In early December, AFD Software donated £1,500,000 to over 80 staff nominated charities.

Every year, the entire team of staff each have the opportunity to nominate a charity of their choice to receive a donation from AFD Software. 

It is a huge motivation for all staff to know that the work they do in their respective roles is helping to relieve the suffering of those in need. 

Our directors also nominate a range of organisations to receive support from the business.

AFD’s expert Data Teams have spent the last year improving both the quantity and quality of existing grid reference data, and how quickly new postcodes have grids added to them.

A combination of utilising the best available data sources and AFD’s analysis to correct a few anomalies in those data sources, has resulted in reducing the gap between new postcodes being provided with grids from between two and four months down to a month!

Not only has the time-lag in updating the data been reduced, but the coverage of our data is now even more comprehensive and the quality higher due to our increased investment in data sources.

We have been able to deliver improvements to existing grid data, accurate grids for most parts of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man (which previously only had grids at village or town level), and our Northern Ireland data enhancements have demonstrated a 6% uplift!

AFD’s Geocode API helps organisations that rely on accurate address and location data by appending property level grids to address data already held. You can see how this functionality works in the screenshot to the right or read more at www.afd.co.uk/solutions/geolookup.

Our exciting new developments around mapping, geolocation, geocoding and nearest functionality are helping organisations speed up the process and providing the optimal route to get their customers to the right location. Geolookup functionality allows a customer to enter the full address of their current location with one button press, ideal for customers on mobile devices with fiddly keyboards.

Mapping
Drive time and drive distance calculations are increasing in use as organisations look to plan routes with optimal time and route efficiency for deliveries. AFD Maps calculates a route, drive time and drive distance based on the origin and destination address data entered (A-B) or a list of specified addresses (waypoints). Optimal waypoint order can be enabled taking a list of addresses and suggesting the best route with an origin and destination. Maximising efficiency for both fuel and driver time when completing the journey.

Innovation is key to growth. AFD Software has grown to become the world’s leading specialist on UK addressing by understanding the pains our customers face and developing solutions to solve them.

Our highly experienced team has over 450 years of combined experience helping organisations get data right. Although some of our team were not born when PN1 was delivered in 1995, [Ed, eek!], many of the younger professionals in our business have spent their whole working lives with us, attracted by our good working conditions and kept engaged by our innovation, thus becoming experts in their own right.

We have highlighted some of the key AFD developments over the years, demonstrating our history of innovation.

In March 2020, when we counted the collective data management experience in the team at AFD, it was just over 450 years. Over half the team has been with the organisation for over 10 years and we have 9 team members who have been a part of AFD for over 20 years!

This collective experience and the people that make up those 450 years is what stands AFD apart as not just a supplier of Postcode Software, rather a trusted partner to all our customers, continuing to serve them now through difficult times and well into the future.

As a team, all staff at AFD go the second mile in helping colleagues, customers and suppliers. We are constantly on the lookout for ways to ease the burden of those who are carrying additional workloads at times of crisis. Our teams are available to serve all our customers as we always have done and our commitment in continuing to do so remains steadfast and as strong as ever. AFD will continue to support you through the difficult times and we will rejoice together on the other side.

Aside from being part of a great team, serving wonderful customers and constantly innovating our range of solutions, our place of work itself, Mountain View Innovation Centre (MVIC) is an inspiring place to work from each day. Set in beautiful surroundings, especially this time of year with the countryside “Springing” into life, it brings thoughts of hope and reassurance. (you will find some pictures of our stunning surroundings at www.mvic.im – do take a look!)

Our investment in this resilient infrastructure is paying huge dividends as we have the space and capacity to keep our team safely spaced out – or, rather, “Socially Distanced”, and by introducing rigorous additional hygiene procedures, help them to keep working productively in a safe environment.

There is much encouragement to take from the example of the seasons. Yes, the winter was bleak, but days are now longer than night, the sun is shining, gardens and countryside are filling with new growth and colour. Winter will not last forever.

We are here for you, and hope you, and yours, remain safe and well in these troubling times.

During the unprecedented situation we currently find ourselves in, where people, especially the highly vulnerable, have been asked to stay within their homes, delivery services have become vital. To maximise the efficiency of these already stretched services and ensure vital supplies are reaching those in need, having accurate contact data – name, address, sometimes email and phone number too – is essential.

For over 38 years, AFD Software has been developing and maintaining solutions that allow contact data to be validated at the point of entry and cleansed. Our solutions help ensure that order processing is fast, details are stored in the correct format and most importantly at this time, that goods are delivered accurately. Perhaps there has never been such a critical time for data accuracy.

In an interview for a recent edition of Postcode News, Val Hayden, Patient Administration System & Data Quality Manager at The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust, described the importance of AFD’s solutions to the Health Sector: “Staff and patients alike benefit from faster data entry as time can be better spent on making patients feel comfortable and providing the correct level of care as opposed to filling out and doublechecking each part of their address. Storing data in the correct format means that addresses are more easily searchable, retrievable and reportable.”

