Mitigating Flood Risk with Location Intelligence

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While some weather patterns are predictable, extreme weather events tend to run on their own calendar. Unfortunately, severe weather events have a tendency to cause the most damage and are occurring on a more frequent basis, resulting in a substantial financial impact on Canadian insurers.   According to Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ), in 2018 insured damage from severe weather events across Canada reached a staggering $1.9 billion.

Canada will no doubt continue to experience catastrophic weather events, but insurance professionals have solutions available that can help mitigate risks and reduce the financial impact of these events.  Location Intelligence is an emerging field that provides substantial benefit to the insurance industry – from policy quote and approval processes through to claims management and customer service.

Advances in cloud computing are enabling insurers to migrate traditional geospatial analytics from an off-line manual process to real-time integrated solutions and automated workflows.  Using location as a common point of reference, users are able to connect policy, property, claims and third-party data together to gain insight into the property and the surrounding area – allowing them to quickly analyze, visualize and assess property risk.

One common use case is the real-time, automated analysis of a proposed policy vs flood zones, earthquake zones and other potential perils.  Getting a high precision view of where a property sits versus identified risks, allows for more accurate assessments. The availability of real-time location data offers two primary benefits.  The first is increased productivity, delivered by automating assessments and consolidating the output on one screen so that agents can make better faster decisions.  The second is proper pricing for the risk scenarios being proposed.  The key to enabling these benefits is to empower the end user with information in real time.

While an agent is assessing the risk of a potential property, location data can answer a multitude of questions: Is this property exposed to a 1/20, 1/100, 1/200, or 1/1500 year flood event? What are the types and magnitude of historical claims in the surrounding area? Is my accumulation risk too high, or am I able to take on any more policies in this area? Are the current policies priced to cover identified risk? The answers to these questions are imperative when an insurer is trying to accurately calculate total risk exposure from perils and flooding, and accurately quote the policy in a timely manner.

While severe weather events and flooding will continue to present risks to Canadian insurers, access to real-time location data, including flood information, can enable insurers to make more informed decisions during the approval process. While the weather will continue to be unpredictable, location intelligence is a powerful tool to protect your bottom line.

To learn more read our White Paper:  Mitigating Risk with Location Intelligence

 

Additional Reading:

Top 3 Ways Location Intelligence Empowers Underwriters

 

Address Data

6 Ways Bad Address Data is Impacting Your Business

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Much attention is typically paid to ensuring your customer contact information is accurate – that is names, phone numbers, and emails. But how much effort are you spending on your address data?

Despite your best efforts, it’s hard to stay on top of address updates. Even with strong address governance, correct information at the time of entry can quickly change. Between municipal amalgamations, street name and postal code changes, millions of addresses are affected every year in Canada. Studies have shown that 85% of all business data has a location component associated with it, and with complex analytics and “big data” becoming more popular, the quality of your address data is now more important than ever.

The impacts of incomplete, inaccurate and out-of-date address data can be numerous:

  1. Reduced insight into the locations of your current customers, making segmentation, market analysis, accumulation, and exposure analysis more difficult.
  2. Increased costs of acquiring new customers as it becomes more difficult to identify optimal segments for marketing campaigns.
  3. Missed opportunity by not being able to accurately identify potential customers that are within your trade area or close to existing infrastructure who are eligible for your products, services or special offers.
  4. Inefficient site planning as you may not be able to accurately geographically locate where your existing customers are and where the ideal location is to attract potential new customers.
  5. Mismanagement of your sales territories as you may not be able to accurately ensure that you have the correct coverage based on the location of your sales staff and your customers.
  6. Increased IT costs and systems overhead due to managing and reconciling multiple disparate databases with duplicate address entries.

DMTI is Canada’s expert when it comes to address quality. We offer a variety of solutions to help your organization ensure it’s working with the best quality address data available when you need it.

