Frequently Asked Questions

Why check against all deaths, why not just my region?

People move .... often! Parents and grandparents often relocate to the town or city that one or more of their children live in for their final months of life.

Adults with young families often relocate for employment, housing and education opportunities.

In New Zealand we are one of the most active relocators, changing homes on average every seven years. Wanting to live closer to family dominated the social reasons why people moved from a residence in another region.

Your database may be focused on regional clients however, despite this, it is likely that many of your clients do live outside of the region.

How accurate are the matching results?

Very accurate. Results are listed by order of most likely matches based on numerous calculations and you get to set the thresholds. Read what our clients have to say.

How accurate is NoticeMATCH's death data?

Collecting death data to enable businesses help the bereaved is our mission. We help businesses like yours met any legal, moral or ethical obligations and we take that very seriously! We only record death data from reliable sources.

How up to date is NoticeMATCH's records?

Because timeliness is everything, we are proud to provide a service where over 80% of all publicly notified deaths are entered into our system by 8.30am every day. The balance are input hourly as information is published or provided to us.

xIt is not uncommon that our clients are alerted to a death within 72 hours of time of death, giving them the ability to act fast.

Why does NoticeMATCH provide this service?

Because we care and we know you do too! First and foremost the deceased and the bereaved deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. And on the flip-side businesses like yours want to know when your client dies so you can help make the days and months after a death easier for the surviving family and meet your legal, ethical or moral obligations without further upset. We know we can help you both.

I check the local paper every day, I don't think I miss any client deaths?

You can never be certain of not missing a death of someone in our region, no matter how thorough you are. It is not uncommon for a death in one region not to be published in the local newspaper but is published in a newspaper out of the region or online elsewhere. There are many reasons for this which can include; family politics, no friends left behind in that region, or secrecy.

I don't want to spend any money doing something I could do myself?

Certainly you could check all the newspapers in the country (we read over 7,000 papers a year) and follow all online sources for death data, then manually check them against your database. But this is extremely time consuming and only works if there is consistent effort to keep an hourly/daily check, even on public holidays and annual leave.

NoticeMATCH does the job for you in seconds at a fraction of the real cost it would take for your organisation to do it. It makes sense to free up your time to focus on income generating efforts, rather than data inputting manually.

Do I still have to check NoticeMATCH results against my database?

Yes, NoticeMATCH only does so much, saves your organisation hundreds of hours checking death notices and online sources for matches, however we have built our software so it takes you only a fraction of the time. A clever feature links the matching results directly with the client record (number) you provide.

What savings can I expect to make by using NoticeMATCH?

There are three major savings you can expect to make by implementing NoticeMATCH. These are:-

Time Savings - depending on your level of current death notice checking, most clients can expect to save a minimum of 75 hours a year to several hundreds of hours a year for checking of multiple papers. Medium sized legal firms using NoticeMATCH, save more than 500 administrator hours a year!

Communication Savings - Often overlooked, yet surprisingly costly, is communication via marketing and invoicing to deceased persons. This could be by way of printed materials or electronic marketing. As your database grows, so does your customer's age. Some organisations can save up to 20% off their print and delivery costs by simply keeping their database up to date and clean of deceased records.

Avoiding Risk - In these times of mass communication, people can be forgiven for believing that some companies don't care about them, rather all they care about is the sale they can make. This is especially true when electronic and traditional mail persists on coming to their deceased family member or friend. Even more upsetting is when a Will, insurance policy or investments of the deceased isn't made available in a timely manner.

Getting the level of communication right definitely helps maintain and build strong relationships with future generations of customers and protects your brand from being sullied.

How do I create a csv file of my database for notice matching?

Firstly, in technical terms a csv file is a comma-separated values (CSV) file stores tabular data (numbers and text) in plain-text form. It is also sometimes called character-separated values, because the separator character does not have to be a comma.

A CSV file consists of any number of records, separated by line breaks of some kind; each record consists of fields, separated by some other character or string, most commonly a literal comma or tab. Usually, all records have an identical sequence of fields.

We provide you with a table with the fields in the order which you will need to export your database to. And we are here to help you set that up too!

Why does it cost more to use NoticeMATCH if I have a larger database?

Making NoticeMATCH affordable and accessible to businesses of all sizes is extremely important to us. Just like any software programme that charges based on a Volume Licensing Programme, NoticeMATCH bases its pricing on customer usage and customer values.

What Plan should I choose?

Every business is unique and it often depends on how quickly you need to act once a client in your database dies. For instance, if you are sending out regular monthly invoices, choose the Basic package which will enable you to run matches for your current mailout.

What are the features for each Plan?

Name Search - Looking for a specific individual, our Name Search feature enables you to search our full records for a person.

Full Client Database Search & Match - Run a match of our deceased records against your entire database. NoticeMATCH remembers the date you performed your last match run and avoids any double checking of single records.

Links to your CRM - Identifies your client number so you know exactly where to go on your CRM to flag the deceased account.

Store Results - Using our shortlist feature you can flag records to come back to when you have time. Archive the record once you have completed your internal processes.

Tracking Tools - Customise fields around your internal processes and keep track of where you are at.

Notes Section - Life isn't always a simple as checkboxes so use this feature to keep track of the variables.

Download Reports - Download your matching reports into your preferred format.

Notice Summaries - Death notices are a treasure trove of information. Our summary service reformats the original death notices into one easy to read document. Discover families and friends relationships and more! You can order singly or in bulk.

What's an Historical Wash?

A historical wash accesses all our historical data and performs a match run against your database. This is a great way to clean up your database of old records and start with a clean slate.

I just want to do one big check of deaths and don't want to do this regularly, how do I do that?

No problems, we're pleased we can help you cleanse your database and now is a great time to do it as we have over 315,000 records (August 2016) of deceased persons. We call this service a Backwash. The Backwash accesses all our historical data and performs a match run against your database. This is a great way to clean up your database of old records and start with a clean slate. Generally speaking it is difficult and costly to access this type of information from the official death registrar . Please contact us about our subscriptions.