Global game-changer: Level up your customer retention in 2025

Excited man who leveled up customer retention with address autocomplete and address verification

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February 6, 2025

Unlocking the global market with address data

Money down the drain from not using address autocomplete and verification tools

It's estimated that every piece of returned mail costs $25 to the sender. This includes effort and manpower as well as shipping costs. According to the USPS, returned mail costs the mailing industry an estimated $20 billion annually. Having precise address data is more than just a logistical necessity; it's a critical cost-saving requirement for any organization doing business that involves shipping—domestically or internationally.

Speaking of international shipping, if you're trying to compete with Temu, Walmart, or other companies doing business worldwide, your customer retention through accurate delivery will hinge on correctly formatted and verified addresses, no matter where the customer is.

"But Shabier," you might say. "It's expensive, slow, and costly to ship internationally no matter what, so really, how much can address data tools improve my life?"

To improve customer retention through better shipping experiences, an organization needs a high-quality global address validation system to improve shipping accuracy, prevent costly shipping mistakes, and provide a trust-inducing experience for the buyer. So, not only are you reducing the number of $25 returned packages, but you're also creating repeat customers through positive experiences. I'll let you calculate how much that adds to your organization.

Customer retention

Have you ever been blown away by a customer experience? In-person purchasing experiences, such as Disneyland, Costco, and cruise lines, have really figured out the value of good customer experiences. Customers that have a great time spending money will continue to spend money.

Repeat customers are more likely to increase their purchase amount over time. In clothing sales alone, repeat customers spent 67% more in months 31-36 than in the first six months. So, in what ways can you make the experience easy to repeat?

Just because your storefront or customer experience is online doesn't mean you don't need to create great customer retention strategies. How can you make purchasing something as easy as tapping a wristband to an RFID reader?

The athletic-wear company Fabletics implemented an address autocomplete in its purchase flow to make entering customer addresses as easy as possible. The user needs only to select the country they’re in and then type a few characters before an accurate and deliverable address is suggested to them. The customers click their address, and voila, they’re cruising through checkout. Adding this international address autocomplete functionality increased their order conversion worldwide, especially in Canada and Spain, which increased by 9.2% and 8.4%, respectively.

This is just one of many customer retention strategies that work. Companies like Speedway Motors utilize address data like the Residential Delivery Indicator (RDI) to optimize shipping when mailing to residential customers versus commercial addresses. If a purchase is made to a commercial address, additional information may be required. The checkout user experience becomes dynamic with additional form fields to gather all the necessary information and present the best possible experience and accurate delivery.

These sorts of simple inclusions can drastically increase customer retention, allowing for purchase after purchase after purchase.

Reducing returns

As mentioned above, it's estimated that every piece of returned mail costs roughly $25 to the sender. What this doesn't take into account is the reduction in returned business. If a positive purchase experience leads to repeat purchases, a negative purchase experience—including not getting an order—inevitably leads to fewer repeat purchases.

So, to be clear, you don't want returned mail.

Yes, the money factors are important, but there's a psychology behind this. Retail therapy is real, and people often shop to lift their mood or cope with stress. When something they order doesn't get to them on time—or at all—the negative feeling is compounded.

If someone purchases something in the heat of emotion and their purchase doesn't get to them, they're likely going to cancel their order when asked for a corrected address because the emotion is gone. They're no longer in the heat of nostalgia, ready to buy that Beanie Baby or 1st edition Pokemon card.

Someone may purchase in the hopes of security, wanting that security camera before their estranged uncle comes over. Not having that delivered on time would certainly ruin their feeling of security and therefore trust in your company.

To increase customer retention, you must meet your customers' emotional expectations. In an Amazon 2-day shipping world and Walmart same-day delivery, customers expect fast and efficient service. Disappointment with products or timeliness can create lasting negative emotional associations, and those don't go away easily.

Negative UPS review on social platform X

Navigating the complexity of international shipping

"OK, OK, Shabier," you may be thinking. "I see that this is important, but shipping internationally is crazy and difficult! I don't even speak Chinese."

This is true. What are you doing to do? Run every address through Google Translate and hope that the format still works? No, wait, that won't work either. A US address looks like this:

Building number - Street name
City, State, Postal Code
Country

But a German address looks like this:

Street name - Building number
Postal Code, City
Country

So even if you were to translate your "streets" to "straßen" you're getting the formatting incorrectly and no doubt causing some briefträger or briefträgerin to say "verrückte Amerikaner." Nobody wants that.

You could reference libraries of international address formats to double-check your formatting after translating each of the words. You may even devote one employee to memorizing all of the formats and shipping standards for each country. But maybe you'll want something more foolproof?

To really improve customer retention around the globe, a global address verification tool is going to need to get involved.

Utilizing an international address verification tool, whether that be via an API or other means, ensures that your bases are covered with the innumerable formats and unfamiliar spellings and characters involved with global shipping. You'll reduce errors so that your goods get to your customers faster, and those customers come back to your digital storefront again.

Building a global shipping network with smart technology

Shipping technology improved, overhead view of truck

Integrating advanced technologies—AI, machine learning, and cloud-based solutions—to optimize global address management and shipping logistics is important for your short-term financial growth.

Real-time address validation, autocomplete, and data analysis tools can reduce costs and improve overall shipping efficiency, increasing customer retention and sales on a global scale.

But it’s not just the here and now that you’re preparing for. Successful business owners look ahead.

Future-proofing your shipping operations in 2025

Technology has drastically changed the shipping landscape in the last decade. We now have end-to-end shipment tracking with permanent records, smart contracts automatically executing when delivery conditions are met, and drone delivery! In the last two years, we've seen AI-powered route optimization and other streamlining come to the top of our newsfeeds.

Staying ahead of these technological trends plays into your organizational customer retention strategies. Smart address management ensures that you remain competitive in the global marketplace.

"But Shabier," you might interject. "Isn't the technical work required for implementing new technologies expensive? Don't people specialize in this kind of work and charge an arm and a leg?"

Sometimes, implementation can indeed be difficult. But not everything in technology has to be like working with Xfinity. Getting global addresses checked can be as easy as installing a Google Sheets or Excel spreadsheet plugin or batch-checking a CSV of addresses from all over the world.

If you're looking for a more automated solution, calling an API every time an address enters your database isn't a bad idea either. And because addresses change, it's good protocol to check your entire database two or three times a year to be sure you're up to date.

And, all of this goes hand in hand with your other customer retention strategies, saving you money.

The competitive customer retention advantage of optimized global shipping

In a world where instant gratification reigns supreme and patience for shipping errors is as extinct as floppy disks, optimizing your global shipping is your golden ticket to customer loyalty.

Address optimization is your competitive edge in 2025 and beyond. With tools like address verification, autocomplete, and real-time validation, you're not just delivering packages—you’re delivering trust, satisfaction, and repeat business.

So go ahead, level up your global shipping game, and watch your customer retention numbers soar.

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