points to deliver an overall quality score. The free Global Data assessment is intended as an introduction to Country Detective by allowing organizations to identify and, if necessary, correct the country information for their contact records. To get started, businesses can securely send a list of 500 contact records and results will be delivered within 1-2 business days.

“We know that many US organizations have a large percentage of customer records that are currently missing country data, which is the first step to achieve compliance with data protection laws,” says Grow. “Our Country Detective service will give businesses the information they need to determine which of their contact records have the greatest liability.”

 

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 reduced as much as possible. These days, it has become increasingly clear that businesses must prioritize data quality. As Thomas Redman advised is a recent guest post, “Getting in front on data quality presents a terrific opportunity to improve business performance.”

While some organizations still have a break/fix mentality about customer support, the very best organizations now view their customer contact operations as the strategic voice of the customer – and leverage customer engagement as a strategic asset. Thanks to tools ranging from CRM and social media, many businesses manage their customer experience as closely as they manage their products and services.

The Strategic Role of Data Quality

This leads us to an important analogy about data quality. Like the “complaint department” days of customer service, many organizations still view data quality as little more than catching and fixing bad contact data. In reality, our experience with a base of nearly 2500 customers has taught that data quality plays a very strategic role in areas like cost control, marketing reach, and brand reputation in the marketplace.

This worldview is still evolving slowly. For example, according to a 2017 CIO survey by Talend, data quality and data governance remain the biggest concerns of IT departments, at 33 and 37 percent respectively – and yet their top priorities reflect more trendy objectives such as big data and real-time analytics. And back in 2012 Forrester vice president Kate Leggett observed that data quality often remains the domain of the IT department, and data projects for customer service rarely get funded.

Meanwhile, data quality has also become an important component of customer experience. Leggett notes that instead of an IT-driven process of “cleaning dirty customer data,” organizations should reframe the conversation towards the impact of data quality on customer-facing functions, and understand the connection between investments in data quality and customer service metrics.

Here at Service Objects, we see three key areas in the link between data quality and customer experience:

Customer Engagement

When you have good data integrated with effective CRM, you have the ability to market appropriately and serve customers responsively. You can target your messages to the right people, react responsively in real time to customer needs, and create systems that satisfy and delight the people you serve.

Service Failures

Mis-deliver a package because of a bad address, and you make a customer very unhappy. Do things like this even a small percentage of the time, and you gain a reputation as a company that doesn’t execute. Keep doing it and even many customers who haven’t been wronged yet will seek other options where possible, because of the “herd mentality” that builds around those who do complain publicly and on social media.

Strategic Visibility

Your customer data is an important asset that gives you the ability to analyze numerous aspects of your customer relationships and react appropriately. It holds the knowledge of everything from demographics to purchasing patterns, as well as their direct feedback through service and support. Having accurate customer data is central to leveraging this data strategically.

One heartening trend is that more organizations than ever now see the connection between data quality and their customer relationships. For example, one 2017 article in PharmExec.com cited a European customer data survey showing that nearly three-quarters of life sciences respondents feel that having a complete and real-time view of customers is a top priority – while only 40% are satisfied with how well they are doing this. We are seeing similar figures across other industries nowadays, and view this as a good sign that we are moving over time towards a smoother, more data-driven relationship between organizations and their customers.

“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 statements like this more than about half a million times over their career.  It raises my eyebrows every time I hear it, typically giving me a little chuckle inside. In all honesty, it is not a surprise that those kinds of inquiries come up and that they come up as often as they do. After all, these queries come from people that do not code so, from their perspective, the questions seem legitimate.

Errors, Intent and Responsive Address Validation

Fundamentally, these are legitimate questions. The misconceptions that trigger this type of confusion often stem from how well humans can quickly find patterns, errors and solutions. So rapidly, in fact, many problems appear to have “fast” or “obvious” solutions.

For example, to us, it may seem obvious that in our Service Objects address the typo “Cta Street” should be “Cota Street” or “Santa Barbra” should be “Santa Barbara.”  These errors are relatively easy to identify, fix and classify right? For humans, the answer is yes. For a computer, on the other hand, the answer is, well…maybe.

At its heart, the issue involves underlying questions about conceptual intent and programming capabilities. For example, when the name of a city is corrected, what does that mean for the data related to the corresponding physical address? Does St. Louis being changed to Saint Louis maintain the fidelity of the locational intent? What about changing Santa Barbara to nearby Goleta? Would these solutions fall within what would be expected behavior?