  • Ensure address accuracy upon entry to your enterprise business systems by integrating Location Hub®’s Address Suggest service into your address data capture screens.
  • Ensure address accuracy and improve address context in process by integrating Location Hub Address Recognition and Geocoding service into your transactional business systems.
  • Ensure address database currency and accuracy in batch by cleaning, correcting and standardizing all your addresses at once with Location Hub.

Wondering how accurate your address data is? Find out with our Free Address Quality Assessment, click here to learn more.

Additional Reading:

https://www.dmtispatial.com/2019/01/16/bad-location-data-is-hurting-your-business-heres-how-to-fix-it/

Location Intelligence and Analytics

How Strategic Territory Design Leads to More Sales

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Could your company be losing millions of dollars each year because of an imbalance in sales territories? Are you sure your sales force is not deploying too much effort against low-potential customers or doing too little to convert key prospects?

According to a study of 300 companies published in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, sales territory alignment is one of the most commonly overlooked areas of sales force productivity. And optimizing territory design can increase sales by 2 to 7% – without any additional resources or changes in the sales strategy.

Problems with poor territory design

If you really think about it, a major chunk of sales and marketing data is purely geographic in nature – the address of a prospect, postal code, city, phone number, demographics, etc. But, to draw up sales territories, sales operations managers have traditionally relied on Excel spreadsheets.   And there is only so much you can accomplish by flipping through one time-consuming spreadsheet after another.

Sales managers often end up leaving millions of dollars on the table simply because they are not aware that their territories are out of balance. So, while one sales representative may be chasing bad leads and struggling to stay busy, another may be ignoring challenging but high-potential prospects because they are already crushing their targets through easy accounts.

Think about it: Is there any specific territory where you have had trouble retaining salespeople? Could this quick turnover be a result of an opportunity mismatch – that salespeople become discouraged because of the lack of opportunity in their area and leave the organization?

You may be able to spot a similar trend in your incentive pay scheme too. Irrespective of how capable or hard working a salesperson is, their capability of taking home a fair share of incentive pay is significantly impacted by the equitability of sales territory design.
So, if you are looking to foster a culture where you reward someone for their true performance, it may be time to rethink how you design and manage your territories.

Target sales strategically with data visualization

The easiest and most straightforward way to divide sales territories in a fair and balanced manner is to visualize them on a map. And no, using a map does not mean taking a print out of the map of Canada and highlighting areas with different colored markers. It means leveraging sophisticated technologies to build territories based on key metrics like revenue goals, market opportunities, custom client information, government areas, proximity to salespeople’s base location, etc.

Territory Builder is a data visualization tool which allows you to group FSA/LDU (3 or 6 digit) postal codes or municipalities together to create equitable sales territories easily.   Built especially with non-technical people in mind, this Cloud-based visualization portal is powered by DMTI’s powerful Location Hub® Viewer module that automatically cleanses your data before displaying it on a map. With Territory Builder, visualizing and building territories on a Canadian map is as easy as uploading a CSV file of addresses or geographic information and using 3 or 6 digit postal codes to define boundaries.

And if your salespeople still think the territories are unfair, or launching a new product is shifting priorities, or you discover new sales opportunities in a region, you can easily manage and modify the boundaries. Since Territory Builder is a SaaS-based product, you can make live changes by reassigning postal codes to new territories.

Indeed, you cannot hope to optimally utilize your sales force and maximize profits unless you can picture the gap areas in your sales coverage clearly. DMTI’s Territory Builder is a powerful data visualization tool which will not only give you a more accurate view of your business, but it will also help you provide a fair challenge to your salespeople and drive home new revenue streams.

So, are you ready to increase the productivity and performance of your sales representatives?  Get in touch here.

Additional Reading:  

Territory Builder Brochure

Location Data

The Essential Equation: Data + Strategy

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Telecom is an industry that’s particular reliant on accurate location data, and the industry’s marketing specialists recognize the value of leveraging data to empower campaign decisions. Marketing campaigns developed according to critical location-based data points allows Telecom marketers to make smart decisions that ultimately reduce efforts and waste of time and resources, while maximizing spend.

