Bandwidth.com provides options for securing the best deals on Internet connectivity. It has sold Internet connectivity of all types and speeds from a wide selection of national service providers to thousands of homes and businesses since 1999. The company's quote service provides up-to-date prices from top providers nationwide.

It was logical that the company would also look to the Internet for the best way to boost the performance of its growing customer service operation. Bandwidth built an application to verify customer address data before a quote is provided. The result: accurate quotes provided in seconds for customers.

The Problem with Customer-Input Data
After introducing an Internet-based service procurement application in January 2003, we soon realized we needed a swifter and more efficient way to cleanse and validate the information that customers were entering in our quote request form. Customers that were entering inaccurate or invalid name or address data in the form were placing unnecessary stress on our real-time pricing system, which resulted in rising customer frustration and increased wait times.

While the problem may have seemed complex, the solution was simple: find a full-featured address validation system that could operate in real time. There was one additional requirement. We did not want to maintain any of the validation data on our own servers. We wanted a Web-based solution so we could truly leverage the power of the Internet to check the customer information in real time without the burden and expense associated with having to create and maintain our own corporate database. We sought these capabilities in a reliable, platform-independent package that could be implemented and operated quickly. Melissa Data Corp.'s Data Quality Web Service (DQWS) delivered that functionality.

A Speedy Solution
After securing a trial account, we were writing sample applications in one day. Melissa Data maintains the U.S. Postal Service databases at its facility, and takes care of all the servicing and updating functions. This made their Web-based service a perfect fit for all our needs.

The data validation service provides instant verification, correction, and standardization on name, address, nine-digit ZIP code, phone number, and "geo-coder" (latitude and longitude) information.

With DQWS, Bandwidth.com passes along all the standard address information received from customers to the application via an HTTP post. XML technology and the Internet provide easy and secure online data verification. In return, DQWS sends a message, including the cleansed address and any errors that occurred during validation. The cleansed information is then sent to Bandwidth.com's pricing engine to determine the Internet service availability options for the given address.

If a bad or incomplete address is given, the customer is alerted instantly and asked to resubmit the form.

For example, if a customer were to input an incorrect address for the phone number given, the validation engine would issue an alert. Sometimes people do that because they want someone to call them back instead of completing the transaction over the Internet. Web validation improves our ability to be flexible in order to successfully complete every transaction. And by doing it more quickly and efficiently, we're able to assist more customers than we ever could before.

The Web validation service has performed so well that we recently began using it to perform street searches for addresses where the range submitted by the customer was rendered invalid. This function has proved invaluable to our partners and us because it provides alternative addresses when there's no exact match.

Only five times in the entire first year of operation did a customer submit a valid street address that the Web service could not validate. This is especially impressive since Bandwidth .com validated between two and three million records using the data Web service last year. Not only is the service incredibly accurate, but our typical response time remains at one second or less. This is extremely important for the real-time nature of our application.

Lessons Learned
Maintaining a speedy response time is of the essence because some of our biggest partners are some of the biggest names in personal computing, including Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Co., and IBM Corp.

The Dell Web site alone delivers peak loads of 1,000 to 2,000 requests an hour from customers wishing to secure high-speed Internet access to use with their new high-tech gear. Because of the exemplary response time now possible with address validation, Dell customers have the opportunity to be informed of the variety of Internet connectivity options in their area and select one - all before the end of the call.

Summary
Address validation upfront is a must for a high-quality, real-time procurement process, as service providers' regions of coverage vary according to customer addresses. To sell our services online with confidence, we need the assurance of address accuracy. Before implementing address validation, customers going to our Web site would fill out and submit a lead form, then get in the queue and wait for a callback. It wasn't until that time that any information discrepancies were mentioned and then they had to be cleared up over the phone, which always took precious time.