Address verification reduces overall cost of shipping & routing

Lost packages equal lost revenue.

It’s a simple equation—if USPS or another delivery service can't deliver your products to the listed address, you’re likely out the cost of the item and the shipping, and you might even have to pay a return fee.

However, one simple addition to your workflow can get your balance sheet back to black—address verification.

Use a full address validation service that includes secondary address data like apartment unit numbers to cleanse your delivery list. Clean address data helps you reduce costs from misdeliveries, delays, lost mail, returned mail, reshipments, and change of address fees.

Implementing address verification benefits many areas of your business, including marketing, shipping, and sales or installation visit routing.

Marketing success story: Efficient and affordable direct mail campaigns

Mailing to a clean address list can reduce duplicate mailing expenses while increasing successful mail delivery—reducing waste and getting more of your marketing materials into the hands of your target market.

USPS bulk mailing rates provide another way to save marketing dollars. These are typically 35-65% cheaper than first-class postage for sales flyers, promotional postcards, or brochures. But to qualify for that discount, you must first clean your list with a CASS-certified address validation provider, like Smarty.

"Using Smarty, we're able to cleanse addresses in batches right before print time and get bulk USPS mailings out efficiently, accurately, and with discounted shipping rates," said one Smarty client, a large Midwest-based commercial insurance company.

Each year this insurance company sends hundreds of thousands of mail pieces. To best serve their clientele, they rely on Smarty’s address verification and validation service to get that bulk discount and ensure mailings are sent to the right addresses and delivered on the first try.

Read the rest of their success story here.

In addition to removing duplicates from your list and getting bulk mail discounts, you can save money by not mailing to vacant or inactive addresses. Running your database through address validation can help you catch vacant or inactive addresses before you incur unnecessary costs.

Shipping success story: Invoice auditing saves money

Smarty client A3 Freight Payment integrates with transportation management systems (TMS) to collect data such as bills of lading, original shipment bookings, and carrier invoices.

Then, they audit the invoice dollar amounts for accuracy. A3 uses Smarty address validation to verify and correct address details on incoming invoices, as well as identify residential versus commercial addresses.

"Using a USPS-certified address validator like Smarty was important," said Chad Pumphrey, IT Developer at A3.

Residential carrier rates are typically higher, making it essential that this information is accurate for the incoming invoice processing. Using Smarty and other tools, A3 delivers an average of 6% savings on freight audits and 18% savings on spend analytics to their clients.

Read the full customer success story here.

Sales success story: Streamlined mapping optimizes productivity

Address verification can also improve your routing efficiency for outside sales reps, technicians, and installers—increasing the number of sales or work visits that can be completed in a day. More visits equal more revenue for your business.

Smarty client SalesRabbit provides sales territory mapping software and tools for field sales teams who want a smarter approach to sales performance optimization. They use Smarty’s US Rooftop Geocoding and US Address Verification behind the scenes to ensure that potential prospects are accurately displayed in the sales mapping software.

"Smarty is one of the most accurate of the more affordable address data solutions,” said Brady Anderson, CEO of SalesRabbit. "Being able to accurately position prospect data on the right homes is a key part of our company. Smarty is a big component of us accomplishing that for our customers.”

Read the rest of SalesRabbit’s story here.

These are just a few real-world examples of how implementing address verification can drive business results for many areas of your business, including marketing, shipping, and sales or installation visit routing. Download our ebook, 5 Ways Companies Use Address Verification to Improve Business Results, to learn more about decreasing shipping and routing costs, plus explore four other ways to use address verification to help your business succeed.