Melissa Patent for Smart Proximity Matching Technology Renewed; Capabilities Boost Data Quality Efforts

Melissa’s MatchUp tool leverages proprietary distance matching algorithm to ensure a single, accurate view of the customer

Melissa, a leading provider of global data quality, identity verification, and address management solutions, today announced the renewal of its patent for proximity matching technology featured in its global data quality tools and services. Integrated into MatchUp®, Melissa’s customer data deduplication software, the company’s patented distance algorithm enables distance criteria to be used in matching customer records, capitalizing on latitude, longitude, and proximity thresholds to help data managers eliminate duplicate records. These capabilities are especially beneficial in data quality operations for direct mail and marketing efforts across a range of sectors, including insurance, banking, healthcare, and more.

“The ability to identify duplicate records that are geographically close to one another is one more advantage in data management. Proximity matching is an ideal and innovative method of consolidating and removing duplicate business and customer records,” said Phil Maitino, Chief Technology Officer, Melissa. “Duplicates result in waste and inefficiencies that cloud your ability to get a single, accurate view of the customer.”

Using location attributes, MatchUp can match buildings with different addresses by identifying alternate entrances common to large campus-style facilities. This allows for the detection of matching records at different addresses but within a specified distance from each other, complementing the software’s additional data-matching capabilities such as survivorship and householding.

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MatchUp was designed based on a heuristic approach, to resolve customer and contact data quality issues by increasing the identification of duplicate records while minimizing false matches or minimizing matches between genuinely unique records. The software includes proprietary and standard algorithms to detect phonetic, fuzzy, miskeyed, and abbreviated variations, combined with deep domain knowledge of names, including nicknames and multicultural name variations, and international addresses.

MatchUp can identify and consolidate records that are members of the same household to better understand customer relationships, lifecycle, and needs. The application brings together multiple business accounts into “corporate families” to build insight and better evaluate the total sales relationship. Householding can also be used to eliminate unnecessary multiple mailings to the same household to cut down on wasted print, production, and postage costs. Overall, the tool selects the best elements from multiple records to survive consolidation, ideal for the creation of golden records for a single customer view.

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