Jill Jones | EasyAsk https://www.easyask.com eComm Search Mon, 21 May 2018 15:17:03 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://www.easyask.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/favicon-1.png Jill Jones | EasyAsk https://www.easyask.com 32 32 The Way Shoppers Search Can Give You Migraines https://www.easyask.com/the-way-shoppers-search-can-give-you-migraines/ Mon, 07 May 2018 16:04:37 +0000 https://www.easyask.com/?p=9451 Have you ever thought about how many different ways people might search for the same thing? If you’re an eCommerce professional you probably have. There is a direct correlation between how efficiently the shopper finds the product to how quickly they’ll make a purchase. So, how accurate your search results are, is what really matters. […]

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Have you ever thought about how many different ways people might search for the same thing? If you’re an eCommerce professional you probably have. There is a direct correlation between how efficiently the shopper finds the product to how quickly they’ll make a purchase. So, how accurate your search results are, is what really matters.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) will help alleviate the inevitable headaches that come from working with a traditional keyword site search engine. NLP looks at not only the content, but the intent of the request, to ensure the right results get returned the first time. What do we mean by content vs. intent? Let’s take a look at an example like “men’s hiking boots”. The sheer number of keyword combinations that your shoppers might use is enormous; here are just a few:

  • Hiking Boots for Men
  • Men’s boots
  • Mens boots
  • Men’s boots for hiking
  • Male Hiking Boots
  • Boots to hike men
  • Masculine hiking boots

Now let’s add in attributes such as color and multiply that by the number of colors you carry (now add the synonyms of all those colors, “wheat” for example). How about price? How about size? I’m getting a headache just thinking about it:

  • Hiking Boots for Men wheat
  • Male wheat Hiking Boots
  • Wheat Boots to hike men
  • Man boots hiking wheat
  • Wheat Mens boots for hiking
  • Wheat Hiking Boots men
  • Guys wheat hiking boots
  • Male hiking wheat
  • Male boots for Camping
  • Mens wheat camping boots
  • Gentlemans wheat hiking boots
  • Masculine hiking boots wheat color
  • Men’s wheat hiking boots in size 12 under $300

 

Now let’s think about using voice search, how many more combinations can consumers come up with verbally??? Remember, according to ComScore, by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice-driven. It seems that the list is endless;

  • I’m looking for hiking boots for my boyfriend
  • Do you sell men’s hiking boots
  • What are the best selling men’s hiking boots
  • What boots should I get for hiking
  • Do you have brown hiking boots in size 12 for under $300
  • I’m looking for winter hiking boots for guys in a size 10 in black or brown

My headache is getting worse, just thinking about it.

According to Steve Tutelman, the COO of Sidecar, in an article for MarTech Today, “…the ongoing development of voice search — including natural language processing and natural language understanding — is so important to the retail industry. These innovations represent a shift in marketer’s ability to understand consumer’s intent and deliver better experiences.”

With NLP search, it doesn’t matter how your customer searches. An engine like EasyAsk, understands the intent of your customer’s words and returns the right results, the first time. EasyAsk offers this technology today and we’re the only ecommerce search engine that fully supports mobile voice search.

NLP in conjunction with a suite of tools like EasyAsk’s Commerce Studio will help alleviate the inevitable headaches that come from working with a traditional keyword site search engine.

Give your customers a search experience that will delight them and give your merchandisers fewer reasons to reach for that bottle of Excedrin.

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Natural Language Search – Encouraging the use of more descriptive search https://www.easyask.com/nlp_encouraging-the-use-of-more-descriptive-search/ Wed, 21 Mar 2018 19:20:51 +0000 https://www.easyask.com/?p=9374 How a Natural Language Search Engine sets you apart The ultimate goal of any online retailer is to increase sales. What sets you apart from other retailers are the enhancements you continually do to your site to improve the customer experience. Providing an experience that is pleasurable for your shopper will increase the likelihood that […]

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How a Natural Language Search Engine sets you apart

The ultimate goal of any online retailer is to increase sales. What sets you apart from other retailers are the enhancements you continually do to your site to improve the customer experience. Providing an experience that is pleasurable for your shopper will increase the likelihood that they will make purchases on your site and return for more products in the future. As a retailer, you need to take advantage of emerging technologies to help drive site improvements to keep your site fresh and your shoppers interested.