While both actions result in changes to a piece of information, each solution is based on a different procedure. The first follows a standardized correction of the name of a specific location, which is a type of change to the input. The second, on the other hand, signifies a change in the place itself.

Variations on a Standard: Address Line 2

When it comes to address validation, there are more than enough address variations to examine that constitute a standard address format, and that’s just talking about Address Line 1.  Though Address Line 2 is not a standard address field, it has been a custom to see that field in one of it’s many variations on forms when we fill out our address.

Address Line 2 has often left users confused as to what information should be included in that field. While many argue Address Line 2 is designed for apartment numbers, suites, and similar secondary information, there is no consensus. In fact, the USPS does not recognize Address Line 2 as a standard address field.

Reactive Address Verification

In practice, the field is often used for apartment and suite numbers, but also for other details like ‘care of’ or to give additional information to the mail delivery person.  Almost anything can go into Address Line 2, and increasingly, people expect Address Line 2 data to be handled as part of the entire address validation protocol.

Ultimately, this field adds a significant layer of complexity to an address validation solution. Take for instance the scenario where someone enters “Apt 2 A C O Sally” on Address Line 2. Typically, someone would not enter the data that way, but you may be surprised how often something like this does come up. Visually, we can easily identify the intention of the data. An address validation process, on the other hand, will find identification and categorization of this information difficult. For example, what does “Apt 2 A C O Sally” signify? Is it Apt 2A, Care of Sally? Or is just Apt 2? Furthermore, once we identify the “Care Of” details, does that information need to be preserved on the output?

Standardized Solutions and a Custom Fix

In some situations, Service Objects can create a solution capable of handling the complexities of multiple address data inputs beyond the standard format. In other instances, the best result is a happy medium. Sometimes a specific solution can be tailored to a particular client based on their individual needs. Always, our updates can fine-tune operations and benefit all of our clients.

We use our extensive validation knowledge and industry standards and expectations to help govern which approach we take. Situations like these represent what our teams look at all the time, and we are always finding ways to make improvements. Our services are based on almost 20 years of experience.

When we update logic in the system, we often walk a fine line between what the code should do versus what it already does.  We always want to improve our processes without negatively impacting clients already used to expected behavior. Improvements capable of changing the expected results for current users will often be bundled up in a new version, but usually, we can find ways to update current versions, so clients always have the latest and greatest option without needing to make any changes.

As we know, the devil is in the details. By drilling down to the smallest and most incremental element of an address input, Service Objects provides the highest level of data verification and address validation services. In fact, our focus on details allows us to be experts in the validation services field, so your organization doesn’t have to be.

 

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 efficient address validation. Because of the complexities associated with DOTS Address Validation 3, there can be lingering questions about what certain fields mean or even how to use it. I am one of the integration specialists here at Service Objects, and I am here to help demystify some of the key features that DOTS Address Validation 3 boasts.

DOTS Address Validation 3 Use Cases

One of the most popular ways to use DOTS Address Validation 3 is to put it directly in a web form where the user enters their address. In this case, an address can be sent to our services, verified, cleansed, and validated before it is used for shipping purposes or before it is put into a database. Based on the DPV code that our service returns, we can also indicate whether an address is missing secondary unit information (i.e., like an apartment or suite number), or if the given secondary unit information isn’t considered valid by the USPS. This DPV value can be used to relay information back to a customer to correct or add the right Secondary unit number.

If you don’t have the ability to call an API from a web form, another use case could be to collect the addresses that you acquire and submit them in bulk with an FTPS set up. Our processes will determine when a file has been uploaded and will process the records and then spit out a file with the validated data that you can use to upload back into your database

If you have a large existing database of uncleansed addresses, you are in luck! We offer large list processing that will allow you to cleanse existing databases. We are experts at running large quantities of data quickly, so we’re happy to process these lists for you to clean up your existing database.

Responses

Knowing how an API works is essential to integrating it and to using its response. One thing to note about DOTS Address Validation 3 is that if an address is invalid, then it will return an error object in the response. In other words, if DOTS Address Validation 3 returns an error, it means the address couldn’t be validated. If an address is valid or partially valid (more on that later) then it returns the address information. There are different errors the service can return that will help you troubleshoot what is occurring with the API call and determine so you can correctly handle each type of error that comes back.

 

1. Error Code 1 – Authorization Codes

These errors indicate that something was wrong with the license key. These errors are not billable. You may also need to reach out to Service Objects if you encounter these errors in a production environment.

