Address Verification: The Cornerstone of Elevating Customer Experience

Today’s highly emerging technology is changing the way consumers shop online products. Given the digital trends and their adoption, customer experience plays an essential role in creating a brand’s success in the market. While 1.6 trillion USD is lost each year as a result of poor customer service, complex checkout procedures leading to abandoned carts remain the number one challenge. Misplaced deliveries are another concern for enterprises where they have to face overhead shipping charges due to the lack of proper address verification methods.

An automated solution to validate the address information of customers ensures only accurate and reliable data enters the system. It reduces the chances of customers submitting incomplete or incorrect information that allows e-commerce stores to deliver the right products with confidence. 

The blog covers how the Address Verification Service (AVS) revamps customer experience and allows businesses to cut operational costs.

How Does Address Verification Work?

The Address Verification process is performed in the following three steps :

Step 1 – Upload Facial & ID Proof

The system prompts the end-user to upload their photo while holding the identity document. The user’s facial identity is matched against the photo on the ID.

Step 2 – Submit a Secondary ID

In the next step, an additional document needs to be uploaded that contains details about the user’s residential/business address. These documents are used to verify address information.

Step 3 – Verification and Dispatching Results

The address extracted from the documents is analysed through a series of checks.  The verification results are shared with the customer and the client in their back-office using an API call. 

What Is Checked During Address Verification?

The address verification solution utilizes identity documents submitted by the user to extract relevant information. Below are some document-related checks that are performed during the process of validating the address:

• Is the user’s full name mentioned on the document?
• Is the document possibly photoshopped, forged, or compromised in any way?
• The full address should be displayed on the document in an accurate format
• The document does not have any crumpled edges and is fully visible

Once the document authenticity checks are complete, and the relevant information is extracted using OCR technology, the user’s complete address is verified against certain parameters. For instance, the house number and the postal code are compared with the information provided by the client. The AVS sends a specific code in case an address match fails or there is an important detail missing. 

How does AVS deal with Chargeback Fraud?

Oftentimes, fraudsters make an online purchase and after using it for a month or two, they file a chargeback claiming that they didn’t receive the product. This becomes a hassle with the lack of a proper mechanism to guarantee that the product was delivered to the right address. An address plays a vital role in indicating the risk related to a digital transaction. Bad actors use empty houses as drop-off points to carry out their fraudulent activities costing merchants around $20 billion yearly. 

Address verification is an essential requirement in meeting KYC/AML standards for sectors such as e-commerce and gaming, etc. A purpose-built address verification system allows businesses to serve legitimate customers, identify and remove risks, and perform business operations free from fraud. Using AVS also helps enterprises elevate their ID verification protocols for secure customer onboarding. 

Machine Learning and Efficient AVS

Digital solutions now come with the power of artificial intelligence and its derivatives like machine learning (ML) and computer vision. An address verification system based on machine learning has the ability to self-learn address data without putting in much effort each time. Data fields on a particular document can now be easily understood by the intelligent solution because it already knows what they look like. 

Today, intelligent AVS incorporates geospatial tools that combine address data with location analytics for a foolproof verification of the customer’s identity. This improves the quality of data that the system learns to better track future customers. Moreover, online forms can now save addresses and other personal details like name, DoB, and ZIP/postal code to provide the end-user with helpful suggestions.  

A ‘No’ to Failed Deliveries

Around 19% of failed deliveries occur due to inaccurate address information, costing businesses a good deal of their revenue. A real-time address verification service can collect the required data during account openings, ensure on-time deliveries, creating better opportunities for customer conversion.

The improvement in data quality by using an AVS reduces failed deliveries and the time and effort customer care teams need to invest in addressing address-related complaints. This helps a business focus more on revenue-building and creating a better brand reputation.

What Does Shufti’s Address Verification Offer?

Address Verification Service by Shufti uses high-end technology powered by artificial intelligence to optimise address information of a business’ customers.  With high-quality address data, enterprises are able to reduce chargeback fraud and mailing costs resulting in inaccurate and false addresses provided by fraudsters. This acts as a supplementary security measure to ensure AML/CFT standards and builds a system for reputational risk management.

With Shufti’s Address Verification solution, online businesses can deliver the right product to the right customer using accurate proof of address. This way, customers can enjoy a purposeful experience while corporate entities and e-commerce platforms can continue to deliver their services with confidence.    

Does your business require address verification checks? If so, get in touch with our experts.