Contact data validation provided by AFD is allowing the NHS to more efficiently process essential patient calls and admissions when staff time is even more precious at this moment than usual; it is allowing retailers to continue to provide goods via online services that can’t be bought in shops; and it is allowing supermarkets to get food to people’s homes. All without wasting valuable time and resource looking for the right address.

Speaking about the key role AFD has in British Logistics, AFD Group Managing Director David Dorricott states; “Since more products like food, medicines and supplies are being delivered direct, our technologies are even more vital and important than ever. We can make our very special contribution to the stability and reliability of the supply chain, by continuing to provide excellent data products and services, and supporting them fully throughout what we believe will be a very long period of disruption.

The Postcode Address File shows a fast-moving landscape – for example with new facilities brought on stream to help the NHS cope. Over 32,000 new delivery points were added to the PAF data used by over 40,000 organisations in the space of a month. In late March, with everything else going on, our dedicated staff team at AFD worked through the night to get that data out on time, fully checked and verified. They are remarkable.”

AFD plays a key role in serving the United Kingdom in working with the Royal Mail to update the Postcode Address File (PAF) and deliver it to all users. New data is processed every month, producing a suite of files from optical character recognition data for Royal Mail sorting machines through to multiple-residency details and geolocated addresses down to a 1 metre level of accuracy.

In January 1997, AFD Software anticipated the impending business opportunities that the internet and online shopping would bring. “Postcode Internet” was launched, allowing – for the first time – websites accepting orders and capturing customer details to validate the address provided, so making orders easier to complete for the customer, and delivery more accurate and reliable.

Fast-forward to 2020 and AFD’s full range of contact data validation solutions including name, address, bank, email and telephone validation are all available as online solutions.

Millions of online lookups are handled by AFD each year; our solutions help ensure communications are accurate, deliveries go to a valid address, payment details are correct and data entry is lightning fast.

It’s safe to say AFD’s early “hunch” was correct: according to the Office for National Statstics, e-commerce sales by businesses in the UK nonfinancial sector were £688 billion in 2018, rising from £582 billion in 2017.

Abandon ship?
Although e-commerce sales are rapidly growing each year, there is room for improvement around making the customer journey as simple to navigate as possible.

“Cart abandonment” is when an item is added to a basket but not purchased. A recent survey based on data from 41 different studies provided an average cart abandonment rate on e-commerce sites across all sectors at nearly 70%. When using a mobile device to shop online this figure is even higher at just over 80%.

A key reason stated in the survey was the checkout process taking too long to enter all data required and being overly complicated.

AFD’s solutions minimise the complexity and time taken of the checkout process, allowing your site to convert more orders. Customers will benefit from a smooth online shopping experience that they would happily use again.

Expanding Integrations
Our highly experienced teams do not rest on their laurels nor bask in our historical success as online pioneers, they are constantly working on implementation tools for a wide range of web platforms and technologies. AFD has recently added the following to our range of integration options:

jQuery Plugin
Our jQuery plugin makes adding functionality to input controls on web pages simple. The plugin is also compatible with Bootstrap 3 & 4 form validation standards as well as the constraint validation API.

In most cases, the out of the box code will be exactly what is required, however there are many configuration options that will allow developers to implement the desired AFD solution with flexibility. Our experienced support team are on hand to advise in all cases – and if you’ve no idea at all what these geeky terms mean, just give our friendly team a call, and they will help!

Magento 1 & 2
Magento is a highly customisable and robust e-commerce platform with many features. Most importantly, AFD Software is now available as a feature via our Magento Integration Extension which supports both Magento 1 and 2.

Shopify
Another leading e-commerce platform that AFD’s solutions can be integrated within is Shopify. More suitable for organisations without inhouse developers, Shopify is simple to setup and start the process of online-selling.

In short, we have ready-made plugins and integration options to provide access to our powerful range of contact data validation solutions. If you have a system or platform that requires our functionality, we can provide it.

www.afd.co.uk/developers

Joe Browns was founded in 1998 as a mail order clothing business that has now grown to a large online lifestyle brand with an increasing physical retail presence. Inspired by a group of friends’ collective spirit of being “fun, spontaneous and free”, these foundations have been retained and instilled into the culture, staff, products, website, catalog and stores.

We sat down with Darren Abbott, Finance Director at Joe Browns Ltd, to ask why AFD Software was selected to manage customer contact data accuracy.

In early November, AFD Software hosted its 2019 charity evening at Babbages, the events venue located at Mountain View Innovation Centre in the Isle of Man.

All of the team and Directors at AFD nominate charities of their choice to receive a donation. Working for AFD is described as “more than just a job”. Having the knowledge that their efforts at work directly contribute to the relief of suffering around the world is a wonderful incentive for the team to continually work hard and make a difference in their respective roles.