One such improvement is the addition of an accurate and flexible natural language processing (NLP) system to aid in product search. EasyAsk search allows your customers to be far more descriptive when describing the products they are looking for. Our NLP system means that your users can express what they are looking for in their own words and be provided with highly relevant results. This technology easily lends itself to scenarios where a shopper could use voice input to make requests, which is a much easier way to search, especially when using a smartphone. Voice searching will continue to become even more prevalent in the future. A ComScore study predicts that 50% of all internet searches will be voice-driven by 2020!

Today, EasyAsk customer sites are already optimized to handle “conversational search queries.” For example, the EasyAsk engine can correctly process the following searches:

Timberland“Show me some ladies high heeled field boots in tan”

The North Face “Looking for a red waterproof jacket for my wife, for less than $150

The ability to handle linguistic requests such as these gives you a distinct advantage over other retailers. If retailers aren’t using NLP, their systems will fail when presented with searches of this type. Encouraging users to express themselves using their voices and getting the right results will increase conversion, satisfaction and quickly expand your customer base!

The challenge today is that most users have grown accustomed to specifying their search requests in simple keywords. We have been conditioned to believe that typing in simple keywords is natural behavior.

In fact, that is changing as technologies such as Alexa, Siri, etc., make voice input “normal” for everyday users. These users may currently type in keywords but they still speak in sentences. As they get used to speaking in sentences with these new technologies, it will become more natural to search in full sentences, too.

There are some things you can do to encourage adoption of voice technology and get users to really take advantage while on your website.

Make sure that the placeholder message text in the search box is right

Many sites use placeholder text such as “Enter Keywords” or “Search” in the search box. Boring. Try using a more descriptive message such as “Im looking for” or “Type or speak your search here” and make the text bold. Also consider the placement of the search box itself – especially from the point of view of a mobile user. A large search box prominently featured at the top of the page gets noticed immediately and increases the chance of its use.

Use the “no results” page to show examples

While we try to avoid “no results” situations, there are times when it is going to happen. The “no results” page is an opportunity to let your shoppers know how advanced your EasyAsk search box really is. Here is a typical message from an EasyAsk site:

Put a microphone in the search box

Putting a microphone in the search box makes it obvious to users that voice input is available and will encourage users to utilize voice search. This can be achieved using the Web Kit Speech API in HTML 5 and although this is not compatible with all browsers it’s availability can be checked and the functionality enabled as required. For details of the Web Kit Speech API refer to:

https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2013/01/Voice-Driven-Web-Apps-Introduction-to-the-Web-Speech-API

Of course this is not a requirement, as all modern devices have great voice to text capabilities already built in and your customers are adopting them at high rate. Who hasn’t tried at least to “compose” a text on their iPhone or android device?

Why should you do this? Voice shopping is expected to jump to $40 billion in 2022, up from $2 billion today, suggesting the new channel may well be the next major disruptive force in retail, according to data from OC&C Strategy Consultants.

What retailer wouldn’t want a piece of that pie?

Corporate communications (email newsletters, etc.)

The next hurdle is alerting your customers of your adoption of this technology. One way to get their attention is to use your normal customer communications to notify your shoppers that your site supports this functionality. Perhaps a blog entry highlighting the technology used in your site that shows how the customer benefits.

In Conclusion

To summarize, if you have the capability to make your customers’ lives easier through voice/natural language searching – let them know! Spreading the word amongst your customers will not only enhance their experience on your site but will increase your conversion rate and dramatically increase your revenue. EasyAsk guarantees it.