Error Desc Code	Error Description	Additional Desc
1	Please provide a valid license key for this web service	There was no license key submitted to the service. Oftentimes this occurs when the URL encoding hasn’t occurred correctly.
2	The daily allowable number of transactions for this license key has been exceeded.	This doesn’t apply to all keys, but some have a daily maximum transactions
3	The monthly allowable number of transactions for this license key has been exceeded.	Some keys have a monthly maximum. You will encounter this value if you pass the monthly maximum
4	The total allowable number of transactions for this license key has been exceeded	The overall amount of transactions has been exceeded.

 

2. Error Code 2 – User Input

Something was wrong with the inputs. Either necessary fields were blank, or the inputs were too long.

Error Desc Code	Error Description	Additional Desc
1	Address and Address2 fields were too long. Together, they must be 100 characters or less.	The input fields were too long
2	Address field was too long, must be 100 characters or less.	The input fields were too long
3	Please input a street address.	There was no Address1 or Address2 values entered
4	Please input either zip code or both city and state.	The service needs either a zip code or both city and state to perform a successful validation.

 

3. Error Code 3 – Fatal Errors

These errors indicate that a Service Objects web service is behaving in a way that it should not. If you ever see this error in a production environment, please notify Service Objects immediately.

Desc Code	Error Description	Additional Desc
1	Unhandled error. Please contact Service Objects.	Like it says, please contact Service Objects immediately and let us know what inputs you used to create this error.

 

4. Error Code 4 – Domain Specific

These errors occur when something has gone wrong with the validation process; usually, an invalid address. There are also more specific messages for each error you can use to help decipher the reason for the failed address validation.

Desc Code	Error Description	Additional Desc
1	Address not found	Major issue with the address that doesn’t fit known USPS special case scenarios.
3	Multiple addresses match	Several address candidates were found that are equally likely given the input. Ex: “1 Main St” matches “1 E Main St” and “1 W Main St”.
5	Please enter a valid address number.
7	Street not found	Street name not found for the general area (city/state or zip)
8	Street number or box number out of range	Street name found in the area, but the given primary number is not valid for that street
12	Internal error.	Returned when an unexpected error occurs while processing address, or for special address cases. This error isn’t likely to appear
14	City not found	City name not found for given state or postal code
15	State not found	State abbreviation not found. The input state didn’t seem to be a valid state.
17	Address not found but the region has General Delivery service	Given address not found, but the region provided matches a known area that only provides General Delivery services. Mail sent to “General Delivery” with the recipient’s name may get delivered to the recipient.
21	Unable to parse address.	Indicates that the input could not be parsed into address fragments.

Non-Error Response

If there wasn’t an error returned, that’s good news! It means your request has resulted in validated address information. Below is a list of all the values recommended for a GetBestMatches operation. If you are using an operation other than GetBestMatches, then some of these values may not apply. Another thing to be aware of regarding GetBestMatches is the possibility it will return multiple addresses if the input address is vague. For example, when directional information should have been included but was not. In that case, the service will return multiple addresses and let the user navigate the ambiguity.

