Today’s marketplaces are busy, and information is abundant. Your customers want access to your product and service information quickly and easily. They expect this timely, convenient access starting from their initial search and then once they have moved onto your website as well.
Your company’s success depends on ensuring that your organization’s abundance of data is readily available, which is no easy task. A good search tool on your site can help increase customer engagement, increase sale conversions, and mitigate customer service requests. So you need to keep up this aspect of your site to ensure your search tool provides the necessary intelligence visitors expect.
Here are three tactics exerts recommend for maintaining a successful search approach on your company website:
Simplify. Every company probably has anywhere from a million to millions of pieces of information that need to be searched. It can be very difficult to find the appropriate answer based on one or two words typed into a search box. There are a couple of ways that organizations can simplify access to their data and make results appear faster and more accurate. One tactic involves leveraging information beyond just the words searched. For example, consider the customer’s product purchases, his or her location, and other factors to quickly narrow the set of results to a smaller section of available content. Another tactic requires utilizing an intelligent tagging hierarchy. Tags allow visitors to quickly and easily filter results by product/service type, content, topic or categories specific to your business or industry.
Update. Technology is evolving at a rapid-fire pace and companies need to keep their search tools up-to-date. For example, many more people are searching for answers using Amzaon’s Alexa or within an IVR not simply from a web page anymore. So all your search capabilities should be available on an application programming interface (API) so users can connect with them however they want. Having the search information available within a virtual assistant can also provide customers with a more robust experience and a continued conversation that can yield better conversions.
Automate. Everything today seems to be moving toward automation. It has become a part of most every aspect of our lives. Search is no exception. How you might ask? Currently, words are spoken or typed to find what a visitor is looking for. However, with automation, intelligent search tools can produce results without actually having to search.
Context – User information such as product history, can help predict what information the customer needs. For example, if the user has bought a particular car and there is a safety recall on a part, he or she is likely interested in information to resolve this issue.
Recommendations – Visitors viewing a particular piece of content may be interested in related information, which an intelligent search engine can recommend without the visitor manually searching for it.
Real time listening – New search tools can listen to customer service conversations and discern certain phrases and use those to automatically display information to help in the conversation.
Expertise to implement these tactics may be beyond the scope of your organization. Consider partnering with a site search platform that has the technology, algorithms, and content framework to deliver the best results for your company. Searching on your site falls under the umbrella of customer engagement and needs to be given the time and resources to make it a competitive advantage for your company.