Before choosing a location intelligence platform to deliver spatial insights, it’s important to ensure you’re using valid, quality data. Using ‘dirty data’ (data that’s invalid and outdated) can result in wasted time, bad decisions and failed strategies. In fact, a recent survey from Gartner showed that poor data quality cost organizations an average of $15 million! Many marketers fail to assess the quality of their data, and end up using dirty data to inform important marketing campaigns. This means using data with incorrect inputs, or purchasing data in bulk, but allowing it to remain static rather than continually updating it.   This is especially true when it comes to address data, which tends to be outdated and/or inaccurate.

Avoid working off of poor address data by choosing a highly rated, reliable location intelligence platform. Location data is not static, and it’s essential to leverage a platform that continually updates information. Postal codes change, people move, rural areas become developed, people acquire or sell assets, demographics shift. A strong location intelligence platform assures quality of data by profiling information to reveal inconsistencies, and is continually performing data cleansing to fill in missing data and remove outdated and irrelevant information. A continually updated source of data means your team saves time by not having to store data on servers and then manually correct information or work with potential inconsistencies. Location intelligence platforms offer Telecom companies the ability to analyze location data to develop campaigns that are vastly more effective and productive.

Many marketers make the mistake of uploading these data points into their CRM tool or OSS/BSS, where they remain static. This “set it and forget it” system is highly ineffective, as location data is constantly changing. The accuracy of data points  is essential because they apply to a variety of marketing efforts, from finding new customers, serving existing customers, implementing effective digital automation, and providing top tier services.

Organizations should start by reviewing their own location data to determine where data needs to be validated for accuracy. A strong location intelligence platform is critical for developing marketing campaigns that achieve campaign objectives because it ensures data is continually updated and accurate. For example, batch cleansing address information cleans, validates and enriches addresses, in addition to adding geocodes. This is the key to identifying new revenue streams, while ensuring you’re maintaining a strong customer experience for existing customers.

Click here to learn how we can help your Telecom company optimize your location data.

Additional Reading:  

A telecom operator’s guide to selecting a 5G cell site with Location Intelligence

UAID Territories

4 Ways to Visualize, Build and Manage your Territories for Canada

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Territory management is a process that helps organizations by defining geographical territories based on factors such as sales, infrastructure locations and service delivery zones. Companies are managing this type of information today within spreadsheets and require a solution that helps build and visualize territories based on key metrics like revenue goals, market opportunities, custom client information, government areas, proximity to salespeople’s base location, etc.

Read more
Location Intelligence

4 Ways Location Intelligence Optimizes Telecom Service Fulfillment

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Automation tools are rising in just about every industry, including Telecom. Customers expect fast responses to their questions, and they want services fulfilled quickly and efficiently.  Delivering on these expectations requires location data that easily integrates with your customer service platforms.

Here are 4 ways a location intelligence platform like DMTI Spatial can ensure optimal automation services using precise, highly accurate location data.

Self-Service Automation

Customers increasingly expect self-service features from service provider websites. Integrating spatial data allows you to personalize location-based prompts that trigger customers to take a certain action or get answers to their questions. Everything from scheduling a service call, to getting a quote for service or requesting activation can be done more effectively online by integrating location data with your web service platform.

Order Management

Location intelligence optimizes service quality by leveraging a unique address identifier (UAID) to help reduce miscommunication with customers and improve responsiveness of customer service. Customer service representatives are able to respond quickly and accurately when they have instant access to location data. For example, helping customers discover whether their order is on, off or near the network.  This helps determine serviceability or whether there are regulatory restrictions that could impact an order.

Billing

Location data plays an important role in optimal billing services. Your location intelligence platform will ensure that your system is continually updated with correct customer address information. Additionally, you can add a layer of data to show where services are available and how much they cost to make sure all customers are being billed accurately.

