Melissa Data Quality Reviews

We use Melissa Data Listware for customer address verification.

I have only just started to use it at my current company so no improvements yet. In my previous role, we used Listware to reduce returned mail and reduce mailing costs.

Simplicity, ease of use, combined with overall accuracy of data.

The world is moving/has moved to the cloud. I get that. But it would be nice to easily integrate the solution with our own internal systems/processes in a way that keeps IT happy. Right now I live at a company with (exceedingly) tight IT policies, so integration of a cloud solution just doesn’t work. The on-premise version of Listware is too expensive relative to the cloud version.

No stability issues yet.

No scalability issues.

Average to below average. Tech support at Melissa Data was very quick to wash their hands of an issue and say it's IT policies on my side that are causing the issue. There was no offer to try and find a work-around. Just an overwhelming attitude of "it’s not our problem."

I have investigated but not used other solutions.

Easy enough. 

Cloud is very cheap. On-premise is expensive.

I can’t recall all the other solutions in detail; Trillium was one.

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.

We use Melissa Data Web Service during our freight bill entry process. We check Melissa Data to determine if a ship-to address is a residential address. If so, we add a residential delivery charge to the invoice.

Previously, we had to rely on the driver of the delivery to mark a shipment as residential. If they forgot or were not sure, the delivery would not be marked and we would potentially lose revenue from the residential delivery.

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

There are some companies out there using Google or other sources to check/confirm if addresses are residential. If Melissa is not doing this, that could be an improvement.

No stability issues.

No scalability issues.

Tech support is fine.

We did not previously use a different product.

Straightforward. Melissa provided instructions on how to use the APIs, login information; it was very easy to set up.

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

Follow normal IT processes to design what you need; build, test, and implement.

We use Melissa Data Global Address Verification Web Service for address validation and parsing into individual attributes.

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

Address validation and parsing are most valuable to us, as we require the address segmented into its individual attributes for processing.

Address validation and parsing in a few countries have room for improvement.

The solution has been very stable.

No issues with scalability.

Tech support has been very prompt and helpful with any and all questions and issues we have submitted.

Yes, we had a previous solution. We switched because we were looking for a more global solution.

We required significant field mapping on our side due to our country specific needs. Understanding how Melissa responded with its standard field for each country took some time to internalize. However, the initial set up was quite simple.

Fully understand your volume, both monthly and annually. Speak with a Melissa account manager, they will put together an effective solution to meet your needs.

AddressDoctor, Experian, PostcodeAnywhere.

• Read the API documentation thoroughly.
• Understand how you are currently capturing address information.
• Test multiple addresses per country to ensure you can consume the results effectively.

We do hundreds of thousands to millions of customer deliveries. By using Melissa Data, we are able to scrub and verify, then better validate the end customer's address to ensure a more consistent delivery of products. 

We only use the address hygiene tool, so I can't really comment on their other tools. We did look at their email verification as well, because we also use another service for it. We do not switched to them, but it was not due to the functionality of that service. It was just that it required some reengineering on our end to do so. We did not feel that we had the right capacity to do it at that time. All I can say is we use the address hygiene service, and we have been pleased with it. 

An area for improvement is where an end customer's address is not found in the Melissa Data database, even though it is a valid address.

I would like a little more intelligence around handling addresses that are not in the system and providing back some better options on how to present the corrections to the user.

Over the lifetime of us using it, we have only had one issue where there seemed to be an availability issue. We use it as a service, and the service was unavailable. It was for a very short period of time. I think part of a day, something like that. Otherwise, it has been a very stable product, and we have not really dealt with any performance-related issues.

No issues. We do a very high volume of traffic in a condensed window during the September-October-November timeframe, and we have never had an issue with performance or scalability. 

We really have not had to use it. During the one incident I am remembering, we contacted customer support, and I don't remember if it was resolved through them, or I get the impression it was a larger issue than just affecting us, and it was resolved. So, I can't really give a great comment on that. I do not think other than that one time we have really used customer support, because we have not had a need to do so. 

Initial setup was fairly straightforward. The documentation was very good in terms of how to integrate and consume the service(s) that we use. It did not take an abundance of time to set up things on our side to use the service and incorporate it into our e-commerce platforms. So, it went very smooth. 

The pricing is okay. Like many transactional service-based platforms, I always feel that the pricing is a little bit high. I think it is competitive with other products on the market. 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. As an example, we licensed a two and a half to five million range of transactions, yet we use somewhere between two and a half and three million. Therefore, we have to pay for five, even though we only use roughly half of it. 

Unfortunately, I can't remember the other products we looked at. 

Follow the documentation as it is very good. Engage with their support team as by the little bit of experience that I had with them, they were good. Be confident that the scalability and load are not going to be an issue with the services. 

We use:

• Contact Verify to cleanse customer data such as first and last name, address, email, and phone number.
• MatchUp to verify existence of people within our source data using three key attributes.

 identify valid, and better formatted, data which improves the data we store in our database

Both Contact Verify and MatchUp are valuable to us. Without cleaning the data and matching existing data, it would be challenging to accomplish our clients' requirements.

Contact Verify is very simple to use and performs very fast.

MatchUp is a more complex product and I recommend a test area before upgrading to production. Performance can change from version to version.

Sometimes you need to reboot the server to apply patches. No product is completely error-free after upgrading.

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

Support is very good and they spend the time you need to understand the tool to accomplish your goals. Escalation to level 2 or 3 if necessary.

Very straightforward, point and click.

Spend time learning how it works. Perform testing to understand the return codes.

We use Rooftop Geocode files, FTP batch file upload, for data annotation.

It's an enabling technology for us.

Accuracy. Our downstream data analytics solutions depend on quality data.

Speed of delivery/ease of use. They advertise a 24-hour, next business day turn time on data annotation, but I’ve found it is usually closer to 72 hours. This is still excellent, just make sure you add in the appropriate fluff to your delivery timelines. 

No issues.

No issues.

Eight out of 10.

Yes, we had a previous solution. We switched because of the cost.

Straightforward, as long as you’re used to working with large tabular data.

Quality comes with a cost which is updated frequently.

On smaller batch runs they have an Excel plugin called Listware which can get you the data instantly, but it’s pricier per datum. Once you get above a few thousand line items it’s better to do the FPT batch, wait the extra days, and save the costs.

We did evaluate other products, but the particulars are confidential.

Know the question you are asking. More data doesn’t give better solutions if it’s the wrong data for the question.

Validating customer addresses.

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

Ability to validate customer addresses.

Validating more addresses accurately.

No issues.

No issues.

Always responsive and helpful.

It was pretty straightforward to set up on Windows. Then we move to Linux and it was more complex, but still manageable.

We've only used this one.

• Understand what you want to do.
• Know the limitations of the product.

We use Address Object, Phone Object, Name Object, Email Object (current versions) for address verification for package shipping.

Decreased chance of incorrect shipping addresses and, thus, returned packages.

• Address/county data lookup
• Address correction

• More/better search tools are needed.
• State and local tax data would be nice.

No issues.

No issues.

Nine out of 10.

This is our first solution.

Setup was straightforward. Could have more API examples for different languages.

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

Google, USPS, SmartyStreets.

Search all options and decide which is the best fit.