We first brought you the idea of “Seamless experiences” in July 2022. As a reminder, it reflects an ideal customer journey where value exchange happens with minimal friction: a buyer quickly and easily moves from search to the shopping cart. In the very upfront portion, search can make or break the entire customer journey. That’s where seamless, smart search comes in.
Xngage is proud to partner with innovative companies who are thinking about better product discovery, synonymous for search. The goal is a search function that delivers. It’s where the twin powers of machine learning (smart) and faster integrations (seamless) combine to get buyers into the shopping cart faster.
Start with Good Data
Product data is the core of all seamless experiences and the foundation of smart, seamless search. Why? Data is the currency of experiences and has high value when it’s used at the right place at the right time.
An authenticated B2B website (yes, requiring a log in) will help to store previous behavioral context even if buyers didn’t purchase. We can be aware of what products the user considered during the last encounter. That’s valuable because it’s much easier for a search platform to suggest recommended relationships if the system is already primed.
For example, the system might pull standard product data into a commerce-and-content Admin Console. Adding behavioral shopping data through “Merchandising Views” (think 360˚ rotation or part number linkage) via a connector will unlock greater buyer potential. Consider your own shopping behaviors. If you searched for 1/8” drill bits previously and reviewed several PDPs (product detail pages) before making your last purchase, that’s powerful data to incorporate into your next online buying experience for similar or lookalike items. It would save time in the search process and drive greater click-to-cart conversions.
Why Standard Search Functions Need to Evolve
Standard out-of-the-box (OOTB) search functionality is like a standard digital commerce ERP storefront. It will work, but it has inherent limitations. It will provide exactly what the buyer specifies they are looking for during a search, without any AI or behavioral user context. Most companies outgrow standard OOTB functionality as more complex customer use cases evolve. And some of those use cases are from your internal customers of customer service and salespeople too.
As the world of machine-learning, Artificial Intelligence, and smart product recommendations hastens, solutions are poised to offer more efficiencies and improved conversions. As the digital commerce ecosystem expands, these types of integration accelerators will simplify search thereby positioning B2B competitors to be more competitively advantaged.
