Archive for January, 2010
Service Objects Customers Benefit From Seventh Straight Month of 100% Availability
At Service Objects, our commitment to contact data quality doesn’t stop at the data services we provide. Availability and access to that data is critical to our business and our customer’s businesses. Ensuring our data is available “on-demand” is something we take very seriously. For the seventh straight month, we are pleased to report 100% Availability of our DOTS Web Services.
To monitor the performance and accuracy of our services we use several automated quality assurance tools. Our motto is to test the accuracy and speed of every service, every operation, every hour, every day: 24/7/365. On a typical day at Service Objects we perform over 2,000 internal self-tests on our delivery network for a variety of systems. We also utilize 3rd Party systems to monitor true uptime, application availability and performance of our DOTS Web Services as an additional, impartial test. One of these 3rd Party systems is AlertSite.
“External monitoring is essential for measuring and understanding customers’ experience of today’s applications, which often includes a number of participants in the application delivery supply chain,” said Ken Godskind, Chief Strategy Officer for AlertSite. “In providing full disclosure of their AlertSite metrics, Service Objects offers admirable transparency to the users that count on their services.”
AlertSite is a hosted provider of Web performance products. AlertSite maintains 40 monitoring stations in data centers on every continent but Antarctica. They ensure and provide independent analysis of our DOTS Web Service Network to track and verify our systems are always available and running at peak performance. Using AlertSite, we test our data as often as every five minutes from multiple cities around the globe. Real-time alerts are generated and logged if page errors or performance problems occur. Service Objects is the only provider of contact validation web services that uses an independent third party to corroborate the company’s performance and fulfillment of its Service Level Agreement (SLA).
“Third-party monitoring of our network, applications and performance is critical for maximum reliability”, said Geoffrey Grow, CEO and Founder of Service Objects, “not only does AlertSite give us the confidence our network is running worldwide, it also independently ensures we are meeting or exceeding our Service Level commitment to our customers.”
Since 2006, Service Objects has published its monthly performance reports to demonstrate our networks perform consistently at the preferred levels. Click here to view our archive of Performance Reports from AlertSite.
Posted by Gretchen N.
Add comment January 27, 2010
Lead Validation ROI in Plain English: Save Thousands per Month; Get 5.8 days ROI
A recent study by Marketing Sherpa found that when filling out web forms less than 40% of those surveyed provided accurate phone number and custom information—such as address—all of the time. The reality is most people are reluctant to give up their precious contact information when doing research or filling out requests for information. More often than not, the data is inaccurate, incomplete or fraudulent.
Where does this leave marketers, sales managers and lead generators? It leaves them sifting through mountains of contact data with the hope of isolating the true and valid leads that will bring more revenue to the bottom line. According to the Direct Marketing Association, 93% of marketers cite contact data quality as one of their most important issues.
Implementing a lead validation or verification solution is one way marketers and business managers can improve lead quality in real-time and at the source, and ultimately save money by shifting focus to high scoring leads, fixing questionable leads and discarding downright bad leads. 
Do the Math-
Here is a simple calculation showing where businesses save money by validating their leads:
Let’s say your business generates 100 leads per day or around 3,000 per month. 20% or 600 of those leads turn out to be bogus or bad leads. If your telesales team spends around 5 minutes per call and calls each lead an average of 3 times before qualifying and discarding bad leads, that is 15 minutes per lead. At $23/per hour that’s about $5.75 per lead—or $5.75 wasted on pursuing a lead that was ultimately determined to be bad. Multiply that by the estimated 600 bad leads per month and that’s $3,450 per month wasted telesales resources. Using a service like DOTS Lead Validation℠ will validate leads in real-time, before they arrive at telesales, and costs only about $.22 per lead or around $678/month for 3,000 transactions.
That is a savings of $2,772/month-with an ROI on the use of the Lead Validation solution in about 5.8 days.
In a nutshell, lead validation works by:
Validating whether the contact information is real. Is it a real address? Does 100 Main Street actually exist in the zip code provided?
Verifying that the contact name or business is associated or linked with the address, phone number and even IP Address provided.
Correcting address, city, state, and email elements as needed to make the lead data as complete as possible.
Scoring the lead based on the quality of data. Estimating the quality of data entails not only a check on data correctness as entered but quality as established through a method of proprietary checking and sophisticated cross correlation of supplied data with other data sources. An overall score is provided based on the quality of the pieces of contact information such as name, business name, email, IP address, phone number and street address. Recommending that you Accept, Reject or Review the lead.
Download our case study for more details on how DOTS Lead Validation can save your business money today!
Posted by Gretchen N.
2 comments January 27, 2010
Address Geocoding—a Big Tip for Delivery Businesses
All over the country businesses have popped up to bring quality sit-down restaurant meals into our homes. In the Pacific Northwest, Dinner Delivery Plus is one such business. Serving the Greater Eastside of Seattle area for the past 16 years, Dinner Delivery Plus offers the 400,000+ residents and businesses a variety of national and local restaurants with more than 80 choices. About 4 months ago, Dinner Delivery Plus decided to make some changes to their business model. Using DOTS Address Geocode℠ from Service Objects, they have redefined restaurant delivery in their market.
