Is delivering next-day switching a challenge?
The address data challenge
The arrival of next-day switching in tandem with bulk switching events, provoked by the collapse of energy suppliers, has thrown the spotlight on the cost of inaccurate address data.
Even a small percentage of errors means that Ofgem’s requirement to pay compensation of £30 (up to a max of £120) for switching mistakes made by suppliers can be very costly. Yet, with over 23 million address changes every year, many utilities struggle to maintain up-to-date address data, leading to erroneous transfers and inaccurate billing.
The cost to energy suppliers is likely to rise substantially as next-day switching adds significant time pressure. And while the continued energy crisis may have hampered cost-driven switching, consumer demand for better customer service is creating an upswing in switching activity.
The volatility of the energy market continues, creating a fragility that could lead to losing yet more suppliers before the crisis ends. As consumers are forced to move from collapsed suppliers, surviving companies are challenged to integrate huge amounts of customer data into their systems. If the address data is not formatted in the British Standard BS7666, complete with Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs) to underpin every address, the energy companies will struggle to identify single truth addresses.
The benefits of clean, accurate British Standard address data extend well beyond enabling next-day switching. In addition to reducing compensation costs and loss of new customers due to unrecognised addresses, it will save time through more efficient processes. And crucially, it will maximise revenue as more households will be billed correctly for the energy used.
More than
130,000
switched erroneously annually*
£30
automatic compensation for switching mistakes
2.7m+
address changes made every six weeks**
*Latest published figures reported by Ofgem for 2018/2019
** According to the national addressing hub, GeoPlace, more than 2.7 million address changes are made nationally every six weeks.
Introducing Idox’s advanced address data solutions
Idox’s address data solutions are unique in ensuring data is accurate, formatted in the British Standard and compatible with that of the Central Switching Service (CSS).
Why does this matter? Because when a customer contacts an energy company with a request to switch, that request goes directly to the CSS. If their verified address data does not match with that of an energy company, be it the current or new supplier, it will impact the accuracy of the switch as well as the ability to deliver next-day switching.
Our transformative address management solution allows you to cleanse, maintain and share accurate address data from one central source. It utilises the most up-to-date and accurate dataset available, AddressBase Premium, providing the UPRNs and Unique Street Reference Numbers (USRN) to underpin every address. This ensures compatibility with the CSS data, as well as providing you with the most accurate address data that can be linked to other datasets via the UPRNs and USRNs.
Three reasons to use Idox’s address management solution
Address matching and cleansing
Our high-speed automated matching solution is capable of matching up to 50 million addresses in ten hours. This means minimum disruption to daily business.
As the address technology partner to the CSS, we have matched and cleansed their data using AddressBase Premium, reformatting it in the British Standard complete with UPRNs. You can optimise your address data through the same process, ensuring the most up-to-date addresses as well as compatibility with CSS data. Once cleansed and matched with UPRNs, you can match your meter IDs to your address data to ensure accuracy of supply, maintenance and billing, as well as reducing the risk of erroneous transfers.
How is AddressBase Premium compiled?
We enable you to cross-reference address data and meter IDs
Maintaining and sharing accurate data
Our feature-rich Address Management System (AMS) enables you to enhance and maintain your address data to the British Standard centrally, providing UPRNs and USRNs for linking disparate datasets.
Regular automated updates are pushed out to your operational systems to ensure accuracy and consistency across the whole utility. In addition, you can store your meter IDs against the relevant addresses, so it’s quick and easy to identify what meter is associated with an address, or what address relates to a specific meter. This simple cross-referencing ensures greater efficiency when it comes to switching, billing and maintenance.
Fast, predictive address search
Our address search APIs search your Idox AMS to provide the most up-to-date and accurate address, complete with UPRN and matched meter ID. If you’re not using our AMS to manage your data, you can still use the APIs to search AddressBase Premium for an accurate address and UPRN.
Searches via browser, operational system or mobile phone are highly secure and resilient, enabling you to run extensive searches by multiple users simultaneously. In addition to the CSS using our address search APIs to power their address lookups, GeoPlace use our technology to drive FindMyAddress. co.uk – test it out for yourself.
Use Idox’s address data solutions for:
Accuracy
Consistency
Efficiency
Inter-connectivity
Why use our address data solutions to cleanse and maintain your address data to the AddressBase Premium standard?
No.1
Most comprehensive address data source in GB
6 weeks
Updated every six weeks (soon to be updated every week)
BS7666
Adheres to British Standard BS7666 for addressing
UPRN
Contains the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) for all properties
USRN
Contains the Unique Street Reference Numbers for all streets
Geo
Has geo coordinates for all addresses/streets, enabling use within a GIS