Service Activation

Use location data to ensure services are delivered quickly and accurately. Service installs can fail if technicians have incomplete network records, including inaccurate address information and network inventory. For example, you can map out where services are available so that technicians know whether they are able to install services requested by customers (rather than arrive onsite only to discover a particular function or feature is not available in that given area). Additionally, you can use location data to map out optimal routing for service technicians so that they have correct address information, reach customers on time, and are able to spend less time on the road and more time providing services.

DMTI Spatial provides a range of features that can integrate with operations systems, click here for more information on how we can help your Telecom company optimize service fulfillment.

 

Additional Reading:  

A telecom operator’s guide to selecting a 5G cell site with Location Intelligence

 

 

Marketing and Location Intelligence

3 Ways Brick-and-Mortar Stores Are Using Location Intelligence

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Many brick-and-mortar stores suffered financial losses in recent years due to the ease and efficiency of online shopping. While some businesses view the rise of online shopping as the ultimate enemy, innovative businesses are using the shift in consumer shopping habits as an opportunity to develop new and exciting incentives for driving traffic into their stores.

Omnichannel marketing is a powerful way for brick-and-mortar businesses to leverage multiple marketing channels to drive greater brand awareness, in-store traffic, and sales. Location based insights are at the core of this, helping businesses illustrate their unique value proposition and provide fun and fresh ways for customers to engage with their brand.

Here’s how successful brick-and-mortar stores drive foot traffic and generate sales using location intelligence:

Leverage Geofencing:

  • Gain competitive insights: Conduct trade area analysis by placing geofences around competitors to reveal how often your customers visit them. You can pair this with tracking competitor deals and incentives to gain knowledge on how to steer customers back to you…or keep them from visiting competitors in the first place.
  • In-store incentives: If your customers allow notifications, you can deliver limited time pop-up ads every time they are within a certain distance from your store, or an extra deal when they are about to leave your store.  Input customer data: Location intelligence platforms allow you to input customer information, useful for developing targeted marketing campaigns. This includes precise mailing addresses and detailed demographic information.

Precise direct mail campaigns:

Studies show that direct mail ROI is strong when marketers use omnichannel marketing methods to deliver a seamless and personalized customer experience to match lifestyles with customer buying trends. Pairing digital intelligence with direct mail can produce powerful results. Location technology delivers detailed demographic information along with accurate postal codes so that you are delivering the right message to the right people rather than wasting time and money on consumers that are unlikely to be interested in your product or service.

Location-based insights for site selection:

For brick and-mortar stores looking to open a new shop or to relocate, location intelligence platforms provide essential information on ideal locations. This includes demographic data, a historic view of how an area has changed over time, new developments, nearby points of interest, and much more.

Using location technology and the powerful insights it provides helps businesses integrate marketing channels for an omnichannel marketing approach. This leads to precise messaging and a highly compelling customer-centric experience that will have customers regularly engaging with your business on and offline.

To learn more download our guide Using Location Based Insights for Omnichannel Marketing

Additional Reading:  

5 Ways Canadian Retailers Should Be Using Location Data and Technology

Location Technology

Meet the Newest Member of the Digital Map Products Board of Directors

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Dave Cozzens will leverage his deep industry experience to provide consultative guidance around Digital Map Products’ strategic growth and positioning initiatives.

We are proud to announce the addition of Dave Cozzens to our board of directors!

Location Technology

From Our Press Release

“We are excited to welcome Dave Cozzens to our board of directors,” said James Skurzynski, founder and CEO of Digital Map Products. “Dave’s background and success in location technology, combined with his focus on innovation and customer value, will be a tremendous asset as we continue to drive strong demand for our solutions.”

Cozzens most recently served as the CEO of Telogis, a global enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) company providing location technology solutions for fleet and mobile workforce management. Under Cozzens’ leadership, Telogis grew from a start-up with $3 million in revenue to one of the dominant players in the rapidly growing connected vehicle and smart mobility market. As a result, Telogis was acquired by Verizon Communications in August 2016. Cozzens joined Telogis from Novell Corporation, where he served as vice president of operations for Novell Americas, a $500 million business encompassing the U.S., Canada, and Latin America.

