It’s estimated that 98% of businesses in Europe are classified as small businesses. In the US the rate is as high as 99%.
In other words, small businesses are the core of the economy. It doesn’t matter which industry you’re operating in, you’ll find there is plenty of competition. Successfully running a small business means doing everything you can to stand out from the competition. It also means improving your efficiency and reducing costs wherever possible. Another important factor in the survival of small business is customer satisfaction. Because you are competing with larger companies with bigger budgets, it’s important that your business is rising above the rest of the competition.
That’s where address validation, such as that offered by Egon, comes in. Every small business can benefit from it.
Understanding Address Validation
Address validation is exactly what it says, a way to verify an address. The truth is we are in a digital world which relies heavily on data.
One of the fundamental pieces of data that a business relies on is customer names and addresses. These are essential to ensure mailings and products get to the right people.
Unfortunately, it’s surprisingly simple and common for people to submit the wrong address online. In many cases, it’s simply an accident, but this can really impact your ability to receive mail and packages.
Now consider how much undelivered parcels, missing products and customer complaints connected to these issues cost your business a year.
Address validation verifies the address given is genuine and, according to registers, the name and the address match.
It’s incorporated into your systems, ensuring you don’t need to do anything: the address validation system will handle the verification process for you. This allows you to minimize shipping issues while ensuring your clients are happy and receiving their packages on time. It can also help minimize how much you need to spend on help services.
The Benefits Of Address Validation
Let’s take a look at the major benefits of address validation.
Better Customer Service
Using an address validation service means no more customer complaints because the address is wrong or the parcel hasn’t been delivered on time. You’ll even save time on checking addresses before sending parcels and ensure that your customers receive their packages as fast as possible!
The result is happier customers and your customer service team free to deal with real issues. This can result in improved sales, repeat customers and less customer service related expenses.
Improved Marketing
Most small businesses try to stay in contact with their customer base. It’s important to build loyalty and hopefully expand your customer base.
Using an address validation service means you have the right contact details for all your clients and can effectively keep in contact with them.
This can make a significant difference to their loyalty and the number of sales you make.
It’s not just existing customers. If you can persuade potential customers to sign up for updates, you’ll be able to send them targeted marketing material. This can help you to boost the number of sales and the conversion rate of potential customers.
Cost Savings
Your customer support staff will spend hours every week talking to customers and tracking down their parcels for them. It’s costly for staff to be tracking parcels instead of helping potential customers.
In addition, customers waiting for parcels are likely to be unhappy. This will result in them sharing negative stories on social media, online forums and even directly by word-of-mouth.
It can be hard to quantify the amount of lost sales or the amount of time staff have spent dealing with these queries. What is certain is that eliminating them will save the business money.
Simplify Data Sorting
Another benefit is the ability of an address validation system of checking customer addresses and sorting them to help you target the right people with the right marketing campaign.
The address validation system ensures all addresses are valid and updated when necessary. The system will remove dead contacts and invalid addresses, allowing you to target valid customers much faster than without an address validation system. This is all automatic so doesn’t cost you any time.
Reduces Returned Mail
Returned mail and parcels are costly. It’s not just the potential damage to your reputation or the fact you have to resend the products, there is also time spent by your staff dealing with the returns and there is often a charge by the courier service for returning the item.
In other words, returned mail can cost the company a surprisingly large sum of money. Address validation eliminates the majority of returned mail, effectively saving you money while also ensuring your shipping process is smooth and effective.
Faster Deliveries
Naturally, if the system has verified the addresses for you, then parcels can be got ready for dispatch faster. That means they will get to the customer faster. As we live in a world used to instant-gratification, getting a delivery there faster is an effective technique to ensure your customer is happy and is more likely to use your service again. Many people are getting used to super fast delivery services, like Uber Eats and Amazon Prime. If you have problems with shipping due to an incorrect address input, it can make it a lot harder for your clients to be happy with your shipping service.
Summing up
The bottom line is straightforward. Adopting an address validation service today will help you feel in control of your business. It also has the potential to save your business money and protect its reputation. It can help improve customer satisfaction by ensuring their packages are delivered correctly the first time and as fast as possible. With the busiest time of year happening right now, it makes sense to save time and money by having a reliable address validation system set up.
All of these factors combined don’t just improve your chances of business success, they help you build a strong bond with your customers. That’s crucial to the survival of your business and all it takes is a simple address validation system.
