Landscape maintains a consumer database of residential names and addresses containing >95,000,000 records and a corporate database containing >9,000,000 company names and addresses. The design and platforms for these large databases permits periodically matching of all of this data with more than 20 types of data master tables * and continuous feeds of newly sourced or corrected data.
Landscape also ensures uniformity of layout by standardizing use of single or double byte characters, deleting space within items, deleting illegal characters, transforming abbreviations into legal names, and uniform telephone formatting. Landscape also performs an automated “telephone check” to extract unused or out-of-service phone numbers, NTT’s Angel Check service is used for appending missing phone numbers whenever possible, and uses the non-delivery data master to flag undeliverable addresses. Both Call Check and Angel Line services are utilized to attempt to update the address using a newly listed phone number.
Landscape also employs a series of quality control steps to ensure incorrect, out-of-date, and/or incomplete data is identified and hopefully corrected.
* special note: data master tables are unique tables built and frequently updated to address issues of standardization of street names, building numbers, postal codes, phone numbers, undeliverable addresses, etc. Landscape supports these various naming and number conventions in an effort to output data in a uniform manner.
Details of Data Cleansing Technology
■Data maintenance utilized by approximately 20 types of data master tables
Using >20 types of data master tables, including a telephone area code data master table, all existing and newly collected and inputted name and address data is periodically checked for changes in addresses and/or phone numbers.
■Tele check
NTT’s TELE Check directories, which are updated 12 times per year, are utilized to append missing or incomplete data, flag and even eliminate unmatched data, and correct incorrect data processes which help reduce the amount of undeliverable direct mail pieces.
■Call check
Landscape’s computers confirm, via an ISDN line as an automated process, whether a telephone circuit is “active” or in use or not. The line status of each record within the IDB is recorded on an almost continuous basis as all circuits are checked >60 million times per month. Landscape runs a special Call Check process prior to the release of each data order to insure the output file contains the most current and correct information available to reduce the potential for undeliverable direct mail or failed telephone contacts. Records discovered with disconnected phone circuits are then deleted from the Landscape database.
■Angel Line checking
Landscape uses the results of the Call Check process outlined above to obtain a missing or corrected address and new telephone number from NTT’s automated Angel Line Checking service.
■Deleting non-delivery records
Landscape purchases undeliverable name and address records back from its customers to use in updating its consumer and business databases. If the undeliverable address or non contactable phone number can not be corrected, the name and address record will be deleted from its IDB databases to ensure an undeliverable record is not re-used in the future. |
