Addresses are the fundamental building block to many activities in the physical world. Addresses unlock industries and without accurate, geo-mapped addresses in your core systems, the benefits they could bring you and your customer base will be lost. Relevance of addresses range from buying a house, getting insurance or receiving the much wanted article you bought over the Internet.
The effective use of location information is called Location Intelligence.
The 2012 Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, for some reason, missed Location Intelligence. In 2013 it simply skipped directly to the slope of enlightenment and is making its way to mainstream adoption.
Why did this happen? Because, invisibly, location has become part of our everyday lives and the world woke up to it with a start. Our Smartphone knows our every move; whether we are navigating, sharing locations or simply taking calls or using data, we leave invisible breadcrumbs of where we have been.
Geo-mapped addresses, along with information about surrounding areas and movement patterns give organisations valuable insights in how to serve their customers better.
When experts are asked for opinions about geo-mapped addresses in various industries, these are typical responses. A senior Data Scientist in the banking space observed: “Proper geo-mapped addresses connect everything we do, to the surrounding area, giving powerful new insights on patterns which were traditionally invisible through our tabular and graphed data.” A Media Specialist in the insurance industry emphasised: “The importance of capturing accurate, correct addresses at the point of sale, allows us to see in which areas our advertising messages are hitting home and to adjust our campaigns accordingly, customising and fine-tuning regional targeting in both ATL & BTL advertising.”
Capturing addresses is not something new, but having accurate, geo-mapped addresses in your core customer databases certainly is. And this is a challenge which has been underestimated for decades, leaving core data quality in a messy state and customers disillusioned when they have to repeat the same information for the nth time.
This challenge is, however, being successfully met by more and more organisations who take it seriously. With internet access and improved customer engagement, now, more than ever, it is possible to reach this clean data goal by using software tools that access trusted base data sources from inside your own environments.
Capture addresses correctly, at the point of customer take-on and have the multiple benefits of saving on compliance, and delighting your customers with improved service because you better understand them and their needs where they are.
Source: Financial Mail Business Essentials