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Humanizing Your Website Gives Shoppers that Warm and Fuzzy Feeling https://www.easyask.com/humanizing-your-website-gives-shoppers-the-warm-and-fuzzies/ Wed, 07 Feb 2018 19:48:19 +0000 https://www.easyask.com/?p=9342 It is estimated that online shopping revenues will increase to more than $523 billion dollars by 2020 – an increase of 56% since 2015. This soaring number has many contributing factors; including ubiquitous internet access, the drop in age of shoppers, the availability of products, and the improved quality of shopping websites and apps. It […]

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It is estimated that online shopping revenues will increase to more than $523 billion dollars by 2020 – an increase of 56% since 2015. This soaring number has many contributing factors; including ubiquitous internet access, the drop in age of shoppers, the availability of products, and the improved quality of shopping websites and apps.

It is this fourth point that I’d like to focus on today, the improved quality of shopping websites and apps. The quality of a website or app is judged by the consumers who shop on the site. Their user experience is the key to whether they stay on your site or not. There are so many options out there, if they are not having a good experience, they will bounce from your site, right into the arms of your competitor.

Today’s shopper wants to feel the same level of customer service and customer care they feel when they are in a brick and mortar store, without the hassle of going outdoors.

Three examples comparing the customer service experience of online shopping vs brick and mortar:

Brick and Mortar StoreShopping Website
Combing the store for merchandise that fits the shopper's needs. If a store is well organized then finding the right product is a snap.Combing through pages of incorrect results as the result of a search. If the search box understand the content as well as the context of the search, the correct merchandise will appear the first time, every time.
If the shopper can't find what they want, they can ask a store associate a question.A smarter search box that finds the exact right product the first time eliminates frustration. Think of a smarter search box as your store associate.
Long checkout lines in a store can ruin even the best of shopping experiences. Opening more lines or providing easier ways to checkout will ensure that the last impression is a good one.Confusing checkout online often leads to shopping cart abandonment. Not only will you lose a shopper, but if the customer experience is better on your competitor's website, you may never see that shopper again.

Humanizing your website so that your customers feel taken care of is key to eCommerce today. An important part of that experience is how they search for products. If a shopper goes to a website and asks for exactly the item they want, then that is exactly what they should get. You need to analyze every inch of your shopping experience from your customer’s perspective. Is it easy to search? Is it easy to get product information? Is it easy to add to cart? Is it easy to pay?

According to Jia Wertz for Forbes, “Keeping your online brand strategy focused on the user experience is critical. Only by doing this, can a business execute the ‘human’ touch for their product or service.” Remember it’s five times cheaper to market to an existing customer than to sell to a new one – so give your shoppers an experience they will remember and they will come back again and again.

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EasyAsk eCommerce Edition is a complete product offering Search, Navigation, Merchandising and Analytics to help eTailers get the most from their eCommerce sites.

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Voice Search Energizes your Marketing Campaigns https://www.easyask.com/voice_search_for_ecommerce/ Mon, 22 Jan 2018 17:59:35 +0000 https://www.easyask.com/?p=9338 Here at EasyAsk, we have been predicting the breakout success of Voice Search for eCommerce for years. Whether your customers are using voice with their mobile phone or with an Alexa or Siri enabled device, voice search is finally taking its place as a key technology for 2018 and beyond. Check out this great article […]

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Here at EasyAsk, we have been predicting the breakout success of Voice Search for eCommerce for years. Whether your customers are using voice with their mobile phone or with an Alexa or Siri enabled device, voice search is finally taking its place as a key technology for 2018 and beyond.

Check out this great article by Jayson DeMers of Forbes that elucidates this growing trend. In fact, he uses a quote we often site from ComScore “50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020.”

EasyAsk is your trusted advisor to get you ready for the 2018. When it comes to search, EasyAsk is going to drive more revenue. We guarantee it.

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eCommerce Industry News You Can Use https://www.easyask.com/ecommerce-news-you-can-use/ Thu, 11 Jan 2018 17:41:10 +0000 https://www.easyask.com/?p=9332 Every year, eCommerce pundits share their predictions for the coming year.  As a whole, eCommerce sales continue to show remarkable growth, particularly exciting is the explosion of sales on mobile devices. Here are some articles that are “must reads” to ensure that your website is maximized to take advantage of all 2018 has to offer: […]

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Every year, eCommerce pundits share their predictions for the coming year.  As a whole, eCommerce sales continue to show remarkable growth, particularly exciting is the explosion of sales on mobile devices.

