IQRapidAddress

IQ Rapid Address

from

Intech Solutions Pty. Ltd.

IQ Rapid Address is a high performance software engine used to assist in the process of capturing addresses. IQ Rapid Address will speed up the process of typing in an address and ensures that the address is both valid in content and format.

IQ Rapid Address uses Australia Post's Address File (PAF) to look up and validate address capture. IQ Rapid Address is approved under Australia Post’s Address Matching Approval System (AMAS).

IQ Rapid Address is typically integrated into Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to enhance the process of capturing an accurate address.

IQ Rapid Address uses highly innovative and often unique techniques to reduce the number of keystrokes required to capture a valid address.

IQ Rapid Address uses advanced search techniques to lookup addresses in Australia Post’s Postal Address File (PAF), which is supplied with IQ Rapid Address. Many competitive products also use the PAF to search addresses however, the way this is done, and the resulting functionality, as explained below, is remarkably different.

The PAF is structured in such a way that ‘standard’ search techniques would start searching from the ‘large/area’ and then drill down to the ‘small/point’. For example, you start by entering the postcode. Once the postcode is entered by the user, the list of localities within this postcode is displayed. The user now selects the locality and a list of streets are displayed. Finally, a list of houses, and/or units are displayed. This technique is called ‘bottom up’ PAF searching, and until IQ Rapid Address was available, this was the only method used.

IQ Rapid Address overcomes the deficiencies in ‘bottom up’ PAF searching by providing the user with the ability to type an address in a summarised, but natural format. For example, the user will typically enter the street number, the first two characters of the street name and the first three characters of the locality. This is typically sufficient for IQ Rapid Address to either completely capture the address or present the user with a short list of matching addresses.

IQ Rapid Address slashes the number of keystrokes required to capture an address. Using IQ Rapid Address, users can capture address in 8 keystrokes. In addition to this, users do not need to know locality postcodes, how to spell localities or street names.

Using IQ Rapid Address results in call centre efficiencies, better and more professional customer service as well as more accurate and reliable address data.

By capturing addresses with as few as 8 keystrokes, call centre efficiencies are increased. Significant time is saved in capturing addresses faster as well as avoiding tasks of re-entering addresses that were previously entered incorrectly.

More professional customer service is achieved by removing the necessity for call centre representatives to ask their customers how to spell and/or hold up the customer while they are on the phone.

When an address is captured with IQ Rapid Address, the format, spelling and deliverability (ability of Australia Post to deliver a mail item to the address) is assured. This not only results in reduced postage expenses and less return to sender mail, downstream use of the data, such as data analysis and direct marketing data extractions, are also enhanced by having more accurate and consistent address data.

IQ Rapid Address is implemented at several leading organizations such as the Australian Red Cross, Inchcape Motors, Jaguar Australia, TransACT Communications and the WA Government Employees Superannuation Board. Each of these customers rate themselves as highly satisfied with product performance, benefits obtained and customer service.

IQ Rapid Address is approved by Australia Post under its Address Matching Approval System (AMAS). Australia Post’s AMAS program tests the ability of third party software vendors to accurately match address data to the Postal Address File (PAF).

Inchcape Motors (Inchcape) is a £4.5 billion automotive services group, which, in Australia, is the sole distributor for Subaru, Volkswagen and Peugeot, selling these and other vehicles at a rate of more than 35,000 annually.

According to Andrew Bateup, business systems manager for Subaru Australia (Inchcape Motors’ largest Australian franchisee) IQ Rapid Address has resulted in call centre efficiency as well as an end to false and/or badly formatted address records. Gone are the days when a customer service representative needs to ask a customer “how do you spell your address?” or “what is the postcode of…?”. With IQ Rapid Address, over 95% of addresses can be captured with 8-12 keystrokes. This reduces the average address capture time to less than 10 seconds.

The high quality of the data then has further downstream benefits to Inchcape. “Once we know our addresses are valid, we assign Australia Post’s Delivery Point Identifiers (DPIDs) to the material we mail,” Bateup said. This results not only in lower postal charges but also more valuable data.

Intech Solutions has spent three years of dedicated research and development building software via a process of 'revolution' rather than 'evolution'. This development method has ensured that the products developed are superior in design ensuring the highest level of functionality, performance, robustness and longevity. The server components are written in C++ and are available on both Windows and UNIX operating systems. The code facilitates advanced functions such as multi-threaded servers, a client/server architecture and a superbly engineered Application Programming Interface.

The search speed performance of IQ Rapid Address is outstanding. Entering only 3 characters of locality information and 3 characters of street level information, IQ Rapid Address will search the PAF, containing over 10 million addresses, with an average speed of less than a quarter second.

In a report released by the Aberdeen Group, a leading provider of technology market consulting and research, reports that the Customer Relationship Management market will exceed $24 billion by 2003 and will remain a high-growth IT market.

In the UK, a postcode typically contains an average of six houses. This has lead to the UK market becoming early adopters of rapid addressing solutions. Last year UK businesses spend over 100 (AUD) million on rapid address management solutions.

In the Australian market, address management is becoming a common component and requirement of any CRM implementation. Internationally, address management solutions are at an infancy and are expected to experience exponential growth.

IQ Rapid Addresses is designed to be data independent. This allows IQ Rapid Address to be tailored for export markets.

The structure of the USA’s address data is similar to the structure of Australian addresses data. This provides IQ Rapid Address with a competitive advantage over UK-based products. The USA market for rapid addressing is at its infancy and represents great potential.

Whilst the Information Quality industry is service intensive, the bulk of our revenue is generated from software licensing. This places Intech Solutions in a position where we can expand our revenue (both locally and internationally) without over extending our resources. By partnering with service providers and third party software vendors, we are able to provide these third parties with business opportunities which are truly mutually beneficial.

IQ Rapid Address is part of the IQ Office range of software. Other components are IQ Standardiser, a data parsing engine designed to transform free-format text to structured information and IQ Matcher, a probabilistic record linking application designed to match and merge data across various data sources.

Terry Goodman

terryg@intechiq.com

Intech Solutions Pty. Ltd.

Phone: (02) 9994 8988