Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software

• Home
• Our Company
• Press Room
• Press Release

Press Release

Leading E-Businesses Adopt Innovative Technology to Enhance Operational and Marketing Effectiveness

Lanham, MD - Group 1 Software (Nasdaq: GSOF) today announced the release of DataQuality.net, its revolutionary new Web service developed jointly with the industry-leading Application Service Provider, USinternetworking (USi, Nasdaq: USIX). DataQuality.net allows e-businesses to obtain and utilize enriched data on customers and prospects by combining worldwide address verification with appended customer demographics and geographic coding — all in real-time. The result is much more effective e-marketing and greater customer satisfaction with the e-commerce relationship. Leading e-businesses are utilizing the Web service, including CyberSource (Nasdaq: CYBS), a provider of e-commerce transaction services, as well as the nation's largest newspaper, Gannett's (NYSE: GCI) USA Today. These and the other early adopters expect to obtain significant benefits from DataQuality.net.

In addition to address verification, DataQuality.net provides real-time appended customer demographic data based on a customer's or prospect's geographic location. This demographic information enables e-businesses to develop highly targeted marketing programs including real-time message and response interaction with Web site visitors. Such targeted marketing programs can dramatically increase the effectiveness of both on-line and off-line marketing. It is important to note that since this demographic information does not include personally identifiable information, privacy concerns are minimized.

Another important feature of DataQuality.net is geographic coding. DataQuality.net can return in real-time the exact geographic location of a customer address. Data provided includes latitude and longitude, state, county, city and place name (for potential taxation purposes). Web sites can easily direct customers to the nearest physical location, such as a retail or service outlet.

A significant challenge to today's e-tailers is the ability to deliver goods to the correct address in a timely fashion, which is obviously critical to customer satisfaction. Only DataQuality.net can validate, correct, and/or format customer and prospect addresses in real-time for the United States, Canada, and over 200 countries worldwide. With the increasing globalization of e-commerce, this functionality will continue to assume even greater importance.

"Offerings such as Group 1's DataQuality.net Web service will play a valuable role as e-businesses realize the need to ensure customer satisfaction by providing for on-time, accurate delivery of goods and services," said Barry Wilderman, vice president of META Group's Application Delivery Strategy service. "By providing enriched customer demographics, these types of services can also help e-tailers garner a greater understanding of their customers, provide a more personalized on-line experience, and improve target marketing campaigns."

"We're using DataQuality.net to enhance the power and accuracy of the CyberSource Delivery Address Verification (DAV) Service," said Tracy Wilk, vice president of product management for CyberSource. "DAV allows our merchant customers to validate addresses online in real-time, helping to maximize customer satisfaction and minimize returns as well as shipping and handling costs."

"As we expand our on-line subscription services, DataQuality.net is playing a vital role in ensuring that we have accurate address data for our customers," said Chuck Walley, manager of enterprise solutions at USA TODAY. "With this innovative solution, we can now validate subscribers' addresses while they are on our site."

"Our highly successful Beta program has demonstrated that DataQuality.net, this first-of-its-kind Web service, can fill a vital operational function in the customer relationship management and e-commerce systems of today's leading e-businesses," said Ken Chow, executive director of marketing at Group 1. "Accurate customer information is a mission-critical requirement not only for on-line commerce but for a wide variety of CRM applications throughout the enterprise."

According to John Liccione, vice president and general manager of E-Business Services at USinternetworking, Inc., "Group 1's DataQuality.net service, hosted by USi, will enable e-businesses to reduce the operational costs associated with inaccurate address data. It will also provide appended customer demographics, resulting in more effective e-commerce marketing programs. USi is pleased to be providing the application infrastructure on which DataQuality.net delivers its high-quality solution to global e-commerce providers."

For a product demonstration of DataQuality.net, visit Group 1's booth (#1026) at the Internet Commerce Expo at the San Jose Convention Center, September 12-14.

Group 1 Software is a leading provider of software for data quality, database marketing, electronic document composition applications, and mailing efficiency and direct marketing applications. Group 1 supports MVS, VSE, AS/400, UNIX (including Linux), Windows NT, Windows 2000 and other operating systems and various computers. Group 1 has offices throughout the United States and in Canada, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe; the Miami office serves the Latin American market. The company is also represented in Asia and Australia.

# # #

This press release may contain statements relating to future plans, events or performance of Group 1. Such statements may involve risks and uncertainties, including risks associated with uncertainties pertaining to customer orders, demand for products and services, development of markets for Group 1's products and services and other risks identified in Group 1's SEC filings. Words like "ensure," "facilitate," and "dramatically" are intended to identify forward looking statements. Actual results, events and performance of Group 1 may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which address the conditions as they are found on the date of this press release. Group 1 undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. For additional information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties associated with Group 1's business, reference is made to the reports filed from time to time by Group with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Group 1 Software is a registered trademark and DataQuality.net is a trademark of Group 1 Software, Inc. All other brand names, trademarks and registered trademarks represented herein are the property of their respective owners.

• Print this Page
• Tell a Friend