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QAS Pro helps Lexicon Marketing speak language of success
When Lexicon Marketing, which sells America's leading learn-at-home English course to Hispanics, wanted help ensuring that their 50-lb packages of educational videos and books reached the correct addresses on time, they implemented QAS Pro address verification software. The results: decreased fulfillment and printing costs due to fewer items lost in the mail, less labor by call center staff due to an easier method of entering addresses given over the phone, and increased profits overall.
The problem: Bad addresses nibble away at profits
Lexicon Marketing was founded in 1974 to serve the needs of a growing Hispanic community in America. Since then, the company has created the nation's leading English-language course and has expanded to 18 offices, with over 700 employees. In 1994, Lexicon responded to the incredible growth of its market by creating The Hispanic Call Center. This bilingual telemarketing and customer service center is dedicated exclusively to organizations interested in accessing the learn-at-home-English community in the U.S. and currently helps many Fortune 500 clients tap into this lucrative and growing market.
As Lexicon grew and integrated the language and call center businesses, it became clear that the common denominator for success was the customer address.
"Everything we do is based on getting the addresses correct," said Vince Romao,
Director of Call Center Services. "From our call center to our shipments of very
heavy, expensive materials, a bad address affects profits in a number of different
ways. We needed a solution that would make it easy for us to ensure correct
addresses."
Adding to the need for automated address verification was the nature of Lexicon's customer base.
"By definition, many of our customers are new to the U.S. and don't speak the language", added Romao. "They may not yet be familiar with American address standards, which means they don't give correct addresses over the phone. We knew that if we could find a way to let our call center operators recognize a bad address as it's being given over the phone, we'd solve the problem right at the beginning of the process and avoid major hassles down the road."
Lexicon staffers had been turning to AccuMail software as well as the U.S. Postal Service® web site for help verifying addresses, but, "These solutions weren't granular enough for us," said Romao. "Specifically, they did not identify apartments within an apartment building and didn't give enough modifications for a street number. If we needed to get a package to 22 NE Fifth Street, we needed a software that could handle that kind of complexity."
The solution: Stopping bad addresses in their tracks
Romao and his team began evaluating QAS Pro in August of 2001. QAS Pro verifies addresses against the U.S. Postal Service database at points of entry. This ensures that only USPS® verified addresses enter a database, providing a higher degree of data integrity.
Within weeks, they realized that QAS Pro was the ideal solution. Lexicon staffers completed implementation of QAS Pro quickly, needing only minimal help from QAS support. User training for the call center phone agents and other data entry personnel was also minimal, thanks to the easy-to-use interface of QAS Pro.
The results: Shipping costs decrease; cross-selling grows
Romao cites several benefits to the QAS solution. The most important one is a decrease in 50-lb packages returned due to incorrect addresses.
"This is a critical benefit for us," said Romao. "By ensuring that our packages get to the right place the first time around, we've managed significant savings in fulfillment."
Call center phone agents are also logging greater success and less time per call now that they spend less time ensuring that the customer is giving the correct address. Each operator can now handle a greater number of calls and can spend more time selling per call.
Conclusion: A look ahead
Lexicon Marketing was watching address errors eat profits and waste call center time. By implementing QAS Pro, they were able to fix address errors as they're entered into the system, an upstream solution that cuts costs, saves time, and increases revenues.
