How fast is the service?
DOTS Lead Validation International is a composite service that makes use of many of Service Objects other web services. So the times will vary depending on the Test Type used, which will tell DOTS Lead Validation which other services to call. The calls are threaded and optimized to be as fast as possible. Most test types take around a second to run. However, depending on different factors, a lead may run anywhere from 400 ms to 3 seconds. An example of a lead that might return a little slower would be one that contains an email address that Service Objects has never run across.
So what is this Overall Certainty score? What does it mean? How does it apply to me?
The Overall Certainty score is Service Objects’ best judgment of how clean a set of contact information may be. We’ve seen many contacts and sets of data, and we’ve acquired a definitive feel for what fields are important. Then again, this is merely a subjective opinion of the contact’s makeup, and you can always evaluate our comparisons using your own scoring rules. Interpreting the score is somewhat dependent on what your business needs are. If your contacts were expensive, or are worth a good deal to your customers or call centers, you will want to accept a greater range of scores. If your contacts were relatively inexpensive, or you’re going through a large number of contacts, you may want to be a bit pickier and accept only a higher range of scores. If you are using our standard scoring system, lower scores generally correspond to bad phone data, and higher scores generally correspond to good phone data. Often, users will take lists and sort them by their score, contacting the leads with the highest quality scores first. Service Objects has seen that high-quality leads typically want to talk to you, and have a higher probability of picking up the phone when you call.
So does a score of X mean that a contact is good or bad?
Neither! In most cases, a low score is a bad lead and a high score is a good one, but there is no one score that fits everyone. If your business relies mostly on phone numbers, then for you the best contacts may be the ones with solid phone information. If you want to reach leads by mail then the address tests would be more important. Our scoring system is designed to fit as many of our clients as possible, but every company has different needs.
I want to score things differently. Can you change the scoring for me?
Yes. While we are attempting to come up with a scoring system that will please most of our clients, all companies have different needs. Whether it’s scores that are too low, tests that aren’t wanted, or inputs you don’t have, we do have a solution. We can help you build a custom test type that might suit your needs more. It may be preferable to stay with the tried and true test types, but it’s possible they just don’t work for your needs. Please contact us at sales@serviceobjects.com if you have any specific scoring needs.
Help! Yesterday this lead was giving me a score of X and today it’s different! Is something wrong?
We are constantly striving to improve all of our services. Lead Validation International is built upon a very complex set of tests and scores. From time to time through testing and customer feedback we will adjust scoring to account for both new tests and results we didn’t expect. Most adjustments will be very minor, but it’s possible we may find a new test that can with high certainty make a formerly good lead into a bad one or vice versa. So it should be expected that over time the scores may change some. There will likely be new Notes in the applicable section.
Lead Validation International gave a low score to a lead that I know is good!
It’s more difficult to determine a lead’s validity if there are issues with the phone number. If your lead is unlisted in the phone book, we cannot validate if the name given matches the reverse phone lookup’s name. Other issues may be causing the lead to get a low score, such as a totally bogus address, celebrity name, or phone number that has a non-existent area code. The warnings output should give you a good idea of what went wrong with your lead.
What do you do about wireless phones?
The PhoneNotes field will tell you if the number in question was a wireless or landline number. We have found leads with wireless numbers to generally be lower quality leads, so we give them a moderate penalty. This won’t generally make a lead bad, but combine a wireless number with other “problems” and the quality of the lead becomes a lot more questionable.
Do you have wireless phone contacts?
ValidateLeadInternational now returns contacts for wireless leads. Wireless coverage is not as extensive as Landline coverage but added contacts only improve the overall accuracy of the service.
Do you discern between residential contacts and business contacts?
Yes. The PhoneContact object will return the field “Type” which will indicate whether the given phone number is Residential, Business or Unknown.
Can you find whether a phone is disconnected?
Yes! The functionality for determining whether or not a phone is disconnected is built into the ValidateInternationalLead operation.
Where do you get your information?
We get our data from a mixture of public and proprietary sources. Using multiple sources of data means we can verify that one source is not compromised or deficient.
I’m not technical, but I have a list of leads I want to validate. Can you run my list of leads for me?
Yes! We run LV batches for users quite often and would be happy to run your list for you once we discuss your needs. We also offer a free trial batch a hundred leads. Please contact sales@serviceobjects.com for details.
The Sample Code is Giving Strange Errors or is Crashing!
Most likely, the sample code cannot connect to Service Objects. Many environments will not allow you to connect out on port 80 or will clip out XML data from these requests/responses.
The easiest way to check for this is to open a browser on the machine running the sample code. In your browser, navigate to: trial.serviceobjects.com/lvi/
Then test the ValidateLeadInternational operation with your trial key. If you get a browser error or get no data back, then the sample code isn’t able to connect, either. Contact your systems administrator to resolve why you are not able to connect to Service Objects.

 

References

  1. Lead Validation: Part 1 The Core Components
  2. Lead Validation, Part 2: Advanced Features and Capabilities
  3. Lead Validation, Part 3: International Lead Validation
  4. What’s New: DOTS Lead Validation International
  5. Anatomy of a Service: DOTS Lead Validation International