The Software Bureau

“Being able to provide useable, good quality business information to our clients using Matchcode Batch adds tangible value. On its own, an address is a powerful key that unlocks a wealth of other information, but it is a lot more useful if that other information is immediately available. This enhanced data helps clients produce more effective marketing or segmentation campaigns as well as dramatically improving the overall quality of the customer database.”

Client Services Director of the Software Bureau, Mark Dobson

Background

The Software Bureau is a Data Quality Management (DQM) software provider based in Surrey. Its ‘bureau in a box’ software suite, Cygnus, provides complete data management functionality including deduplication, data processing, mail sortation for postal discounts, suppression and batch contact data cleansing and validation for over 55 clients. Over half of the Software Bureau’s clients are mailing houses, with the rest comprising data bureaux, direct marketing agencies, print management companies, charities and end users.

The Software Bureau’s team of data experts developed the individual functions of Cygnus in-house. Cygnus previously did not offer validation of address data. “For many of our customers, poor data quality is a symptom of a multi-channel environment,” comments Client Services Director at the Software Bureau, Mark Dobson. “Processing or suppressing contact databases with incomplete, out-of-date or inaccurate contact data can only be so effective – the data needs to be correct in the first place in order to maximise the effectiveness of the processes that Cygnus performs.”

The challenge

Increasing numbers of the Software Bureau’s clients were enquiring about contact data validation and cleansing. “From feedback received, we know that one of the main issues for mailing houses is the physical presentation of marketing materials. The mailing is one of the primary elements that can significantly affect – whether positively or negatively – response rates, customer loyalty and brand image when processing direct mail.”

The Software Bureau commissioned a review of Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (a database containing information regarding 28 million addresses in the UK) and its uses within the UK direct mail industry (arguably the largest user of PAF). The organisation discovered that many data bureaux were using PAF alone as the backbone to their processing. Although as the one of the world’s most complete and comprehensive postal databases it had its benefits, it only offers the standard options of validating a postcode through to fully verifying an address.

“Much of the ‘meaningful’ information, as well as other data linked to an address, is lost,” says Dobson. “We wanted to deliver more value to our clients, including contact data enhancement such as verification of primary contact names and adding telephone numbers to the customer record.”

Capscan Matchcode Batch

The Software Bureau was keen to find a fast route to market through a partner. After evaluating one other major supplier, Capscan was favoured by the team, including Dobson, “We chose to integrate Capscan’s Matchcode Batch PAF contact data validation and enhancement software into Cygnus,” he says. “Capscan offered a very good quality software developer’s kit (SDK), enabling our developers to smoothly integrate with and write an interface between Cygnus and Matchcode Batch. The Matchcode engine also delivers superb matching rates for address data against the PAF.”

He continues, “The team there were very welcoming to a new partner and had a well-established partnership scheme in place. Development was very straight forward and we received full support from Capscan.”

Integrated into Cygnus, Matchcode Batch ensures that a client’s customer database is only populated with accurate, complete and up-to-date contact data, by matching addresses against PAF. Data that is incorrect or incomplete is replaced with a full and valid address. Matchcode Batch enables Cygnus users to run bulk cleansing on large volumes of contact data and produces matching rates of 90% or more against PAF on a first run and can process over a million records per hour.

The ability to control and enhance what PAF delivers has been refined by Cygnus' developers, so that so-called ‘vanity’ information such as house names and locality information are retained. Furthermore, Matchcode Batch also allows postcode-based data to be appended to existing data as it is processed, including delivery point suffixes, grid references and electoral wards.

Cygnus also benefits from data enhancement from the National Canvasse Lifestyle database, also supplied by Capscan under licence from Experian. The Matchcode engine links the contact name to the relevant household PAF address and allows the householders' names to be used as part of an interactive or batch search for the address. This not only increases match rates, but also allows inaccuracies in both the name and the address to be corrected.

The result

To date, 95% of the Software Bureau’s current clients are now using Matchcode Batch to validate and cleanse contact data using Cygnus, including William Hill, Amnesty International and Metromail.

Dobson says, “Being able to provide useable, good quality business information to our clients using Matchcode Batch adds tangible value. On its own, an address is a powerful key that unlocks a wealth of other information, but it is a lot more useful if that other information is immediately available. This enhanced data helps clients produce more effective marketing or segmentation campaigns as well as dramatically improving the overall quality of the customer database.”

Cygnus’ other data processing modules, including suppression, also benefit from Matchcode Batch. “If you’re getting the name and address correct in the first place, this ensures better matching for suppression file processing for example,” says Dobson. “Another good example would be that all our mailing houses also regularly use postal discount schemes such as those from Royal Mail and TNT. When sorting and formatting address data to the required format in Cygnus, this is much quicker when the data is accurate. It may also ensure that clients earn the maximum discount that they are technically entitled to.”

The future

The Software Bureau is considering further developing its use of Matchcode Batch to include international contact data validation and cleansing, as a result of increasing customer demand. Dobson adds, “The requirement for enhanced data and data richness is also increasing amongst our clients, for more effective segmentation and target marketing, achieving the single customer view and acquiring the competitive edge for customer retention and acquisition. The current economic climate means that our clients are driving their data harder to help identify new revenue opportunities or simply to cut costs related to operational inefficiencies.”