Hear From Dave Cozzens

“I’m thankful for the opportunity to share my expertise and skills with a location technology company poised for continued growth and one highly focused on the success of its customers,” said Cozzens. “I look forward to working with Digital Map Products’ talented management team to extend the company’s market leadership and support their mission to embed location technology and data into the everyday workflows of businesses and government agencies across North America.”

Want to Learn More?

Visit our Board of Directors page for more information about Mr. Cozzens and the rest of our board. To learn more about our all-in-one location intelligence platform, contact us today! You can also download a sample of our category-defining nationwide parcel data by filling out the short form below.

Marketing Location tools

3 Location Tools Every Digital Marketer Should Be Using

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Even the most skilled digital marketers tend to struggle in one key area: knowing what their customers are doing offline, and how to use those offline behaviours to develop effective marketing strategies. Offline behaviours are the marketing touchpoints that consumers don’t actually physically engage with, such as seeing an advertisement on TV or a sign in a window when walking past a store.

Location technology offers unique insights into the complex customer journey. Customers do not operate in silos, and marketing shouldn’t either. A buyer has multiple potential touchpoints, and effective marketing requires understanding online and offline behaviours in order to optimize strategies. Marketers using location tools are able to view data on how customers react to various forms of marketing based on their physical locations. By tracking certain customer behaviours, marketers gain the ability to offer stronger and more effective experiences for customers.

Whether customers are shopping online or in a brick-and-mortar store, here are the top 3 location intelligence tools digital marketers should be using to develop a strong end-to-end customer journey.

1. Geotargeting

What is Geotargeting?

Geotargeting is a location intelligence tool used to deliver the most relevant content to people based on their location.
Even the most skilled digital marketers tend to struggle in one key area: knowing what their customers are doing offline, and how to use those offline behaviours to develop effective marketing strategies. Offline behaviours are the marketing touchpoints that consumers don’t actually physically engage with, such as seeing an advertisement on TV or a sign in a window when walking past a store.

How to Use Geotargeting

Geotargeting is effective because it allows you to create marketing strategies that connect with customers on their terms. You get the big picture view of customer locations so that you can communicate in a way that is personal and meaningful. This includes mobile notifications, targeted digital ads, email and much more. Geotargeting allows you to get very specific about who you are marketing to, and how location could play into purchasing decisions. Using geotargeting over a period of time allows you to gather data on customer behaviours for a deeper contextual understanding of what sort of messaging is most effective.

2.  Geofencing

What is Geofencing?

Marketers use GPS or radio frequency (RFID) to designate a virtual geographic boundary. The system is triggered in real time when customers enter or leave the ‘fence.’ This allows marketers to send alerts or notifications to encourage consumer engagement.

How to Use Geofencing

Geofencing allows you to engage with customers in powerful ways. When customers enter or leave the virtual fence, you can send very specific content to help them take a certain action. For example, you can set a fence for 2 miles from your store. If a customer enters the fence, they get an alert about a special deal or event happening at that moment. You can also set up a geofence around a competitor’s business, triggering a notification when your customers visit competitors with a compelling offer that could inspire them to visit you instead. Geofencing could also offer helpful insights by showing how often customers are in your fence, or whether they are inspired to visit your store when offered certain incentives.

3. Geofilters

What are Geofilters?

Geofilters are location-based screens that can be used on social media, and are only accessible when users are in a specific location.

How to Use Geofilters

Geofilters are a fun and unique way to connect with consumers. They are also a great way to have consumers promote your brand for you. You can create a filter consumers can use when they visit you. Alternately, you can allow users to personalize geofilters in your designated space and encourage them to share it on social media. You can even set up a geofilter in or near a competitor’s location to drive customer interest back to you.

Use Location Intelligence in Your Digital Marketing Strategies!

