Melissa Data Quality vs Microsoft Data Quality Services comparison

"We ran a standard name, address, and zip code, internal dedupe between the different files we had purchased, and we were able to quickly notify our vendor that they had tens of thousands of duplications that they were not even aware of."

"Getting the most up to date address for our members. We like to keep in touch with membership a few times a year so we want to maintain up to date addresses to be sure they receive any information that we mail to them."

"We are able to send out client mailings with the most accurate addresses possible."

"Services for all manner of data-driven organizations, no matter their size or budget."

"Helps our organization provide accurate address information to our customers for direct mailing (household) and other campaigns they want to do."

"By validating and parsing the addresses our customers submit to us, we have reduced the number of addressing errors encountered during our processing."

"We use a Melissa API to access the data, so it easy to use, accurate, and fast."

"The customers' addresses are now complete, correct and follow one consistent format."

"This solution is particularly useful for data enrichment."

"The primary advantage of Microsoft Data Quality Services is its capability to automate certain tasks, which are otherwise achieved through SQL queries."

"The tool needs to provide resizable forms/windows like all other SSIS windows. Vendor claims its an SSIS limitation however all SSIS components are resizable so that isn't true. This is just an annoyance but needless."

"One thing I would want to have, when you're doing a property search, you can do it either on the FIPS in the APN number or the address itself. For some entries, I'll have the APN number, and some I'll have the address. Apparently it cannot process something when both the FIPS-APN and the address are on there. I have to sort, once with one and once with the other, which is a little bit of a pain."

"MatchUp seems to be single threaded, and limits the amount of data that can be processed automatically."

"We would appreciate it if there was a larger database so that we could find information more often. For example, we can search for 10 people and only find the information for three of them, if we are lucky."

"More countries should be supported by Melissa."

"Pricing is based on tiers, with each tier capped at a specified number of records processed. Once you go over the cap at one tier, you are automatically bumped to the next tier. However, they seem to count failed batch processes so it’s good to keep track of the number of records sent. They’ll fix the count when notified, but their system fails to detect actual successful processes versus failed processes."

"One of the problems that we ran into this year was we probably spent over 40 hours finding and trying to drill down to where specific bugs were in the program, which was a tremendous waste of time for us. There were a couple of updates to Windows this year, the program kept crashing. It happened on two different occasions over a period of a few months. Once we told them what the problem was - even though their tech support is great to work with - it literally took probably about two months to fix the issue where we could actually use the program the way we needed to use it."

"The SSIS component setup seems a little klunky."

"Technical support from Microsoft is poor, as they do not provide adequate assistance with issues encountered in integration or forming automation."

"I would rate my experience with the initial setup a six out of ten, with one being very easy and ten being extremely challenging. So, there is room for improvement in the setup process."

"​We are concerned that our own pricing is going up every year for Melissa Data products, but we highly recommend the services for people who are routinely sending out mailings."

"​It is affordable."

"The only complaint that I have towards it is they sell licenses based on a range of usage, and I feel those ranges are too large."

"Trial subscriptions (via cloud) are very cheap and easy to use. It’s a great way to test Listware to see if you want to go deeper with integration."

"Depends on situation. We prefer to have data onsite, but some might prefer web access."

"It's affordable."

"Understand how may transactions you will be processing so that you can get the right tier pricing."

"The price for address validation is similar in all software. However, the price for geocoding decides the actual pricing. If you get their most accurate geocoding (called GeoPoints), then it will add about $10k+ per million requests."

"The pricing is in the midrange. It's not cheap, but it depends on the licenses you require."