At A Glance
Every country has its own unique procedures for its postal operations. It’s impossible for a company to manually keep track of this information, which is necessary for reaching consumers around the world. Not to mention, there are new addresses being added to systems of record on a daily basis. In the United States, the United States Postal Service (USPS) adds 4,221 addresses to its delivery network every day.
Address verification software uses an application programming interface (API) to validate information. Data that someone enters into an online form can be checked against a dataset to validate that it is a real address.
Address Validation Overview
Why Validate Addresses?
One of the challenges of selling goods online is the potential for error due to the number of digital touchpoints between an order taking place and getting fulfilled.
When a customer places an order on an eCommerce website, the information routes to an order management system that communicates with shipping and logistics providers. Some eCommerce companies work with multiple shipping companies to streamline costs. After an item gets shipped, it may exchange hands between different postal carriers — for instance, an order getting shipped from the United States to Canada would exchange hands between the United States Postal Service (USPS) and Canada Post.
Imagine all the problems that may arise:
- A customer may input the wrong information
- The order management system may format an address incorrectly
- A postal code may have changed in an official record due to re-zoning
- There may be natural disasters that cause shipping delays
- A customer relationship management (CRM) platform may house an outdated address for a loyal shopper
- A shopper may enter the wrong credit card information, accidentally
Address validation is an important process for real-time, short-term, and long-term business needs.
Traits Of High-Performing Technology
There are a range of technical solutions for address verification. The performance and quality of these options vary greatly.
Most digitally equipped shipping careers, such as Canada Post and USPS, maintain different APIs for different services. But these resources tend to have limitations in high-transaction environments where organizations may need to validate hundreds of thousands of addresses per second.
High-performing technology will have the following traits:
- The software will be straightforward for non-technical teams to use
- The API will be flexible enough to support the needs of multiple teams within the organizations
- The quality of the data will be the highest on the market, updated frequently
- The platform will be accredited to meet security standards
- The software will integrate with other platforms in a technology stack to support data standardization and hygiene
- The software will have high uptime rates with well-defined procedures for alerting users about planned and unplanned outages
- There will be a responsive, knowledgeable, and empathetic customer care team that is easy to reach
- The technology will work internationally
One criterion to evaluate is the company’s existing customer base. Are these organizations in high-stakes industries? What does the address verification process look like, from the end-user’s perspective, on the front end of the experience? Does it flow seamlessly or result in technical delays?
Use Cases For Validating An Address
There are a number of address validation services available for specific use cases. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Route planning - help shipping companies determine the fastest route for shipping a product
- Location data - display information that may be relevant to a particular geographic location, such as weather
- Map development - create visualizations for store networks; build useful applications
- Reducing failed deliveries - avoid the risk of shipping an item to an incorrect address
- Preventing shipping delays - understand public health considerations and stay aware of updates from shipping carriers
- Geocoding and reverse geocoding - measure distance between postcodes using latitude and longitude data
- Expense calculation - compare and contrast shipping costs across multiple carriers
- Standardization - Ensure that collected data is correct, up to date, and formatted according to country-level needs
- Onboarding - Integrate customers into your business with a higher degree of accuracy
- User experience - Drive higher rates of conversion at all touchpoints where your company collects customer information