Experian vs Record Validation for Salesforce: Top Contenders of 2024?

TL;DR: This article compares Experian and Record Validation for their address validation features. Record Validation, designed for Salesforce users, offers seamless integration and features like Auto-Suggestion, while Experian focuses on global data sources. Record Validation stands out for its ease of use and reduced postal delivery failures. Experian, though robust, faces concerns about high costs and complex integration. For Salesforce users, Record Validation seems a better fit, providing a 14-day trial for exploration.

Record Validation Overview

Record Validation is a comprehensive solution designed for enhancing the accuracy of your Salesforce data, from email, phone number as well as address data, which is our focus in this article. Although Record Validation caters to more than just address data, using it as a standalone solution for address validation is an excellent choice as it comes packed with powerful features. It's more than just a tool; it's a gateway to an efficient data management strategy.

Features

• Comprehensive & global: RV can parse, standardize, verify, cleanse, and format address data for over 240 countries. It also adds geocodes to addresses, enhancing location precision.
• Direct Validate: automate the verification of records as they are introduced to your Salesforce Org through API insertion or bulk upload.
• Live Validation: RV Live serves as a Lightning component that you can incorporate onto your record page for address validation, seamlessly operating on any page in Salesforce.
• Auto-Suggestion: RV streamlines data entry effortlessly. By entering a street name, RV intelligently suggests an address. Upon selecting the recommended RV address, the system automatically populates the remaining details, including postal code and country. This results in a remarkable 78% reduction in data entry time and significantly minimizes errors.

Pros

• Salesforce Integration: As a native Salesforce app, it offers seamless integration, empowering users, admins, and developers with data formatting and validation tools, such as RV Live.
• Versatile Data Handling: Whether it's manual or automatic processing, RV’s versatile approach caters to diverse operational needs. Additionally, RV seamless integration with Duplicate Check means you can combine the power of these applications to ensure even higher data standards.
• Reduced failures in postal deliveries: Plauti significantly reduces postal delivery failures up to 70%.

• Custom actions: With RV it is easy to leverage APIs and Flow Actions for custom process integration within Salesforce​​.

Cons

• Limited to Salesforce: Being a native Salesforce app, RV’s utility is focused on Salesforce users, which might not cater to organizations using different CRM platforms.

Pricing

Record Validation offers a free trial with 100 credits for various validation tasks. The premium plan starts at $39/month, billed annually, and includes 50,000 credits for validation. Additional credit bundles are available.

Experian

Experian is a well recognized name in the data quality arena and offers a suite of address verification tools. Their address verification tool leverages data from USPS and other partners, ensuring a fresh accuracy of postal address data. Experian's main goal is to keep data current and reduce return rates on mailings.

Features

• Global Address Verification: Experian’s tool verifies postal address data using up-to-date data from the U.S. Postal Service and global partners, covering 244 countries​​​​.
• Integration with CRM/ERP Systems: Experian integrates with systems like Salesforce, SAP, and others, standardizing addresses into preferred formats​​.
• CASS Certified Product Status: The Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) enhances the accuracy of postal codes and location information within the USA.
• Real-Time Address Verification API: Offers real-time verification capabilities.

Pros

• Global Data Sources: Utilizes comprehensive data sources, including USPS and global partners, for wide-reaching address verification.
• Data Freshness Focus: Aims at keeping postal data current, thus minimizing returns and increasing efficiency.

Cons

While Experian offers a product with robust features, the solution is batched into many modules on their website and the ease of implementation of all features on Salesforce is not clear. Recent reviews on Gartner also show similar sentiment. User feedback included “Cost, complexity and Data Latency” as an issue. Another user echoed a very similar comment, stating “The cost of the product is quite high… quite difficult to understand …setup is a bit time consuming”. RV was built exclusively for Salesforce and with Salesforce users in mind, so integration is easy, and users feel comfortable using RV from day one.

The cost of entry price of Experian is quite steep. To understand how many credits you get, and exactly which features this price includes, you’ll need to get in touch with Experian.

Pricing

On the Salesforce AppExchange Experian starts at $1,000 per year. However, you should contact their team to discuss the final price as it is determined by the type of data required and volumes you need.

A free trial is also available, but you have to contact Experian to arrange this.

Comparative analysis

Experian vs Record Validation: User seats  

Record Validation grants unrestricted access to all users within your organization. While this inclusive access might not align with your preferences for feature accessibility, the platform allows you to precisely tailor user rights and privileges to suit your requirements. On the contrary, with Experian, each additional seat incurs extra charges. If you anticipate multiple users utilizing this solution, it's crucial to weigh and factor in these supplementary expenses.

Experian vs Record Validation: Transliteration

Record Validation converts words or letters from diverse global character sets into Roman characters across eight scripts: Cyrillic, Hellenic, Hebrew, Kanji, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Thai, and Hangul. This means capturing and ensuring address data quality no matter the region.

Experian vs Record Validation: Integration and Versatility

Experian's integration capabilities and flexibility in data management are not clearly detailed on their websites nor on the Salesforce AppExchange. Additionally, some negative sentiment regarding complexity of integration as well as costs are something that cast a shadow of doubt for Experian. In contrast, Record Validation’s ease of implementation is clear and highlights and its adaptability to both manual to fully automatic data processing. If Salesforce is a prominent feature of your tech stack, Record Validation promises a headache-free implementation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, both Experian and Plauti Record Validation offer robust solutions for address validation, each with its unique strengths. While Experian is a strong contender with its global data sources and focus on data freshness. Record Validation, tailored for Salesforce users, stands out with its comprehensive address validation, integration ease, and enhanced data deliverability. As always, we advise any choice ultimately depends on your specific requirements and existing systems. For Salesforce users seeking a holistic approach to data validation and management, Record Validation emerges as the more fitting solution.

The best way to ensure a solution meets your needs and delivers on its promise is to try it firsthand. Plauti provides a no-strings-attached, 14-day trial of Record Validation. Take the lead with your data and experience the power of Record Validation today.