RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA--(Marketwire - June 8, 2010) - Melissa Data (www.melissadata.com), a leading developer of high performance data quality and address management solutions, announced the launch of their Data Quality Challenge. Companies are invited to submit a sample of their contact database and Melissa Data will analyze it to uncover data quality issues for free. The company will showcase the challenge at the upcoming Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition (IRCE 2010) held in Chicago, June 8th - 11th, and offer prizes for participants who try the Data Quality Challenge for themselves.
Bad data costs U.S. companies $611 billion dollars annually according to TDWI. Many companies know they have data quality issues, but don't know how to look for, identify, or correct bad data.
"In days of tightening marketing budgets, companies need to efficiently reach every customer and qualified prospect," said Greg Brown, marketing director for Melissa Data. "We developed the Data Quality Challenge to give companies quick insight into the types of bad contact data in their systems, like invalid street addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, which often result in lost marketing and sales opportunities, waste associated with undeliverable mail, and costly return shipping fees."
Companies taking the Data Quality Challenge will receive a scorecard with the percentage of invalid, outdated or redundant data lurking in their customer database. The Data Quality Challenge costs nothing, and there are no commitments or strings attached at all.
The results of the Data Quality Challenge will give companies a better idea of what bad data is costing them and provide IT managers with real-world numbers they can use to make the case for implementing a data quality initiative that will save the company money immediately.
Melissa Data offers a 120-day ROI guarantee for companies that implement a data quality initiative using its tools to verify, correct, update and match customer data. These multiplatform tools include solutions developed specifically for Java, .NET, Oracle, and many other languages and programming interfaces -- all of which are available as free 30-day trial downloads.
For more information on, or to participate in the Data Quality Challenge, please visit www.MelissaData.com/challenge.
ABOUT MELISSA DATA
Melissa Data is an active DMA member, as well as a member of the DMA's List & Database Council. The company was named #1 in Customer Satisfaction in a 2009 data quality survey report conducted by analyst house, The Information Difference. Since 1985, Melissa Data has been a leading provider of data quality solutions with emphasis on U.S., Canadian, and international address and phone verification, and postal software. For more information, visit www.MelissaData.com or call 1-800-MELISSA (635-4772).
Contact Information:
For more information contact:
Shana Starr / Jason Kirshner
RMS Public Relations -