Benefits of Address Verification Services
Businesses prefer reliable address verification solutions to reduce return mail, postage costs, and customer churn and boost customer experience. By verifying addresses with the official USPS database, companies can also combat fraud and avail of postal discounts. Some benefits of address verification systems also help verify international addresses, which is ideal for businesses looking for global expansion.
Retail and e-commerce companies, banking and financial services, healthcare and medical institutions, government agencies, and marketing departments are the primary users of address verification solutions. Businesses should consider a solution that helps auto-complete, verify, validate, standardize, and cleanse addresses.
Key Takeaways
- An address verification solution looks for inaccuracies or incorrect formats by verifying against an official postal address database.
- Businesses can improve deliverability, reduce return mail, and maintain up-to-date records with address verification.
- Most businesses prefer address verification for fraud prevention and delivery route optimization.
- An address verification solution could be helpful in almost any industry.
- It is necessary to consider a solution with CASS certification for the best accuracy.
What is Address Verification?
It refers to the process of checking an address against an official postal address database for inaccuracies or incorrect formats and resolving any problems. You will find several online tools that help you autocomplete, validate, standardize, and cleanse addresses according to local postal standards.
The primary purpose of these services is to ensure better deliverability, reduce return mail, and maintain up-to-date records. However, only a few solutions work in real time and provide bulk verification capabilities. Businesses in America should consider a CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System) certified address verification solution that uses the USPS official database for the verification process.
It ensures the highest accuracy and reliability of results. The solution would check for incomplete street data or improper formatting and provide accurate suggestions to fix the mistakes. Some software also works flawlessly for international address verification, which is often necessary for global business expansion and operations.
How Address Verification Works?
The process starts when a user enters a postal address into the software. It would check all the spellings, abbreviations, street information, zip codes, and formatting against the country’s standard postal format and an official address database.
The solution would validate a correct address. In contrast, the API would reformat or fix incorrect addresses to match the official database. Users can either check an address directly from the software’s dashboard or integrate it into their existing website or application for smooth verification.
Most businesses integrate these solutions into their CRM, accounting, or marketing automation software. They support customer communication, mail fulfillment, supply chain management, customer data analysis, etc.
Benefits of Address Verification Solutions
Location intelligence is a necessity of the 21st-century world. Most companies face various issues while managing their address databases. However, using a proper address verification tool provides you with the following advantages;
Access to Higher Quality Address Data
Users can write the same address in different formats or with different spellings. However, the postal services only rely on official address formats. Poor address data will compromise the integrity of your database.
An address verification software will clean, verify, standardize, and update your address list. Your organization gains access to higher address data quality.
Superior Customer Communication
Any business depends on smoother customer communication to sustain itself. The use of address verification solutions enhances their ability to reach customers via postal mail. Organizations can reach their customers and prospects faster and cheaper by using these tools.
Reduction in Return Mail
Incorrect postal addresses are the primary reason for lost or returned mail. Businesses must use reliable solutions to validate addresses before sending out mail. The verification process results in significant savings by fixing invalid or incorrect mailing addresses in advance. It is one of the most significant benefits of address verification.
Most organizations fail to understand the importance of address verification and face massive return mail due to validation issues.
Higher Cost Savings
Adherence to ZIP+4™ and USPS® barcodes are necessary to qualify for mailing discounts. A few address verification tools standardization according to these standards to help businesses save money on postage.
Better Delivery Speed
A reliable address verification solution generates addresses in a standardized format and also includes ZIP+4 codes. It helps boost mailer delivery by one or two days. Postal services like USPS or UPS prefer receiving addresses in a standardized format with additional details.
Fraud Prevention
Many companies use address verification to detect fraudulent activities. A robust solution can immediately detect and block such operations by verifying against an official database. Cybercriminals often use invalid or stolen addresses for their scams. For example, credit card scams are the most common scams with invalid or duplicate addresses.
Easier Global Expansion
International businesses work with diverse customers and must verify their addresses. Reliable tools standardize international address formats to ensure mailers and packages are going to the correct overseas destinations. It reduces customer churn and provides better global operations in different locations.
Lower Environmental Impact
Using an incorrect address for mailing also leads to return or lost mail. The company increases its carbon footprint in such failed deliveries. It’s more sensible to use an address verification solution to reduce waste and a smaller carbon footprint.
Which Industries Can Benefit from Address Verification Solutions?
Address verification tools could be helpful for almost any industry, considering the benefits. You can simplify nearly everything from sending vital documents to improving customer relationships to gathering location intelligence. However, some businesses extensively use these address verification tools in their everyday operations.
Healthcare and Medical Services
Healthcare businesses need accurate patient information to ensure high-quality care. Providers can use address verification solutions to confirm patient identities and send appointment reminders or invoices to the correct addresses.
