Why is poor address data such an issue?

Address data is important to any business or organisation. It enables us to make informed decisions, create an exceptional customer experience, and streamline operations. The problem is that – if not captured accurately in the first place, or if not maintained once in your system – the address data in your CRM can start to cause a whole range of issues.

These issues include:

• Mail that doesn’t reach your customer
• Delayed services
• Failed customer communications
• Inaccurate quotes
• Location-based marketing efforts that fall flat on their faces

Not only does this mean you don’t get the results you want, making it very frustrating for you, it also causes a huge amount of unnecessary frustration for your customers. And to top it off, it’s extremely expensive to fix the issues poor address data results in. 

In fact, businesses typically spend around 10-30% of revenue on data quality issues, according to the GB government. Can you really afford to lose out on this much money? 

 

Why is address data poor?

Poor address data happens for a number of reasons. 

The first main cause is human error. Customers often misspell their street name, for instance, format their address incorrectly, or get numbers or letters the wrong way around. Or miss out key parts of the address, altogether. 

On top of this, people (and businesses) move, and new developments go up all the time. All of this can lead to failed deliveries, huge costs, and missed opportunities.

Nobody wants to be in that situation. So, what can you do to ensure you’re not? 

 

Address correction is a must

So, we know that poor address data is wreaking havoc for on your finances and the way your customers feel about you. But by correcting poor address data, you can turn this around. 

By ensuring the addresses in your database are accurate, your customer experience becomes better, your chance of customer satisfaction is higher, and the chances of your happy customers coming back – and spreading the word about your incredible product or service – is so much higher, immediately. 

You can wave goodbye to failed deliveries and the huge costs that come with them, and your supply chains can operate smoothly, meaning you can improve your inventory management and resource allocation. 

Clean and accurate address data also plays an important role in ensuring you can deliver effective targeted marketing campaigns. If you’ve got the right address data, you can tailor your services to specific customers in specific areas, increasing ROI and delivering personalised offerings that your customer-base will love. 

Having reliable address data in your systems also allows you to get valuable insights, too. If your address data is clean, you can use it to draw accurate conclusions and make better informed, strategic decisions that will enable you to boost growth and potential. 

 

How to ensure your address data is clean and accurate

So, now that you know the benefits of clean and accurate address data, how do you get it? Here are a few popular methods. 

Address validation

By implementing an address validation tool in your online forms, you can side step addressing issues, and enable your customers to get through the form completion step in a fraction of the time. 

Address capture tools validate addresses in real-time, ensuring they exist, and can correct minor errors to ensure you capture real and accurate address data. 

Address verification

While address validation checks that an address really exists, address verification works on ensuring the data in your CRM is clean and regularly updated. 

Address verification parses, standardises, and matches to enrich the data in your system, meaning that all addresses follow the same formatting and that there are no errors that could lead to your business getting into a sticky situation. 

Batch cleanse

Cleansing all the address data in your system on a regular basis is another great way of making sure that your address data is accurate and reliable. While it’s important to capture addresses accurately at the point of entry, it’s also important to ensure that the addresses you have in your system remain clean. As we mentioned above, things can change, so staying on top of this information is vital. This involves identifying and correcting outdated or inaccurate entries.

The impact of poor address data has far-reaching implications – from huge financial losses to dissatisfied customers, so making it your mission to correct addressing issues is a vital step in your journey to success.

Want to know more about how to get the most accurate data in your CRM? With over 400 attributes per address, including characteristics for each area (crime rates, flood risks, etc.), nobody rivals either the quantity or quality of LANDCLAN’s location data. Get in touch today to see how we can help you.