Return Value	Description
Address1	This is the standardized Address1 line of the address. This along with City, State, and Postal Code are where you will find the verified and standardized address components
Address2	The USPS doesn’t consider the Address2 field to be necessary for mailing purposes. If there is any valid Secondary Unit information sent in the Address2 input our system will pick it up and append it at the end of the Address1 field. If there is any extraneous information in the input Address2 field (i.e. “c/o John Smith” etc.) we’ll try to maintain it in the Address2 field.
City	The validated city for the given input address.
State	The corrected and validated state name.
Zip	The validated and corrected Zip + 4 for the given address.
IsResidential	A “TRUE” or “FALSE” flag will be given to indicate whether the input address is considered to be residential
DPV	A value between 1 and 4. This is arguably the most important values to look at when determining what to do with an input address. The DPV value will essentially indicate the total validity of an address. Your use case may vary but here is an example of how to deal with different DPV values when a customer may be entering address information on a web form. DPV 1 – The Address is in the USPS database and is considered to be a valid mailing address. DPV 2 – The address is not in the USPS database. This means that this address may exist, but the USPS simply does not deliver to it. Perhaps try using an alternate mail delivery company to deliver something to this address. DPV 3 – The given secondary unit information on the address is invalid, ask the user to double check the given Secondary Unit information and try again. DPV 4 – The service and subsequently the DOTS Address Validation 3 service expects a Secondary Unit (i.e., apt, unit, suite etc.) but none was provided. Perhaps ask the customer if they are missing the required unit information.
DPVDesc	The text value that explains the DPV result
DPVNotes	Numerical notes that indicate different pieces of information about a particular address. Some of the notes can be things like: Post Office Box address, Firm or Business address, Address exists but is vacant, Military APO/FPO address etc. For a full list of these codes please visit our developer guides.
DPVNotesDesc	The text descriptions that are associated with the values in the DPVNotes field
Corrections	An enumerated list of codes that indicate certain corrections were made to the input address. I.e., City corrected, state correction etc. For a full list of Correction codes, please visit our developer’s guide.
CorrectionsDesc	The text descriptions for the codes provided in the corrections field.
BarcodeDigits	This is a value that the USPS uses to sort mail. Each deliverable address has a unique barcode digit value. A benefit of this is that users can utilize this value to dedupe records in a database. Meaning if you have several different records with the same Barcode Digit, then you can clean up your database.
CarrierRoute	A 4-character string that highlights the carrier route the USPS uses to for this address.
CongressCode	This is congress code that is associated with the congressional district number in which the address is located
CountyName	The name of the county in which the address resides.
FragmentHouse	This is the parsed-out house number for an address. i.e., 123 of 123 W Main St N. The rest of these values are typically used to reconstruct an address that has been validated. Most customers who use these values use them to reassemble an address into different fragments for cases where an application might have character limitations.
FragmentPreDir	The parsed pre-directional of the address’s street. “W” of 123 W Main St N.
FragmentStreet	The parsed-out street name. “Main” of 123 W Main St N.
FragmentSuffix	The parsed-out suffix of the street. “St” of 123 W Main St N.
FragmentPostDir	The parsed-out directional fragment of the address. “N” of 123 W Main St N.
FragmentUnit	The parsed-out unit designator of the input address. Can be values like APT, STE, UNIT etc.
Fragment	The parsed-out unit number of the secondary unit designator. “4” of Unit 4
FragmentPMBPrefix	The parsed type of personal mailbox designator. This will likely be “PMB” or “Box”. Some addresses have personal mailboxes to which mail can be delivered.
FragmentPMBNumber	The parsed-out number from the PMB designator. 4 of PMB 4.

 

This covers most of the basics of DOTS Address Validation 3. As I mentioned, because of the robust capabilities of our CASS certified engine and the comprehensive nature of DOTS Address Validation 3’s data input fields, users are sometimes confused about how to use certain fields or how DOTS Address Validation 3 can be used or integrated. If you want to learn more about how DOTS Address Validation 3, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us! We’d be happy to answer any follow-up questions you may have and make recommendations on how to interpret and use the results from the service.

“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 it?”

Actually, it is a big deal. First, it affects your costs and competitiveness. Second, it affects your reputation in the marketplace. And finally, because bad data can be so easily fixed with the latest automated tools.

With new regulations on the horizon and an increasingly competitive marketplace, companies need data they can rely on. If you’re still on the fence, below are some of the main reasons your business needs confirmed data.

Saving Time and Money

Bad data always costs your business time, money, or both. It affects areas such as sales leads, delivery accuracy, your reputation when sending email marketing, and much more. It is estimated15-25% of contact data is inaccurate, incomplete, fraudulent, or out-of-date, and a great deal of resources are wasted due to inaccurate or straight-up bad data.

Getting sales leads is costly for most organizations, especially when leads are bad or inaccurate. The earlier you can validate incoming data, the better you will be able to utilize your resources.  Our Email and Address Validation services can help make sure your incoming contact data is coming in clean and valid, and our Lead Validation service helps prioritize your resources toward better targeted leads.

Improving Your Marketing Efficiency

Think of all the wasted resources involved when materials are sent to the wrong address, or salespeople chase after bad or mislocated prospects. Even a small percentage of errors can result in a great deal of frustration for everyone involved, and fixing these problems is low-hanging fruit you can easily automate.

Beyond our Address Validation services, our Address Geocode product can translate addresses to exact latitude-longitude coordinates in real time. For incomplete addresses, our Address Detective product can prevent you from purging good leads. It fixes fatal addressing errors by filling in the gaps of missing address data in your contact records, using a fuzzy-matching API that returns a confidence score for each updated address.