E-Commerce and Retail
These businesses could be the core users of address verification technology. They can ensure accurate and successful order fulfilment and efficient shipping. The ideal solution would help in reducing failed deliveries, returns, and other costs.
E-commerce and retail companies could confirm the addresses at the point of entry to streamline their mailing operations and improve customer experiences.
Government and Public Services
Government agencies also require accurate address information to maintain voter registration records, send official documents, and allocate resources effectively. Reliable address verification software is the best solution to streamline these operations.
It is also necessary for emergency services to make the responders reach the correct location promptly.
Banking and Financial Services
These institutions are most susceptible to cybercriminals and fraud. Banks and finance companies must maintain accurate address information to avoid fraud and ensure regulatory compliance.
An address verification tool is necessary for banks, insurance companies, and credit agencies to verify their customers’ identity, assess risk, and ensure smooth communication.
Sales and Marketing Departments
Almost every sales and marketing team should consider addressing verification tools to improve their marketing efforts. An AV tool helps maintain the latest customer addresses to send targeted marketing materials, event invitations, and promotional offers. You can also boost customer engagement and reduce wasted resources on undeliverable mail.
By verifying addresses, you can optimize your campaigns and also gather the location intelligence of your target audience. Many companies use address verification solutions to boost their direct mail marketing efforts.
Address Verification Methods
Shipping and Advertising With Address Verification
A retail or e-commerce has to deal with thousands of customer addresses. They must collect valid addresses and also remove duplicates from their databases. Some online address verification systems can help you clean the address data efficiently.
They run the cleansing process by relying on credible government or private databases. It begins by updating the obsolete addresses or standardizing the address format to meet USPS standards.
The standardization process helps businesses save money on shipping costs and reduce the chances of lost packages. Data cleansing is one of the primary benefits of address verification solutions.
User Identification With Address Verification
Many companies use address verification tools during customer onboarding or transaction processing. It is necessary to cross-verify that the customers live at the address.
An address verification tool checks the legitimacy of an address by comparing it to a trusted organization’s database. For example, USPS (United States Postal Service) maintains an official database of over a million addresses in the US.
Any detection of incorrect or missing address information may indicate fraudulent activity. However, businesses should look for typos in their address database.
Prevent Cart-Not-Present Fraud With Address Verification
It is the most common anti-fraud measure businesses implement for financial transactions with credit or debit cards. They often use an Address Verification System (AVS) to verify whether the billing address and zip code match the address provided by the merchant in a Card-not-present (CNP) transaction.
The AVS informs the retailer when there’s a complete address match. Many merchants define rules to deny transactions if their AVS detects partial or no matches. Users must go through additional verification in such situations.
Shipping and Advertising With Address Verification
A retail or e-commerce has to deal with thousands of customer addresses. They must collect valid addresses and also remove duplicates from their databases. Some online address verification systems can help you clean the address data efficiently.
They run the cleansing process by relying on credible government or private databases. It begins by updating the obsolete addresses or standardizing the address format to meet USPS standards. The standardization process helps businesses save money on shipping costs and reduce the chances of lost packages. Data cleansing is one of the primary benefits of address verification solutions.
User Identification With Address Verification
Many companies use address verification tools during customer onboarding or transaction processing. It is necessary to cross-verify that the customers live at the address.
An address verification tool checks the legitimacy of an address by comparing it to a trusted organization’s database. For example, USPS (United States Postal Service) maintains an official database of over a million addresses in the US. Any detection of incorrect or missing address information may indicate fraudulent activity. However, businesses should look for typos in their address database.
Prevent Cart-Not-Present Fraud With Address Verification
It is the most common anti-fraud measure businesses implement for financial transactions with credit or debit cards. They often use an Address Verification System (AVS) to verify whether the billing address and zip code match the address provided by the merchant in a Card-not-present (CNP) transaction.
The AVS informs the retailer when there’s a complete address match. Many merchants define rules to deny transactions if their AVS detects partial or no matches. Users must go through additional verification in such situations.
Also Read: Check Printing and Mailing ServicesHow Can PostGrid Address Verification API Help Your Business?
Businesses often look for an ideal solution to enjoy the multiple benefits of address verification tools. A complete suite of APIs is necessary to execute various address operations. PostGrid’s address verification API is capable of auto-completing, verifying, validating, standardizing, and cleansing your addresses.
The solution can verify thousands of addresses in minutes, irrespective of your industry. You only need to upload an XLS, CSV, or text file to run bulk verification at any scale. The API comes with CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System) certification to ensure the highest accuracy for address verification in the US. Businesses prefer our API to reduce return mail, improve customer communication, data analytics, etc.
Sign up now to enjoy the benefits of address verification.
