Melissa Data Quality Reviews

It gives me an assessed value of the property in question. My partner and I are property investors, and it's good to get an assessed value. Other databases that we extract information from don't always give us that. So we're able to get an assessed value to cull out properties that we're not interested in.

Extracting the property in question, the owner's address, and the address coming off of the APN number.

It really hasn't given us a phone number for the owner of the property, and that's one thing I'd really like to be getting. Either a phone number or email.

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.

It seems pretty stable. I haven't seen any problems with it.

I haven't seen any problems yet. I do have to go through White Pages to try and get information about an owner, which is a different set. I'd love to see that incorporated in Melissa Data.

There was one time I was trying to figure out how to actually get the databases loaded and called up tech support. They were very helpful. They actually got online to get onto my desktop and see what was going on. It was very helpful. They were able to find my problems, and I was able to move on with it. Instantaneously getting on my screen and see what's going on was extremely helpful.

This is my first time using a solution like this.

It took me a little time. There are a couple of nuances that I had to struggle through, to first figure it out. Having tech support there really helped guide me through it. As far as getting the database formatted the way it should be, that took a little time to do. That may have been my problem as much as anything else.

I think it's worth the value for me to run it.

I just did a Google lookup and found Melissa Data, that's how I got there.

I'd say it's a great product. If those are the parameters that you want to find, it seems to do real well.

What would make it a 10 out of 10 for me would be the improvements I mentioned above.

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.

Ease of use.

Better and standardized addresses in our systems.

Need to POC point of entry validation.

< 1Month

Easy to deploy with the help of my DBAs and Melissa Data tech support.

NA

Never tried.

Excellent.

9/10

No.

It was easy. In the installation documentation, they should mention that SQL server instance should be on the same server where Melissa Data software is installed.

In-house.

If we go ahead and buy the software, I am expecting <6 months.

Yes, I cannot name other vendors.

We provide a service for courthouses to summon candidates for jury duty. This requires the list of candidates’ addresses to be checked via the USPS NCOA list. We use SmartMover for this purpose.

It saves a huge amount of time. Before using this service, we used a vendor that manually ran our lists through this NCOA list, which might have taken one to three business days to return the file. This was a huge bottleneck in our process, and the data returned was not always accurate. After switching to Melissa Data’s SmartMover, the process has been reduced to between ten minutes and three hours, depending on the amount of records sent.

It provides address standardization and NCOA, and deliverable addresses. This saves our clients time, and money in postage fees, by providing updated and undeliverable addresses.

The billing structure does not seem very accurate. We’ve had issues with miscounted batch records processed. We also ran into some data quality issues, but they have been rectified and we haven’t noticed any issues since.

We encounter failed batch processes once in a while, but their team is quick to rectify issues.

Larger batches sometimes have failed batches.

Tech support is 10 out of 10.

We had issues with data quality and a very slow return time with our previous vendor.

It was very straightforward. The documentation is clear and the sales rep has been good with communication.

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.

We looked at Service Objects and a few others. Some of these vendors had poor documentation, pricing was not competitive, or the product did not provide the customization we needed.

Thoroughly test the product. They have many different products that provide the same or similar results, but the execution is different. For example, the same goal of processing a list through NCOA can be accomplished via FTP, JSON, or SSIS. It depends on the implementation and which product is best suited for what you’re trying to achieve.

Data cleansing and geo coding.

Reduced direct mail errors

Update feature

2 years

Database version issues

Great

Great

We had a project where we had purchased data files. We ran a standard name, address, and zip code, internal dedupe between the different files we had, and we were able to quickly notify our vendor that they had tens of thousands of duplications that they were not even aware of, that we would have ended up paying for if we had not used the MatchUp software on the front end.

• Being able to open up large files
• The extensive merge/purge capabilities

We handle large amounts of data, in the terabytes. It's important to be able to have a program that can handle that large amount of data at one time, and effectively do internal dedupes of the data itself.

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 and the Melissa program kept crashing. It happened on two different occasions over a period of a few months. We were apparently the first firm that noticed it and reported it. They had problems figuring out what the problem was, so we had to drill down and spend a considerable amount of time, proving to them that it wasn't an issue on our end, but that it had something to do with the compatibility on their end with a Windows update. 

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. Two months is just too long to solve a problem on a program when we had just purchased the program earlier this year.

When there's a Windows update, they should check the program in detail to see if there are going to be any conflicts with that update, instead of waiting for their clients to spend countless hours solving the problem of why the program is crashing.

Also, it would be nice to be able to do a merge/purge of larger data sets. What I mean by larger data sets, data sets in the terabytes, without any crashing issues. But from talking to tech support, it's probably as good as it's going to get.

It was crashing a lot, that was one of the problems, it was crashing non-stop. It took them a couple of months, after we had conveyed to them what the specific problems were, but they finally got it fixed where it was no longer crashing.

It has good capability. It probably has about as good a capability as what it's ever going to have.

The tech support people are very accommodating. They're very receptive, they're very knowledgeable.

When you're learning any software program, it takes a little while, but we've used several programs from Melissa over years, MatchUp, Personator, RightFielder, Dirty Harry. MatchUp is fairly straightforward as far as how to use it. It's probably simpler to learn than most of your other merge/purge type programs that are available out there.

We just researched on the internet. There weren't a lot of choices - we're going back probably 13 years - back then as there are now. 

I know Melissa has gone the route where everything is going to the cloud, where you have to pay an ongoing annual fee. We specifically want to use a desktop solution, not a cloud solution - which is the direction many other firms are going, they're going to a cloud solution. But we prefer using a standalone desktop solution, where we are purchasing the software program one time, plus occasional updates, as opposed to having to use the cloud, based on the volume of use.

In terms of advice to others, if you have a large file with many, many terabytes, break it down into smaller files, the program will typically process it a lot quicker.

The best way to learn is try some small test files to see if it's working the way you want it to work, as far as your math logic. A lot of times you have to set up your own unique math logic combinations in order to get the results that you want.

I give it an eight out of 10 overall, because it does involve the cloud, and it can handle unusually large data files.

However, it's not a 10 because, if you don't have the threads set correctly - they have a multi-thread option - if you don't have those threads set correctly it will, in certain instances, cause your program to crash.

Capture email addresses and phone numbers for marketing.

Gives us the ability to offer an additional resource that other companies do not.

Phone numbers, so we can help people market efficiently.

Provide more phone numbers, even cell numbers (scrubbed numbers).

No issues.

Not applicable.

Technical support is excellent.

No.

It has a straightforward, easy setup.

It is affordable.

Great tool; certainly helpful if you need an affordable option.

Ability to link through web service and to set error status back.

Ability to validate addresses, make corrections to address. Also, if a person has moved, use the new address to send the mail and thus reduce the postage cost and reduce return mails.

Web service connections - easy to maintain synchronous connections.

Pricing model.

No issues.

No issues.

Very good.

Easy setup and easy code integration to invoke the web service calls.

Yes, we did review other NCOA provider software.