Melissa Data Adds Global Address Verification and Auto-Completion to CRM and Ecommerce Data Quality Tool

Melissa Data, a provider of contact data quality and integration solutions, has added global address verification to Express Entry, the company's address auto-completion tool.

Validating addresses as they are entered, Express Entry now integrates Melissa Data's Global Address Verification capabilities to enable accurate international customer data throughout the enterprise, ideal for CRM, call center, and ecommerce applications. In addition to U.S. address data, Express Entry validates and cleanses international addresses in real time for more than 240 countries and territories, correcting and standardizing them into the official postal format of each geographic locale and adding missing components such as postal codes or regions. Data fields are populated automatically using Express Entry's type-ahead feature.

With global capabilities, Express Entry now supports customer address data in any UTF8 language; its transliteration feature works with many character sets and enables output displayed in native or Latin characters. Users begin typing an address into a search bar and Express Entry completes the query with a verified address, including city, state, and ZIP Code for U.S. addresses, or locality, administrative area, and postal code for international addresses.

Available as a Web service, Express Entry can be integrated into customized applications and platforms. In addition to the Web service, Webmasters and site developers can download a JavaScript code snippet for use with ecommerce forms and online guest books.

"Accurate, current, and consistent contact data is essential for global business, no matter the geographic region. Yet postal standards and address formats vary extensively from country to countr, and may be stored in different languages or character sets, creating a potential cascade of bad data as unverified information enters the system," said Bud Walker, director of data quality solutions at Melissa Data, in a statement. "Express Entry offers an intuitive global solution, equipping CRM and ERP users with a single data quality tool for multiple countries. Businesses and customers both benefit from improved, real-time data quality; order entry is easier and faster, fraud and delivery errors are reduced, and duplicate customer records can be located easily."

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