Here are some articles that are “must reads” to ensure that your website is maximized to take advantage of all 2018 has to offer:

E-Commerce in 2018: Here’s What The Experts Are Predicting (Forbes)

From $0 To $1 Million: How To Scale Your E-Commerce Site (Forbes)

How to Humanize e-Commerce (Forbes)

E-commerce market may cross $50 billion mark in 2018 (The Hindu Business Line)

The Rise of Voice Search: A How-To Guide (Business2Community)

EasyAsk is your trusted advisor to get you ready for the 2018. When it comes to search, EasyAsk is going to drive more revenue. We guarantee it.

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What does Relevant Site Search Really Mean? https://www.easyask.com/relevant-site-search-really-mean/ Tue, 19 Sep 2017 18:41:41 +0000 https://www.easyask.com/?p=9203 eCommerce Retailers need to be strategic when delivering products that match their customer’s search criteria, if they want to make the sale. Customers are savvy, if they search for a product and it does not appear on the first page of results, they are likely to abandon your site and move on to another. That’s […]

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eCommerce Retailers need to be strategic when delivering products that match their customer’s search criteria, if they want to make the sale. Customers are savvy, if they search for a product and it does not appear on the first page of results, they are likely to abandon your site and move on to another. That’s lost revenue.

Site search is getting better these days, and with that development comes the assumption that the most “relevant” results should always show up in the first page of the results display.  While that seems like a pretty reasonable expectation, there is actually more to it than meets the eye.

“Relevancy” is actually a loaded term that can have differing meanings depending on how the term is used, and who is using it.  EasyAsk understands that there is a difference between “search relevancy” and “business relevancy,” and allows the merchant to control the results display based on the importance of both of these considerations.

Consider this example:  A customer of a large online retailer is looking for a television. She types “television” into the search field and sees results that include TVs, but also television remote controls, television antennas, and other television-related products. Those results all contain the keyword she entered and are therefore “search relevant.” But are these results displayed optimally from a “business relevancy” perspective?

It’s a common mistake for a search admin to treat this kind of situation as a search issue and attempt to improve the results by restricting the definition of “television” to return only actual televisions and not accessories.  The problem with this approach is twofold: It now makes it harder for the site search function to find accessories for a “TV remote” search, and it doesn’t allow the customer to further navigate to the TV accessories after viewing the actual televisions.

EasyAsk’s technology delivers a different solution. With EasyAsk, the retailer doesn’t need to eliminate results to present the most “relevant” options first. EasyAsk allows customization of how results are displayed through simple “business rules” that weight search results.  Using plain English, the retailer can simply type in rules that will prioritize how the results of the search are displayed.

This gives the retailer complete control and solves a problem common to many site search engines. It also has dramatic implications for merchandising, since items can be prioritized by brand, price, whether they are on sale, etc. We’ll explore that avenue further in a future blog.

But back to relevancy: In many cases it’s very difficult for site search technology to know how business relevant a product is to the search request. A related item such as accessory may be categorized in the same place as the looked-for item, and have many of the same words in the product title, but may actually be quite different from the searched-for item.

The site search is doing its job when it finds every product that corresponds to the searched phrase in the correct product category. Now it’s up to the retailer and the display technology to show that information in such a way that the buyer and seller sees what is appropriate in the top results.

To illustrate with another example, let’s say a customer searches for a gas grill.  Good site search technology should find all of the products related to gas grills — including the grills themselves as well as accessories such as grill covers and grill cooking implements. A merchandiser with a powerful tool like EasyAsk, however, can control how the search results are displayed with a simple business rule that prioritizes non-accessories when showing equally search relevant products.  In this way, a single business rule can have the HDTVs and the gas grills show first for their related searches while also including their equally “search relevant” accessories  further down in the results.

The topic of relevancy in search results is more complex than it initially seems. But with EasyAsk, there is also a simple solution that serves the needs of both the retailer and consumer.