Delivery services, whether it be for restaurants, flowers, or groceries, often charge customers Delivery Fees on a Zone-based model. Zone-based models typically put the onus on the consumer to figure out how much their delivery charge will be by manually plotting their location on a map in relation to the business they are ordering from. To calculate a delivery fee the customer has to figure out which zone their desired restaurant is in and which zone their home or business is in, then they have to calculate the delivery based on a complicated grid or map. Some restaurant delivery services only offer consumers the option of choosing from restaurants within their specific zone. All in all, not the best customer experience—usually at a higher cost to the consumer.
Dinner Delivery Plus saw the opportunity to do things differently and to redefine their market. Their goal was to offer a better value and more restaurant choices to their customers. By employing distance based delivery pricing instead of Zone-based delivery, customers would pay a delivery fee based on the actual distance from the restaurant they were ordering from to their location.
Here is where address geocoding comes in. Using a real-time address geocoding web service, Dinner Delivery Plus is able to pinpoint the exact location of the customer when they register and input their address into the web form to place a delivery order. The geocoding service validates the address and determines the latitude and longitude coordinates. With this information Dinner Delivery Plus is able to tell the customer the exact delivery charge based on their distance from each of the 80 restaurants. Their website makes recommendations for restaurants that are the closest, but leaves it to the consumer to decide where they want to order from–creating a better customer experience.
Offering better value and a better customer experience drives more loyalty and ultimately more revenue. Address geocoding services can be a game-changer for businesses providing delivery as a service to their customers.
What are you doing in your business that is redefining your market?
Service Objects—the leading provider of real-time contact validation solutions—offers Address Geocoding for both the US and Canada.
Posted by: Gretchen N.
1 comment January 20, 2010
Direct Mail Marketing Isn’t Going Anywhere Yet
While many industry experts are calling 2010 the year that will “kill marketing as we know it”, some feel that we shouldn’t be so quick to write off some of the good ole’ tried and true methods. I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal that further convinced me. The article, “Firms Hold Fast to Snail Mail Marketing” talks about several companies who made a shift away from their direct mail campaigns and found their business suffered direct losses from eliminating this type of communication with their customers and targets.
Direct mail marketing can still prove to be a very effective way to reach customers and prospects. Especially for small businesses with a unique offering who are looking to stand out and continue a dialog with their audience. I think the main issue with Direct Mail though is that it needs to be done smartly, with consideration that people are constantly being bombarded with messages, offers and promotions through other mediums. Direct mail should not equal waste. It should not be a waste of time for the recipient, environmental resources or budget dollars.
Businesses who plan to use Direct Mail as a part of their marketing efforts in 2010 might consider committing to make their campaigns more effective and less wasteful by putting in place “greener mail” initiatives. Each year, the US postal service attempts to deliver billions of pieces of mail that will never reach their intended recipient due to being undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA). Using tools that verify and standardize addresses is a quick and cost effective way to reduce the impact of direct mailings.
Check out our best practices tip sheet “Greener Mail: 6 Tips Simple Tips for More Eco- and Budget Friendly Mailings” for more information.
Posted by: Gretchen N.
Add comment January 13, 2010
Tired of Returns: Santa Claus Resolves to Validate all Addresses in 2010
Every year Mr. Santa Claus faces enormous pressure to deliver billions of presents around the world. He has just one 
night—just one chance to ensure delivery of all the toys to children all over the globe. In recent years Claus has turned to technology to aid him in his annual quest. Said Claus, “While Rudolph’s nose may guide the sleigh, I still need all the help I can get. This year we received a lot of returned packages and gifts – mostly from incomplete or incorrect addresses. While maps and on-board computers lend a hand on the sleigh we just don’t have all the information we need.” Looking for answers and new tools for 2010, Claus began his search for something to help him verify addresses for his deliveries.
Luckily for Claus he found a real-time web service which offers Delivery Point Validation, CASS/USPS Address Standardization, and even RDI (Residential Delivery Indicator) for all the addresses on his “Nice” list. By using DOTS Address Validation by Service Objects, Clause estimates he will increase his delivery efficiencies by 40% and dramatically reduce the number of toys which need to be returned to the North Pole each year. When asked about his new services Claus could barely contain his excitement. Old Saint Nick stated “Now with Service Objects’ web services I will be able to almost guarantee that all the presents will be delivered. Not only will the addresses be validated and entered into my on-board computer in real-time, but the reindeer will know if they will be landing on a residence or business thanks to the new RDI filter.”
The North Pole is now giddy with excitement over the implementation of their Address Validation Web Services. In addition to Santa being more efficient on the big night, his elves will also not have to collect, sort, and re-stock returned toys like they have in the past. Santa added, “My workshop costs are going to go down and I can reinvest that money into developing new toys and hiring more elves. In other words, Christmas came early for me this year. This is one new year’s resolution I know will stick!”
How have you resolved to improve your business efficiencies in 2010?
Posted by: Will E.
4 comments January 6, 2010
