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Published on: December 2003
Type of content: ANALYST REPORT
Format: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)
Length: 6 pages
Price: $700.00

Overview:
Maintaining accurate information for large contact lists is a critical need for most executives, salespeople, and customer service representatives. Inaccurate contact information leads to lost productivity, missed revenue opportunities, and lower levels of customer service. Until recently, however, there was no automated tool to help busy executives keep their lists of 300, 500, or more business contacts accurate and up to date.

With the widespread adoption of e-mail and the Internet, several vendors are now offering contact update software and services that help automate the process of keeping accurate contact information. These services all mine a user's Microsoft Outlook, Palm, or other address books and automatically send e-mails to the contacts listed. The e-mails request that the user's contacts update their information on a Web site or directly through the e-mail message. Once they have responded with an update, the system fills the user's address book with the correct data.

This e-mail request method of gathering updated information is yet to be proven and has some inherent flaws. The critical metric for the success of contact verification systems is the response rate to those e-mail requests. Therefore, no matter what extemporaneous features vendors may tout, the ones that matter most to the success and ROI potential of a contact verification system are the features that increase response rates.