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Digital Commerce Personalization, Customer Loyalty and the ABC’s of Customer Retention https://www.easyask.com/digital-commerce-personalization-customer-loyalty-abcs-customer-retention/ Mon, 26 Jun 2017 19:35:34 +0000 https://www.easyask.com/?p=9101 By 2020, smart personalization engines used to recognize customer intent will enable digital businesses to increase their profits by up to 15% – Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce The concept of personalization is being thrown around in digital commerce circles a lot these days. It seems that every digital commerce site considers it essential […]

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By 2020, smart personalization engines used to recognize customer intent will enable digital businesses to increase their profits by up to 15% – Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce

The concept of personalization is being thrown around in digital commerce circles a lot these days. It seems that every digital commerce site considers it essential in their go-forward strategy when considering ways to increase revenue from online shoppers. Additionally, if done well, the theory goes, personalization drives loyalty and loyalty drives return business.

What Exactly does Personalization Mean?

Personalization falls into four basic categories:

Contextual – Relevant products appearing in banners, or presented as up-sells and cross-sells
Demographic – Recommendations based on the behavior of similar shoppers
Behavioral – Recommendations based on previous purchases
Remarketing – Products and services viewed on one site, pop-up on other sites as shoppers browse

When Personalization Works – examples

Contextual

Recently I was buying a carpet online, a gorgeous 8×10 area rug for my living room. In the past, I have never put a pad under my rugs, because frankly, I never thought of it. However, as I was scrolling through the page, I saw the “Frequently bought together” section and saw recommendations for non-skid rug pads. I gave it some thought, decided it was a good idea, and put one in my cart. Because the site was personalizing my experience, I was presented with an additional item that made sense for me to purchase. Just like that, I shelled out $30 I had no intention of spending.

Demographic

Filling out surveys for the sites shoppers visit is one way online retailers gain insight into their varying shopper personas. As a result, digital commerce marketers can effectively show products that other people with similar demographics have also purchased. For example, since I live in the northeast, I see more winter merchandise as the seasons change, whereas Floridians, will probably never see these products, unless they search for them specifically.

Behavioral

Have you ever clicked on Amazon’s homepage while logged into your account? I have, and based on the shopping I’ve done there in the past, one of the things I see is “Top Categories for You.” We all know that there are a lot of categories on Amazon, but based on my past shopping and browsing behavior, I am presented with Health & Household, Beauty & Personal Care and Home & Kitchen as my top three categories. I’m guessing that if my twenty-five year old son logged in, he’d see very different results.

Remarketing

I look at a lot of shoes online. I was on one shoe site looking for a pair of red wedgies but wasn’t finding exactly what I wanted. Eventually I abandoned my search. Then a funny thing happened. I was on Facebook, and a really nice pair of red wedgies popped up. I thought they were cute, but didn’t act on it right away. The next day, I was reading an online newspaper, and there on the right side of my browser, were the same cute shoes. They were following me. By the third day of the shoes popping up all over the sites I browse, I clicked the link – which brought me back to the original shoe site and I ordered them.

When Personalization Doesn’t Work

As great as personalization can be, it is important to take the “creep factor” into consideration.

Sometimes personalization becomes invasive. I’m sure we have all been targeted to purchase products because we bought something similar for someone else. Just because I bought a series of young children’s books for a friend’s child, doesn’t mean that I need to see this genre as a “recommended item.” Frankly, I find that level of personalization/recommendation creepy. Perhaps a better algorithm would base my recommendations off of a minimum threshold of similar searches, instead of automating every search as the basis for my recommendations. It is imperative that this is taken into account or you run the risk of losing that return shopper for good.

Another example is the “10% off your first purchase” pop-up. If I fill out the pop-up, the website begins the process of collecting data about me that in turn can be used for personalization. When I visit an eCommerce website for the first time, I do not want to be instantly presented with a pop-up to sign-up for their mailing list or receive a new customer discount. Let me decide if I like what you are selling before you bombard me with pop-ups hawking 10% off my first purchase. 10% of zero is zero – and if you recruit me for a special offer, before I know you – then you’ve already lost me. I don’t believe that most people want to share their personal information with a site they have never visited before and might not even carry what the shopper wants. My instinct is to close that window or hit the back button, and go to the next site in my Google search. If I’m interested in getting email from you with new offers, etc., ask me at checkout. I’m much more invested at that point.

