Many addresses that store operators receive from their customers are incorrect. There are the typical transposed numbers in house numbers or zip codes, typos or unofficially written place and street names. Smooth delivery is only possible with standardized, postally correct addresses. Systematic address validation saves store operators a great deal of money and avoids undeliverable shipments and returns.
What is address validation?
Short: a method of collecting or cleaning address data. Automatically, this is accomplished by cleaning, parsing, matching the formatting, transliteration, and enhancement of data in a database against postal correct reference data.
This check can take place at two points in time:
- online, when the customer himself enters an address in the store, as inline validation.
- offline, over the entire address inventory of a store, for data maintenance.
What are the main advantages of address validation?
The benefits of address validation vary depending on the company using the solution and the strengths and limitations of the Solution. From a front-end perspective, one of the most common benefits is the superior data quality gained.
This leads to better delivery rates, improved communication with customers, and a positive user experience thanks to faster and smoother data entry in an online form.
Enriching an address with location information, i.e., exact latitude and longitude, enables analytics on this geospatial data, for For example, customers per state.
Address validation benefits from a back-office perspective include effective execution of customer loyalty programs or billing processes, shipping products, and managing logistics and scheduling for engineering and installation teams, who rely on location data for their work assignments.
What is inline validation?
Inline validation checks the validity of the address as soon as the data is entered. The customer learns directly whether his input is valid or not. It significantly improves the usability and user experience (UX) of forms and reduces abandonment rates by providing providing a faster way to enter address data.
The availability check for DSL connections or delivery areas of online supermarkets is a well-known practical example. Of course more customers will say "yes" if address entry becomes as convenient as possible!
How many address formats are there worldwide?
There are over 130 different address formats worldwide, as well as numerous accents and unknown characters. In addition, there are unique special features, such as Mannheim city squares or small towns without street names.
For companies with international customers, it is important to ensure that the data captured and stored in databases is clean and accurate in order to communicate effectively with customers, deliver to the right place the first time, and create a great user interface.
What is fuzzy matching?
Fuzzy matching finds similar text, typos don't slow it down. In address verification, the use of the Fuzzy Matching technology with self-learning features helps end users find and enter valid and correct international addresses enter them, even when typos and common errors have been entered.
What does Smartstore offer?
Smartstore has two ways to handle address data. The first is built into the system and is called "address formatting". You can find a description here: https://docs.smartstore.com/display/SDDE40/Kunden-Einstellungen
The second form is called "Address Validation" and is provided by our partner Melissa Data. In this blog post you can learn all about the services vpn Melissa Data: