Choosing the Right Address Verification Software
Address verification software has many different uses in business across all types of industries. Some uses include at ecommerce checkout pages, location finders, logistics or even combatting fraud. It also helps improve organisational and operational data quality leading to cost reduction in the long run.
Choosing the address verification software that’s suitable for your organisation’s requirements isn’t always easy. While there are many similarities between certain providers, the differences can have big implications to the effectiveness of the software.
Discussed below are some of the aspects you need to consider before choosing an address verification vendor, whether it’s for internal use or customer facing.
User Interface & Experience
One of the most important features of the address verification software you choose is the ease of use and user interface.
A complicated, clunky or slow user interface will instantly cause a bad experience for your customers. Filling out forms needs to be easy and seamless for customers to avoid website and cart abandonment.
Customisation of the address finder itself using CSS should always be considered. Styling needs to be considered when integrating address verification software into your website as the address form should look like part of your website.
Scalability
The platform you choose to facilitate address lookups will need to match the demand of your users. The service you implement should be able to appropriately match the demand you require.
A scalable solution that can handle a large increase in lookups is necessary to ensure that the service continues to run smoothly, regardless of the user base size.
Similarly, if you’re forecasting a drop in users your plan should be adapted to the change, and in turn the pricing.
Additional Features
While most of the available providers allow for basic ‘address to Eircode/Postcode’ and vice versa, some go further in depth, allowing for the verification of addresses in unique ways.
Ensuring that the solution you choose provides a workaround for non-unique addresses is a great way of allowing for those who share an address with others to pinpoint exactly where they’re located on a map.
For Ireland specifically, it may also be important that the solution works just as well for the Irish language as it does for addresses in English.
Pricing
The price your organisation pays to verify addresses should be greatly considered amongst management. Shopping around for different pricing will allow you to get the best deal for your usage.
Not all providers use the same pricing structure, making it difficult to get accurate comparisons. Some research into which solution provides the best value based on accreditation, accuracy and features will help you pick the most cost-effective provider.
Accreditation
Always look out to see if the solution provider you’re considering is accredited by the local or national framework. For example, in Ireland there are accredited Eircode encoders who have access to the up-to-date ECAD (Eircode Address Database) & ECAF (Eircode Address File). Similarly, in the UK postcode accreditation is operated by Royal Mail.
Many non-accredited providers operate address verification solutions at a lower price, but they’re often using out of date, inaccurate and unverified data.
DirectAddress
DirectAddress is Dataconversion’s web API Eircode and Postcode solution. Using a lightweight jQuery plugin, it can be easily integrated with data capture forms on your website, your CRM or your database application system.
Harnessing the power of elastic search, the fast autocomplete functionality allows users to query a partial address string and drill down through a list of possible options in order to locate a specific address.
Are you considering improving your address data with an address verification/validation solution? If so, contact us today on +353 1 8041298, visit directaddress.ie for more information, or click on the link below to be brought to our contact form.