The Basics of Customer Retention

If a shopper feels that their digital commerce retailer is taking care of them because of good personalized experiences, there is a greater chance of them returning to their website – and we all know that a returning customer is worth more than a new one. Loyalty is key, and personalization plays a role in creating it.

However, personalization is just one factor in creating customer retention. In order to create the best possible customer journey, there are some basic principals that are critical and should demand your attention first.

Usability, without question, is the most important factor in a shopper’s experience on your site. Ask yourself questions like:

  • How easy is it to navigate around the site?
  • How long does it take for pages to load? Too long for your shoppers to stick around?
  • How do you look and perform on mobile?
  • Does your site support responsive design so that it renders properly on a mobile device?
  • Do you have an app?

You are not only a digital commerce professional, but I am sure you are also a shopper. Ask yourself, would you shop on your site?

Search is the critical component in usability. When people come to your site, they want to find the products they are looking for and they want to find them instantly. A natural language search engine can be tailored to your site to ensure customers find the right products the first time every time. As we move to mobile devices, more and more people are talking instead of typing into their devices and this functionality mandates a natural language search engine. Voice activated searches require an engine that understands both the content of what is being asked as well as the context in which it is asked. This is the fundamental difference between natural language processing and keyword search.

The largest area of revenue growth and opportunity within digital commerce is mobile commerce and the ideal shopping experience is one requiring little to no typing. Amazon Alexa, Siri and OKGoogle have paved the way for 1 button, voice search.  According to Mike Lowndes of Gartner, the trend is toward “conversational commerce uses which uses natural language interfaces (such as voice) to interact with brands, services and bots, thereby enabling transactions.”

Remember that revenue is tied to the customer’s experience. Without solving for the basics first, that experience will either draw shoppers in or drive them away.

The Value of a Returning Customer

Customer LoyaltyIn case you suspected that a returning customer is more valuable than an existing one. This article from Business Insider quotes a new report from Monetate that quantifiably reveals the value of returning customers:

  • Returning visitor transactions equaled $2.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2015, almost double what new shoppers spent in that time period
  • New online shoppers are only half as likely as returning customers to place an item in their cart
  • New visitors have higher bounce rates. Those shoppers leave 34.8% of the time compared to 24.4% for returning shoppers
  • Returning visitors have a higher conversion rate at 4.5% compared to 2.4% for new visitors

Clearly the investment in providing shoppers with a stellar customer journey is worth every penny. And don’t forget, if one shopper has a consistently excellent experience, they are likely to share that information with friends and family.

In Conclusion

Today’s online shopper has a lot of choices on where they will spend their money. Retaining existing shoppers and garnering new ones requires that your website exceeds their needs and offers them an outstanding customer journey. Implementing personalization is a great way to enhance your site, as long as it is done well. However, unless the basic foundation of usability and search are in place, your personalization strategy may fall flat.

 

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Trailblazers – Congratulating The North Face on the Creation of the First Voice-Enabled Mobile eCommerce App https://www.easyask.com/northface-creates-voice-enabled-ecommerce-app/ Wed, 07 Jun 2017 18:15:50 +0000 https://www.easyask.com/?p=8993 The North Face has launched one of the first Mobile Voice-enabled eCommerce apps for the iPhone, with search powered by EasyAsk’s natural language site search engine. BURLINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS (PRWEB) JUNE 07, 2017 The North Face, a VF Company, has launched one of the very first Mobile Voice-enabled ecommerce apps for the iPhone. Using Apple’s Siri […]

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The North Face has launched one of the first Mobile Voice-enabled eCommerce apps for the iPhone, with search powered by EasyAsk’s natural language site search engine.

BURLINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS (PRWEB) JUNE 07, 2017

The North Face App features a microphone

The North Face, a VF Company, has launched one of the very first Mobile Voice-enabled ecommerce apps for the iPhone. Using Apple’s Siri embedded microphone and voice enabled technology; shoppers can simply touch the microphone within the search box and say their ecommerce search. EasyAsk provides the artificial intelligence (AI) behind the scenes to understand the context of the search questions, as well as the content of The North Face’s product catalogue. The results are breathtaking. Absolutely perfect search results based on whatever the shopper wants. As most ecommerce searches begin on Smartphones, this dramatically improved User Experience is expected to drive significantly higher revenues and customer conversion.

The North Face’s ecommerce solution is built upon IBM’s WebSphere Commerce platform, leader in Gartner’s Digital Commerce Platform Magic Quadrant, combining comprehensive delivery of merchandising results and shopping cart checkout. EasyAsk, the leader in intelligent, intuitive search, provides the Search and Merchandising technology that drives merchandising programs: cross-sells, up-sells, banner management, as well as fine control over product ordering. Built upon an evolutionary AI and Natural Language platform, EasyAsk provides intelligent search on any device: desktop, laptop, tablet or even SmartPhone utilizing the latest Mobile Voice User Experience. In benchmarks comparing EasyAsk to The North Face’s older keyword search engine, SOLR, EasyAsk’s Natural Language solution drove significantly more revenue, averaging between 23-70% all within 90 days. “Our sales per search session increased by 23% when we added EasyAsk to our WebSphere platform,” said Cal Bouchard, Sr. Director of eCommerce at The North Face.

The North Face is a trailblazer. According to Timothy Tuttle, CEO and Founder, MindMeld
“…all retailers embracing innovation, the opportunity of voice integration represents a land grab as large and important as when Apple first opened the iOS App Store in 2008 for third-party and retail apps.”

EasyAsk is a verified partner in the IBM WebSphere Commerce Partner Program and Gartner’s Cool Vendor in Search. EasyAsk integrates with and enhances your existing eCommerce site by providing an intuitive User Experience that lets shoppers simply ask for what they need and get the results they want.

 

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If your application or website isn’t compatible with voice-enabled technology what are you waiting for? https://www.easyask.com/voice-enabled-technology-is-the-future/ Fri, 02 Jun 2017 19:49:10 +0000 https://www.easyask.com/?p=8982 Is your Organization ready for the second wave of virtual personal assistants and conversational interfaces? These voice-enabled technologies will exceed what is being used today in both intelligence and pervasiveness. Amazon Echo and Google Home are here to stay – according to RedDrop over 24 million of these devices will be sold in 2017. At […]

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Is your Organization ready for the second wave of virtual personal assistants and conversational interfaces? These voice-enabled technologies will exceed what is being used today in both intelligence and pervasiveness.

Amazon Echo and Google Home are here to stay – according to RedDrop over 24 million of these devices will be sold in 2017. At the beginning of the year there were only 8.5 million in use. Siri handles over a billion voice searches per week. On Android, 1 in 5 searches are voice driven. By 2020, 50% of all searches will be by voice.

The trend is obvious. Talking to voice-enabled devices is becoming commonplace.

This new generation of voice-driven assistant technologies is fueled by the growth in keyboardless and screenless devices such as Amazon Echo (and it’s baby sibling, Dot) and Google Home. Other technologies have already incorporated virtual personal assistants like Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant.

Additionally, great speech recognition is now built into every major operating system. Although, to support that verbal input experts agree a Search engine with advanced Semantic Natural Language capabilities is a pre-requisite.

How are people using these innovative gadgets now?

In general, over 60% of these devices are used to ask general questions. For those of you who are particularly interested in eCommerce, 1 in 10 owners are using these devices to order products, according to Marketing Charts. This trend will gain even more momentum in the next few years.

EasyAsk has been watching this trend develop for decades and is on the cutting edge of Natural Language technology, one of the underlying technologies that is driving this revolution. General questions? We’ve got you covered – that’s what our Natural Language Query engine is all about. eCommerce shopping? Our eCommerce Site Search engine is driven by natural language, which in turn allows for conversational questions and searches that are a natural fit for voice interaction.

