Over the past 10 years of e-commerce (an e-business market segment) and customer experience research, we’ve seen that search technology and tools are critical to buyers who are evaluating products and customers who are using products.

Search technology is vitally important to ensure that customers find the information they need to make a decision and achieve success with their purchase. Every time your site's search leaves a customer staring at long and unorganized search results, you have frustrated your customer, your merchandisers, your sales team, and your contact center staff. Every time a customer can't get the answer she needs, you've either lost a revenue opportunity, damaged a relationship, incurred a contact center cost or all three.

Most executives we talk with know that the customer experience, and the information driving it, needs to be more consistent across channels. Not as many understand that the same consistency should also be delivered across the customer lifecycle. Fewer still have been successful at turning a customer support question into sales of alternative products, replacement parts, or support services primarily because customer support and e-commerce are siloed systems with different goals, staff, and tools.