Protecting Your Email Reputation

Suppose you bought an email list and you are ready to send the perfect email, after weeks of refining. Nothing can give you a bad reputation quicker than sending email to a bunch of addresses that bounce, not to mention getting mediocre results from your campaign.

Use our Email Validation service to keep your reputation in good standing. Using a real-time API can reduce bounce rates up to 90%. Our service can process rented lists as well as your own house lists, giving you valuable insight into your contact data assets to make sure you get the most out of your investment.

Cleaning Up Your Existing Contact Data

We often hear people say, “What if I just realized we were doing things wrong and I want to get our data on the right track?” Once your database gets corrupted with uncertain data, typically two things must happen to reverse course. First, you need to draw a line in the sand and commit to making sure to validate any new information going into your system. The next step involves validating all your current database information in a separate process.

We can help automate much of the extra work of cleaning up existing data. We have lots of sample code and support many platforms to make it easy to integrate with us, not to mention the top-notch technical service team we have standing by to help you implement a robust solution.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Finally, we wanted to mention the importance of keeping your data current. Even after validating data coming into your system using our API or cleansing your system afterward with our batch process, data will still get old and invalid over time. People move, new homes are built, old buildings are repurposed, emails change, phone numbers are disconnected, and so on.  Like showering, regular data hygiene will help keep your data in the best condition possible, and we make this easy for you.

There are many benefits to keeping your data as up-to-date and accurate as possible, and we are here to help you every step of the way. Contact us to see what we can do for you and your data!

 

“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 and CEO, Service Objects

At Service Objects, we know that data quality excellence is the key to helping retailers feel confident about improving delivery rates while reducing fraud associated with vacant addresses, PO boxes and commercial mail handlers. This, in turn, helps maintain higher customer satisfaction ratings among your legitimate customers.

This video, featuring Service Objects’ Founder and CEO, Geoff Grow, will show you tools you can use to improve the deliverability of your products and combat fraud. You will learn how to validate addresses against current USPS certified address data to prevent undeliverable and lost shipments, as well as how to validate a customer’s IP address against the billing and shipping information they provide, using data from over many authoritative data sources to stop fraud before it happens.

 

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 be sunsetted. Often times, when companies roll out a new product or API they decide to give their users a heads up that the older operations are going to be deprecated. This prompts the users to update to the latest version to take advantage of the latest and greatest features that the company is offering.

Marking a service to be deprecated is a warning to the users of the product or service that it will no longer be supported and it is highly recommended to upgrade to a newer, supported service.  Here at Service Objects, we don’t particularly like the practice of deprecating services.  Although we don’t rule it out completely, our mission is to maintain support for our legacy services. This is because we understand that it takes time, resources, and money to integrate with APIs. The time it takes for developers to integrate, test, and deploy new code inevitably costs money. To help solve the issue of legacy services falling behind the advancements, we keep our core code separate from the individual service outputs. A fixed set of output fields enables us to provide our clients with peace of mind that the service they have invested their time and resources into won’t change beneath their feet.

A clear picture of this concept can be seen in our DOTS Address Validation services. We have DOTS Address Validation 1, 2 and 3. The 3^rd iteration is currently our primary and most robust address validation service yet. It has the latest and greatest in terms of available output fields. Even though Address Validation 3  is our latest version of our address services, both DOTS Address Validation 1 and 2 are actively supported.

The reason we are able to maintain these is due to the fact that the share a core address validation code set, which is continuously refined to return the most accurate and up to date data available.

By choosing our services, you can rest assured that the service you integrate will not be left to be put out to pasture in the future  and will continue to push to provide you with the best data, regardless of which version of the service you are using.

We invite you to get started testing any of our 23 data quality services today.

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 found is correct and deliverable. So although Google Maps is an extremely powerful lookup tool, it will not validate addresses nor does it include the robust features and support included with our DOTS Address Validation-US service. To jumpstart your understanding and dispel some standard misconceptions, let’s explore some of the differences in our Address Validation service and Google Maps.

What Does DOTS Address Validation Do?

Although Service Objects can verify and validate many contact data points such as name, phone and email, our specialty is address validation. For us, addresses consist of business names, address fields, cities, states, and postal codes. Our USPS CASS Certified address validation service is designed to improve internal business mail processes and delivery rates by standardizing contact records against USPS data.

It’s All in the Documentation

Our Developer Guide is a great place to start for an in-depth breakdown of the service and response features for Address Validation. It is extremely useful while integrating and can be used as a reference guide as well when learning more about the information each output field conveys.