If you are coming to IRCE this week, swing by booth #1005 and see how EasyAsk will help your eCommerce Search boost sales on the web and on mobile devices. Give us a shot. As an added bonus you might win an Echo Dot.

If you aren’t headed to IRCE, request a demo – let us show you have EasyAsk advanced capabilities for eCommerce Site Search will increase your conversions and revenue by 20-90%.

We’ll throw in the Echo just for giving us a shot.

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72% of Online Shoppers Prefer an Experience that Makes it Easy to Find What They Want.* https://www.easyask.com/ecommerce-site-search-keeps-me-awake/ Tue, 30 May 2017 14:38:45 +0000 https://www.easyask.com/?p=8949 Why we worry about your eCommerce Site Search eCommerce professionals lay in bed at night and wonder what they can do to increase conversions and boost revenue. After all, that is what they are chartered to do. But when they put on their work hat and go into the office in the morning, they also […]

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Implement better eCommerce Site Search and get some sleepWhy we worry about your eCommerce Site Search

eCommerce professionals lay in bed at night and wonder what they can do to increase conversions and boost revenue. After all, that is what they are chartered to do. But when they put on their work hat and go into the office in the morning, they also put on blinders. You see, many of these professionals forget that they are also shoppers. As they design their sites, they ignore their own experiences as online shoppers. Creating an experience that meets corporate objectives may be in direct conflict with their customers needs. Simply put – shoppers want to find and purchase what they want. A recent survey conducted by the Gartner Group showed that 72% of online shoppers prefer an experience that makes it easy to find what they want.*

What do online shoppers want?

This is the first question eCommerce professionals should ask themselves. “What do our customers want and how can we help them get it quickly and easily?” Regardless of what other business objectives your organization has carved out, getting both returning and new customers the products they want, is critical to success. The key therefore, is search and navigation. The more easily searchable your site is, the more likely your customer is to make their purchase.

Sounds simple, but it’s not (a personal story)

Recently I was on a furniture site, looking for a new sofa. I had two objectives while searching the site. The first was to find out some information regarding Sunbrella fabric and the second was to look at sofas, starting with the least expensive. Three minutes on the site – using the search term Sunbrella – I came up with a myriad of products that could be customized with the fabric, but nothing about the properties of the fabric itself. Strike 1.

I broadened the search term to “tell me about Sunbrella fabric” and got the same results. Ultimately, I left the site to find the information elsewhere. I gave the site another chance to search for the sofa itself. I navigated the menus so that only sofas were selected and used the drop down to sort them by price – low to high. There were 146 products that matched my criteria. I thought, now I’m getting somewhere. Except, I was wrong. First I got ottomans. Then I got a mix of chairs and sofas, my sort criteria was ignored completely. There were $800 chairs mixed in with $1,600 sofas. Strike Two.

Frustrated, I left the site, this time without returning. (No three strikes rule for this gal)

So, what was wrong? Well, the KEYWORD search engine certainly wasn’t intelligent enough to understand my questions, A natural language search engine should have/would have returned a blog entry or article about the fabric, which would have been helpful. Simply asking for ‘Sunbrella sofas under $1,500’, would return exactly what I was looking for.

Be the eCommerce Professional Hero

What does this all mean? Well, I’m sure the eCommerce professionals who designed the site, are also eCommerce shoppers. If they took a step back and looked at their site through the eyes of a consumer, they would recognize the inherent flaws that are keeping them from recognizing higher revenues. They need tools that will quickly and accurately query their data for products and information that is useful to the consumer. After all, 72% claim that what they want is the key to a good shopping experience.

Tactics such as personalization, product recommendations, ratings and reviews are all desirable to incorporate into your digital strategy, but they can’t do the job alone. The first priority was, is and will always be site search. As you never know HOW a shopper may choose to search for products, a smarter eCommerce site search solution will always be a cornerstone to success.

*J. Melton, Gartner Group, “Helping Website Newcomers Find Their Way Around Can Boost Sales,” Digital Commerce 360, 8 December 2016.

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