Geotargeting, geofencing, and geofilters are all powerful ways for digital marketers to better understand consumer behaviour. These tools offer location-based insights that help marketers refine messaging, and to develop streamlined customer experiences.

DMTI’s CanMap Address Data and Location Hub Visualization & Web Services deliver the tools can be used to support digital marketing strategies. DMTI is continually updating and cleansing data to deliver accurate and reliable location information.  Marketing teams using DMTI’s unparalleled location data consistently outpace their competition. When using any location tools to market your product or service, DMTI offers the most complete and accurate Canadian data and software services.

Click here to contact a DMTI specialist, and get information on how you can leverage location intelligence to optimize digital marketing campaigns.

Additional Reading:

5 Creative Ways Marketers Can Use Geofencing

 

Customer Experience Location Intelligence and Insurance

5 Hidden Data Points Insurance Companies Can Use to Improve their Customer Experience

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Creating exceptional customer experience is becoming a top priority for many insurance providers as an essential way of differentiating themselves in a fiercely competitive marketplace. If you and your competitor offer similar pricing, but your competitor provides a better customer experience, who do you think will land the customer?

Location data offers actionable information that insurance providers can use to deliver high quality customer experiences at every touch point. Interested in using data to outpace your competition by offering stronger customer experiences? Check out these 5 hidden data points:

1) Accurate Postal Codes  

You want to ensure you’re offering the most accurate quotes possible when customers come to you seeking coverage. If you’re assessing risk based on postal codes, you aren’t working off of the most accurate location information, and this will be reflected in your pricing. Flooding and earthquakes, for example, don’t stop at the postal code boundary. It is more accurate to assess properties based on latitude, longitude, and elevation to truly understand risk.

Using a location intelligence platform like DMTI’s Location Hub, insurers can better identify and rate risks for properties of interest. Actionable information ensures underwriters make data-backed decisions based on the specific locations being reviewed. You get real-time, high precision geocoding delivered with trusted industry standards, and customers get pricing they can trust.

2) True Risk Concentration

You cannot gain a true understanding of a property’s overall risk probability if you examine risks in silos. Location intelligence offers the ability to review total concentration of risk, such as flood, fire, and other natural hazards, and assess likelihood of any of these occurring, as well as how close the property is to emergency services.

Here’s how this improves your customer’s experience. Aside from providing customers with fair, accurate pricing, you also have a comprehensive understanding of their exact insurance needs, including needs they may not realize they have. For example, a customer coming to you for property insurance may not realize they also require coverage for wildfire or flooding. Using location intelligence, you’ve got the data to show customers what they need, making them feel confident in your services and completely protected by the coverage you offer.

3) Reduce Processing

Time Average processing time for quotes and claims is an essential data point every insurance provider must be aware of. Most people are accustomed to immediate gratification, and staying competitive in the insurance industry requires providers to deliver information quickly.

Leveraging the right digital tools is the key to tracking and reducing processing time. Location intelligence easily feeds into platforms that automate the underwriting and claims process according to your company’s rules and guidelines.

4) Customer Information

Location Intelligence platforms enable customer data to be seamlessly integrated, allowing you to autofill information and limit the number of manual inputs required when generating quotes. Automation of personal information reduces costs for you, while providing customers with a better digital experience. Location intelligence also allows you to review customer claims patterns for real time data-based decision making throughout the underwriting process.

5) Complete Customer Portfolios

Instant access to customers’ portfolios provides an overview of data revealing areas where your insurance company could offer additional services. For example, if you’re using a location intelligence platform, you’ll be able to see all properties owned by a customer that may be covered by other insurance providers. With complete property information paired with hazard data, you’ll also be able to see if your customer has adequate coverage to fully protect their assets. This data allows you to provide a great experience for customers because you enter conversations prepared with complete information and options to provide better rates and coverage than your competition.

Click here to learn more.

 

Additional Reading:

Top 3 Ways Location Intelligence Empowers Underwriters