As a business, you rely on information being correct, otherwise, things start to quickly go wrong. An address is something that needs to be right, or packages get delivered to the wrong address, a food delivery service doesn’t get hot food to its intended destination, or bills go missing.
Here are seven reasons why address verification is valuable for businesses to use.
1. Fix Customer Errors in Data Entry
Customers often sign up to a website on their smartphone while on the move. It’s easy enough for them to select the wrong item from a drop-down list of local addresses or to provide an incorrect phone number.
By using address verification, companies can vet the address provided before acting upon it. This saves wasted time and money when what is to be sent out will never reach its intended destination.
By using address verification, it’s possible to get exact geocodes for easier last-mile deliveries, access global address data immediately, and discover address elements that are missing too.
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2. Last-mile Deliveries without the Confusion
When running a food business or anything else where deliveries are provided for a last-mile operation, knowing where the customer is located is paramount.
Should something go wrong, everything else falls apart at this stage. Being able to confirm the longitude and latitude relating to an address pinpoints exactly where it’s located on the map.
Two similar-sounding street addresses are not confused by the bike or van delivery driver because it provides a way to double-check the location information.
3 .Reduce the Instance of Fraud
Fraudulent information comes in many forms. Fraudsters are always coming up with new approaches to get around existing systems too. By being able to match ID verification systems to address checks, it’s possible to get a better picture of who the next customer is purporting themselves to be.
With the increasing cases of porch pirates stealing packages dropped off on the doorstep to be collected later, failing to verify all new customer information can lead to packages going missing.
Knowing that items “returned to sender” cost companies billions in lost revenue each year should be convincing enough. Sometimes, this is due to an incorrect address not being checked first, but other times it happens due to an identify-theft-related fraud attempt.
4. Customers Are Located in the Service Area
Depending on the business, many local ones only serve a specific area and not beyond it. This can be due to business license restrictions, the opportunity to deliver within a range of ZIP codes, or because the product or service mostly only has a local appeal.
Confirming a new customer’s address before they get too far through the customer sign-up and ordering process avoids processing an order that cannot be sent.
It also prevents getting a bad reputation online where they express their disappointment at not being accepted as a customer and wasted their time because they lived too far away.
5. Reduce the Rate of Shopping Cart Abandonment
Shopping carts get abandoned on e-commerce sites when the sign-up process is too laborious or there are delays verifying information after the fact.
By using automated tools that submit confirm address information after it has been entered by the customer, mistakes can be highlighted immediately. This reduces the error rate by letting customers submit corrections.
Streamlining the shopping cart experience for first-time visitors should increase sales each month because fewer customers are being lost before they complete their first purchase.
6. Bulk Verification of Existing Customer Information
For companies that didn’t previously verify address details but now plan to do so, they have a problem. What do they do with their existing databases of customer information that didn’t go through verification at the time it was collected?
Bulk verification services to confirm the validity of existing customer address information can quickly discover incorrect or incomplete entries. These can be flagged to follow-up via other contact methods such as phone or email.
When the ZIP code was incorrect, but the street address looks right, the customer can help to verify the proper information. Doing this avoids packages not arriving which costs businesses money each time it occurs.
Also Read: How To Get Better At Managing Your Legal Documents?
7. Demographic-based Research Is More Accurate
Marketers often draw meaningful conclusions by looking at sales information. They wish to discern patterns with groups of customers to better understand who purchased what, and why they did so.
By having a better appreciation of trends and actions or inactions, marketers can respond rapidly to recent changes in behavior by businesses and/or consumers.
Demographic analysis may necessarily include geographical information. This allows marketers to consider buying trends happening in certain areas but not regionally or nationwide. Such analysis can inform them of where their marketing budget is best spent for a higher ROI.
By using address verification, companies can reduce the instances of fraud, verify contact information, and create local marketing plans that may be more impactful too.