Sprucing Up That Enterprise Customer Contact DB

Enterprise Networks & Servers, Jul 2004 by Levine, Ron

SOFTWARE REVIEW

Accumail Gold

Who hasn't received mail with their street name misspelled? Or flyers that arrive the day after the sale is over? How many times have you actually been motivated by a company whose mailers arrived late or with typographical errors on the label? Now, imagine that was your company and your customers. Is this the impression you want to make?

Most mailing lists are compiled from databases; one of the most popular today is Goldmine Business Contact Manager (BCM). A database, however, is only as good as the information it contains - errors in the database mailing list mean errors in your customers' hands. Fortunately, there is Accumail Gold, an affordable, easy-to-use address validation program specially designed to work with Goldmine to correct errors before they go out your door.

The Goldmine family of BCM software has been around for many years, during which time it has become a favorite of both small and mid-sized businesses. Goldmine's applications have helped companies build long-term relationships based on their ability to market, service and support their customers. It is no mystery why this easy-to-use, full-featured customer relations database is well-known in business circles.

This database program keeps track of sales leads, customer contacts, address lists and marketing connections. The software analyzes sales and quota information, tracks contact histories, maintains prospect data, and tracks pending sales and potential leads. One of its highlights is the ability to maintain and customize sizable mailing lists.

The software is dependent, however, on the accuracy of the information contained in it - in particular, client and prospect contact data. Old, inaccurate address information means many things, such as wasted sales efforts, undelivered flyers, misdirected packages, delayed time-sensitive mailings, and missed opportunities. These, in turn, translate into lost revenue, wasted dollars and disgruntled customers. Accumail Gold, from SmartSoft Inc., Santa Barbara, Calif, (a division of Datatech), coupled with Goldmine is the partnership that preserves the integrity of valuable address information.

The cost of failing to maintain accurate mailing lists is formidable. According to Michael Maguire, director of sales and marketing for Datatech SmartSoft, "In a direct mail campaign alone there is the cost of delayed mail, flyers both returned and trashed, duplications, the cost of postage and printing for mailers that never reach their destination, missed postal discounts and, since the list usually remains uncorrected, the likelihood of the same wasted dollars every time a mailing goes out."

Delivery companies, too, find inaccurate addresses to be costly; the inability to accurately map each day's routes costs them in terms of wasted delivery time, gas and the extra effort of researching the correct addresses.

The U.S. Postal Service estimates that over 30 percent of all addresses are undeliverable because of address errors. In addition, approximately 7 million addresses each year change. These changes are not due to recipients moving, but because the physical addresses themselves change. Human error, too, accounts for a large number of delivery problems. Besides typists who make errors while inputting the mailing lists, today's influx of Internet ebusiness companies face the problem of deciphering location information inserted on their Web sites by the public.

Accumail Gold compares addresses, either singularly or in batch, with the USPS database of United States addresses and automatically corrects inaccurate or outdated information. The program standardizes address formats with USPS-accepted abbreviations, directionals (such as North or East), and spelling, then adds the ZiP 4 codes.

"Standardization speeds delivery, enables the elimination of duplicate and non-existent addresses, and is the first step in qualifying for substantial postal discounts," said Maguire. Postal carrier route codes, line of travel information, county names, and USPS-standard 11-digit delivery point barcodes can also be added. Address data gets corrected and stays corrected because a subscription to Accumail Gold provides updated address information bi-monthly.

The program's standardization features are valued by Kilgas and Co. (Denver, Colo.), retailers of specialty coffees, teas and distinctive kitchenware. According to Gene Kilgas, vice president, "Our catalog sales jumped after our software vendor added Accumail Gold to our Goldmine database. Since our products didn't change, we attribute that success to catalogs being seen by potential customers for the first time, rather than being discarded as undeliverable. Accumail eliminated more than 300 duplicate addresses, corrected about 750 more, and allowed us to take advantage of ZIP 4 discounts that we hadn't been eligible for previously. All told, we sent out fewer catalogs, but received many more orders than in earlier campaigns. As a small, family-owned business, every dollar counts; the dollars we spent on Accumail were well worth it."