Tag Archives: enterprise search platform

Accessing Enterprise Content with Mobile Search

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Today many IT departments are investing in mobile technology to make their internal enterprise content accessible in employees mobile phones and other mobile devices. We all want to be able to work without being at the office, and without having to run around with the job laptop. Imagine being at a business lunch and you want to pull up some presentation you have on the company intranet, why not just use the mobile phone?

In some organizations this is possible, and in some it still isnt’t. And in most organizations you don’t have access to all the documents and content available internally in document management systems, file shares and databases. And even if you did have access to the content in your mobile phone, you wouldn’t want to start browsing for it because it’s just too cumbersome to find it.

Here’s an idea for you: why not utilize the enterprise search platform to make the content both accessible, findable and readable?

First step is to make the content accessible. Since all content is already being indexed by the search engine, it’s already in one central place, at least in text representation. If you have a solution in place for having mobile phones access the company intranet, it should be fairly simple to open up for mobile devices to access the enterprise search web interface as well, with security credentials still in place.

Secondly the content need to be findable, and what better way to find information on a mobile phone is there than to search for it? With mobile search user interface patterns this will be much more efficient than traditional browsing for information.

And third, when you have found your document, you can use search engine features such as fingernail previews, automatic summarization and HTML conversion to make it easily readable on the mobile device.

Check out my presentation on SlideShare on accessing content with mobile search as well.

If you already have an enterprise search platform in place, why not start researching how to utilize it to make your enterprise content accessible on your mobile phone?

And if you don’t have an enterprise search platform in place, I suppose you now have yet another reason to add to your business case for investing in one.

Implement Findability in Your Customer Service Interactions

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With the rapid rate of change in the global economy, the need for customer knowledge and predictive insight has never been more urgent. The competition is increasing as well as the demand for cost reduction, so whether you are a company fighting for business or a public entity serving the citizens, there is a great deal to gain by introducing Findability on your website.

Using the power of an enterprise search platform to serve your Internet site enables you to take your online service offering to the next level. Due to the “Google-effect”, users have become used to accessing information via a single search box as opposed to “surfing around” to find what they are looking for. A good search system enables your site users to start their journey through your site from the single search box. Accompanied by extreme relevance and navigational tools, users find the information they are looking for with a minimum number of clicks.
Online presence has become a must for companies with a large customer base. With consumers constantly developing a higher degree of online literacy, they expect a higher degree of online service from their vendors— including easy-to-find information and other services such as stock trading and banking facilities. You can easily offer your customers a unified view on your services and information—even if they originate from different source systems—due to the search system’s ability to act as a universal Findability layer.

An increased online service offering will also drive self-service behavior from the user side. By using Search Analytics on the query/search logs you will get a wealth of information about customer behavior. Take customer support as an example. By publishing the most requested support information on your public site, and enabling the users to easily find the information they are looking for, the need for call center support is lowered. This reduces the pressure on the basic customer service functions, allowing you to refocus resources to other value creating activities.

For many enterprises, self service is seen as the solution that can provide customers with the support they need while significantly reducing service costs.

Self-service is regarded as an opportunity to sharply lower customer support costs by deflecting calls. For example, respondents to a Fortune 1,000 survey expect to offload 23% of their call volume to Internet-based self-service (Mastering Online Customer Service, Bruce D. Temkin, Bob Chatham, Hillary Drohan, Katharine M. Gardiner, Forrester, July 2002). And there are proven cost justifications for implementing self-service: Web-based self-service interactions cost 75% less than a phone interaction.

While more traditional customer service interaction solutions tend to be based on a knowledge data base, that needs to be built and maintained, a Findability based solution is more dynamic in its nature and is based on a dynamical index created by the already existing data that resides in the corporate systems. The index can be partitioned into information buckets meeting different user needs and profiles.
So implement Findability in your customer service interactions!