Odyssey Travel - a case study

The customer

Odyssey Travel, a division of the Australian & New Zealand College for Seniors Limited, is a not-for-profit travel organisation that arranges group travel for over 50s in Australia and New Zealand. It works closely with universities and colleges to offer a wide range of educational travel experiences that include a mix of history, heritage, adventure and ecotourism.

Since its establishment in 1983, more than 23,000 people have taken up the Odyssey experience in Australia, New Zealand and overseas.

Odyssey Travel has 30 staff working across offices in Sydney, Wollongong, Melbourne and Auckland.

Key challenges

With a customer database of over 45,000 customers, Odyssey Travel regularly performs large mail-outs on program and travel opportunities. Odyssey found that up to 15% of mail was being returned due to addressing errors made at the data entry stage. At an average of 8 minutes or between $10 - $14 per letter to correct the address, retype the letter and resend to the customer - this added up to about 900 hours work.

According to Jodie Morris, Systems Coordinator, Odyssey Travel, "Odyssey Travel realised the accuracy of their data could be improved and sought help from Experian QAS. Experian QAS was able to provide us with an address management solution that increased efficiency and reduced unnecessary costs."

The solution

Odyssey Travel initially used Experian QAS' QAS Batch software, to cleanse its customer database and ensure all addresses were entered in a consistent format. Odyssey then implemented QAS Pro to ensure all future addresses added to the customer database would be correct at the point of data entry.

By operating in conjunction with the Australia Post Postal Address File (PAF), QAS Pro is able to verify addresses against more than 10 million addresses in the PAF. It also predicts the address being entered by the operator, allowing for rapid address entry - ultimately resulting in time savings for data entry.

The benefits

QAS Pro enables Odyssey Travel to enter addresses into its customer database more quickly and accurately. As with any company that deals with a large customer base, accurate customer address data and speed of capture are vital to Odyssey Travel staff when dealing with customers. QAS Pro offers reduced costs as returned mail is minimised, along with decreased keystrokes and time taken to enter addresses.

According to Jodie Morris, aside from time and cost savings, and return on investment, the best thing about QAS is the assurance of having an accurate, up to date database.

"To know we have a complete, error-free database has been the biggest benefit. Our database is as accurate as QAS is - which is like saying we know where our customers are at least as well as, if not better, than your postman knows where to bring your mail!"

For Odyssey Travel, another benefit is the more professional appearance it gives to its customers whose addresses are always correct on their mail now as a result of the implementation of QAS.

In the long term, Odyssey Travel hopes to implement QAS for the New Zealand market, which makes up 7,000 names in its database.

For further information about Experian QAS, please contact QAS.