Technology Focus Part 3 Improve Your Site's Searchability

When evaluating future technology acquisitions, make services-oriented architecture a key selection criteria.

A new breed of software application has emerged over the last few years that has changed the dynamics of online product search within multichannel marketers' Web sites. Advanced search engines are becoming "must haves" on catalogers' lists of next-generation e-commerce features.

Advanced search technologies differ from traditional, structured search approaches that rely on simple keywords and description indexes. Today's better Web sites allow for searches that automatically categorize results sets by navigable counts of relevant subsets of data. For example, a customer's search for "denim" may result in a page that returns 10 hats, 22 pairs of pants, five handbags, three pairs of shoes and four shirts that all meet the criteria.

Additionally, the merchant's page may summarize the results by price range, season or brand. Each of subcategories then become a link to allow a quick drill-down into specific sets of items. In order to evaluate the relevant products, the search engine also uses the fact that "denim" is a synonym for "jeans" and "dungarees." Once customers reach a list of products, they'll see the images can automatically be sorted by relevancy, customer affinity or inventory position.

Search Engines' Effect on Shopping Behavior

70% of online users start with search

80% of online visitors abandon the purchase if the search doesn't work well

30% of shoppers are lost with each unnecessary click

Sources: Jupiter Research, IDC, Forrester Research

Improve Self-service

A customer's inability to quickly find the products she's interested in is the No. 1 reason cited for not completing a purchase online. Advanced search engines can make dramatic improvements in reducing the number of searches required to find a specific product, ultimately increasing revenue per site visit. Some noteworthy multichannel marketers that have implemented these tools on their sites include Nordstrom, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM and Barnes & Noble.

To date, use of these advanced-search techniques has been largely isolated to the realm of the consumer Web site. This is changing, however. The focus on customer self-service has resulted in many retailers finding themselves in the ironic position of providing customers with richer tools to access product information than they provide their own employees in their call centers or store. Increasingly, marketers are finding that a siloed approach to key technologies, such as search, simply is too expensive to maintain and ultimately results in substandard customer service.

Sophisticated tools such as advanced search can play a key role in point-of-sale, customer service, warehouse management and merchandising. Aging technology platforms, however, necessitated building these kinds of capabilities into each individual application separately, which results in a nightmare of redundant development and maintenance expenses. Newer solutions shift the traditional point-solution focus to a more holistic enterprise-services approach using new technologies based on a services-oriented architecture.

Empower Your CSRs

Employees in a call center or a retail store need search capabilities that are as sophisticated as those customers employ on the Web. Customers increasingly are frustrated by what they perceive to be inadequately trained retail employees incapable of answering their most basic questions. In using common services for critical functions, such as search, browsing and product information, retailers can level the field by providing front-line employees with greater capabilities at the point of service.

The specific summarization and navigation options may change between customer service reps (CSRs), warehouse employees and store associates, and each may receive different views of the product information. But the core, sophisticated engine driving the process can remain the same. Store associates can see items organized by shelf location in addition to price range, sale status and inventory. CSRs can view promotional items segmented as a separate navigation option. Warehouse workers can see items organized by pick type and drop ship.

Conclusion

The days when every department needed to develop its own solution for basic functions like search and browsing quickly are coming to an end. Leveraging common enterprise engines has enormous benefit in reducing ongoing maintenance costs as well as ensuring consistent access to information throughout the enterprise. When evaluating future technology acquisitions, catalogers and retailers alike should make services-oriented architecture a key selection criteria.

Brian Dean is vice president of strategy and marketing for Ecometry Corp., a provider of customer-focused software solutions for direct and multichannel retail commerce. Reach him at (561) 265-2700 or via e-mail at brian.dean@ecometry.com.