Adding address validation to your website for customers or internal systems for staff use has multiple benefits:
Speed
How long does it take to type your address?
Using a keyboard it took 16 seconds to type:
18 Weatherhill Rise
Oakes
Huddersfield
HD32AF
The same address took 23 seconds on a mobile device.
Luckily, address lookup and address validation means the same address can be found by just entering the postcode and selecting the house number or typing the house number then the postcode.
Customers are used to a fast online checkout experience, adding between 16 and 23 seconds to this journey can cause potential sales to not complete.
Accuracy
Speed is one aspect, but accuracy is essential if you want your goods or services to reach the customer.
Time it takes to enter details will be dwarfed in customer annoyance if an order doesn’t reach them, has to be returned and resent!
Using address verification at the point of entry ensures only accurate addresses can be selected.
Formatting
Storing data in multiple formats can lead to a multitude of issues.
If a decision is taken to move systems data could be lost during exports and imports
Mail and parcel labels lead to customers asking “why does my address look like that?” when they receive their delivery.
By having controls in place to validate address data is accurate, also ensures address formatting is consistent.
GDPR approved
A key part of GDPR confirms “Personal data shall be: (d) accurate” Address data is personal data when it is entered along with a customer’s name. Postcode lookup and address lookup helps facilitate accuracy of persona data and meet the regulations.
Analysis
Organisations wanting to identify their “ideal customers” to upsell to or find prospective customers that match their characteristics will struggle if analysis is based on inaccurate or missing data.
The Postcode People at AFD Software have nearly 40 years’ experience helping thousands of organisations get address data accurate. A combination of; the best team with 450 years of combined experience, the best data sources utilising in house, Royal Mail PAF and Ordnance Survey (OS) Address Base within the best solutions make AFD the ideal choice as your partners in address and data quality.
To find out more and try out our address lookup solutions click here or contact one of the team today.
Next week, AFD Software are attending the UCISA conference in Manchester.
If you or a member of your team are attending, we look forward to seeing you at stand 96.
We will be hosting live demonstrations of our HE specific solutions that include;
Address, email and phone validation and cleansing of existing student contact data.
Further information about AFD’s education-specific solutions that over 90 Universities rely on can be seen here.
The postcode is made up of five to seven letters and numbers that indicate four different levels of a geographic unit. It’s part of a coding system developed by the Royal Mail and used to sort mail across the United Kingdom. Postcodes are an abbreviated form of address, that groups together delivery points (property or post boxes).
Full valid postcodes can be validated with AFD’s address lookup solutions at https://www.afd.co.uk/try-it/
There are two elements to each postcode. The outward postcode, or outcode, is the first portion. This is separated from the second part, which is the inward postcode, or incode, by a single space.
The outward postcode allows mail to be delivered to the right local area. Both area and district are contained within this part of the code.
The inward code sorts mail at each local area delivery office. Containing a numeric character that identifies the sector in the postal district then two alphabetic characters defining one or more properties within the sector.
For example: HD3 3WZ
HD states the postcode area of Huddersfield. The UK has 124 postcode areas in total.
HD3 is the postcode district in the postcode area of Huddersfield. There are 2,979 postcode districts.
HD3 3 refers to the postcode sector. There are 11,228 postcode sectors.
HD3 3WZ. The WZ completes the postcode. The last two letters define the ‘unit
postcode’ which identifies one or more small user delivery points – in the case of HD3 3WZ, 26 delivery points.
As of January 2022, there are 1,785,571 postcodes in the UK.
Presented by Joshua Comish, DevOps Engineer for the AFD Group.
SaaS (Software as a Service) and Cloud computing are an extremely powerful set of tools that empower organisations to expand their IT operations quickly and cost efficiently. Companies moving from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud save an average of 20% – 40% on their computing resources and additional labour savings. Cloud computing has come a long way since its origins in the early 2000’s and so in this presentation Josh will guide to you through exactly what it is , and how you get started in using it in your business?
For more information and to secure your FREE place click here.
To watch this talk via live stream on the evening, click here.
These are the UK’s “golden postcodes” based on properties that have the highest value per square foot by region:
London
SW1X
SW13
NW1
SW19 Of Wimbledon fame
NW1
South East
OX2 – Oxford
GU5 – Guildford
RH5 – Dorking
East
CB3 – Cambridge
AL5 – Harpenden
South West
BA1 – Bath
TQ7 – Kingsbridge
Midlands
CV35 – Warwick
CV37 – Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare’s birthplace
S18 – Dronfield
LE15 – Oakham
Yorkshire & the Humber
LS21 – Otley
YO1 – York
North West
LA12 – Ulverston
WA16 – Knutsford
North East
NE45 – Corbridge
Wales
LL53 – Abersoch Jonathan Stocks, Head of Sales and Marketing at AFD’s favourite holiday destination
In January 2021 the Postcode Address File (PAF) contained 30,968,535 delivery points.
Just 12 months later the number of delivery points has grown by 341,379 to total 31,309,914!
This figure alone justifies the importance of having access to the latest available data to validate and cleanse address details, but as we dig deeper the total number of changes within PAF grows further:
Localities added 43
New postcodes 34,475
Delivery point changes 76,992
PAF Facts
Number of Postcode Areas 124
Number of Postcodes 1,785,571
Number of Post Towns 1,500
Number of organisations that rely on PAF 40,000
For further information and the latest data updates visit www.afd.co.uk/data-news
According to the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF), there are over 700 streets in the UK referencing Robert Burns.
The Scottish national holiday held today continues to celebrate the life and work of the national poet of Scotland, Robert Burns.
We hope you enjoy your Burns supper of Haggis, neeps (swede), and tatties (potatoes).
Did you know AFD Software started in Scotland? Read more about the AFD story here.
There are 40 “New Year” addresses within the UK’s best reference point for UK addresses, the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF).
We assume the NYE parties at New Years Lane in Sevenoaks were among the best in the UK!
Other “New Year” addresses include:
New Years Lodge
Orby
SPILSBY
Lincolnshire
PE23 5SW
Newyearfield Farm Community Centre
LIVINGSTON
West Lothian
EH54 6AB
New Years Green Lane
Harefield
UXBRIDGE
Hillingdon
UB9 6LX
A recent article declared “The coolest postcodes to move to in 2022”, we didn’t completely agree and made one revision – can you guess which?
NG1, Hockley, Nottingham
NE67, Beadnell, Northumberland
SA3, Mumbles, Swansea
M4, Ancoats, Manchester
TA13, South Petherton, Somerset
DT7, Lyme Regis, Dorset
PO40, Freshwater, Isle of Wight
IV26, Tanera Mòr, the Inner Hebrides
L39, Aughton, Lancashire
IM7, Ramsey, ISLE OF MAN
BN1, Brighton, Sussex
TQ13, Widecombe in the Moor, Devon
We serve thousands of organisations and a network of hundreds of partners across multiple industry sectors, enabling them to have full confidence in their contact data.