24/7 Support When Your Business Needs It Most

With the amount of information provided in the results, it is common to have questions along the road to understanding each of the outputs. Our team is here to help you in this process and provide 24/7 technical support. We can be reached by phone (805-963-1700), email and even live chat on our website. “Best Practice” and “Step by Step Tutorial” blogs are also posted on a regular basis.

Deliverability is Key

One of the biggest misconceptions about Google Maps and Address Validation is the ability to determine DEVLIVERABILITY. Beyond correcting and standardizing an address, our advanced algorithms and wide-reaching data sources allow us to determine if an address is deemed deliverable by the United States Postal Service. The service response will contain a Delivery Point Validation (DPV) indicator of 1-4 that can be used based on specific business logic. A DPV score of 1 indicates a perfectly deliverable address whereas a score of 2-4 indicates missing or incorrect inputs in the address field. The corrected address, component fields, and extra information such as the DPV indicator, residential delivery indicator (RDI), vacancy flags and more will be included and can be leveraged in your workflow.

Primarily, the locations that Google Maps will mark aren’t necessarily mail deliverable. There is a lot of leniency within the Google algorithms that allows for guess work to be made. Although Google can put a pin on the map for a given input address, it does not mean that a postal carrier will deliver mail at that location. However, if DOTS Address Validation marks a location as invalid, you can be sure you are getting genuine and accurate information.

When Is Google Maps Useful for Address Lookup?

With all of that said, Google Maps should not be discounted in its ability to investigate a location. If the image data was captured recently it can be used to understand why our service marked an address the way it did. A prime example of this is an address marked as having a “street number out of range.” By checking Google Maps data and cross referencing our service response, more light can sometimes be shed about that address location.

While you can use Google Maps to potentially confirm if a location exists, it is imperative to use robust validation tools like DOTS Address Validation to ensure any mail your business sends can actually be delivered, saving time and money.

If you have any questions about validating, verifying or appending addresses, or any other contact data points including name, phone, email and device, feel free to contact us.

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?

Many people credit author Charles Dickens and his story A Christmas Carol with helping Victorian England, and later the world, see Christmas as a time of gift-giving and family connection. His mid-1800s story focused on how a lonely miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, learned to avoid the fate of his partner’s eternal torment when the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come taught him to focus on what really matters – other people.

With apologies to Dickens, we feel that the three ghosts of Christmas have a valuable modern-day lesson to teach us about creating a happy holiday season for everyone, in the middle of your biggest crunch time. (Fair warning: it involves data quality.)

• First, the ghost of Christmas Past showed Scrooge what life was like once upon a time at the holidays, when employees were happy and the company took good care of everyone – before Scrooge eventually presided over a joyless, high-pressure workplace. Just like what happens when your own performance pressures put data quality on the back burner, something a recent executive survey showed as being a major concern.
• Next, the ghost of Christmas Present warns Scrooge that unless he changes his priorities, his neglect of others will harm people like the humble Bob Crachit and his ailing son Tiny Tim – much like your business can ruin the holidays for your customers when bad contact data causes service failures.
• Finally, the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come paints a grim picture of a world where Scrooge is dead and no one cares – the same way that people turn away from your business and never return when you don’t deliver what you promise.

What do these lessons have to do with your own holiday rush season? Everything.

You see, most people in most businesses focus on doing their individual jobs, like entering orders or shipping products. But what about the greater mission of making sure that everyone gets what they need from you, particularly at the holidays? Too often, that is someone else’s job. Which means it becomes no one’s job. And service failures, such as packages that never arrive or contact information that isn’t correct, just become a fact of life that gets tolerated by everyone.

The ghosts of Christmas taught Scrooge that he had to learn to care, or face the consequences. The same is true for you and your business at the holidays. And the best way to care for your customers – particularly when things are at their busiest – is to put processes in place that make sure the customer comes first.

At Service Objects, we help the holidays go smoothly with tools that range from simple address validation – fueled by up-to-date real-time data from the United States Postal Service and others – all the way to complete order verification capabilities that authenticate customers and guard against fraud. We can even append information such as phone numbers to your contact data, to help you keep in touch with people, or gain geographic and demographic insight that lets you serve people better in the future. All through automated processes that run seamlessly in your applications environment.

The lesson for Christmas, then and now? Don’t be a Scrooge. And let the holiday season be a time when your business shines for everyone.