CRM - August 2008 - (Page 40)

SEARCH AND CRM Search has been growing in importance in the enterprise for a variety of reasons. With companies collecting and keeping more and more information— remember when a terabyte was a lot of data?—they now must provide users with a quick and easy way to find relevant items. The need to locate such data swiftly is paramount in contact centers where customer service representatives must sift through oodles of information to answer inquiries ASAP. (See “In Search of ,” March 2008, for more on search inside and outside the contact center.) Also, users and customers have become quite comfortable with search technology; in fact, it’s become so familiar that Google has evolved from the name of a company to a verb used by executives and consumers. Because search has gained such widespread acceptance, IT managers are being pressured to bring it into the enterprise. Many are often asked:“Why isn’t our internal search as simple to use as when we look for something on the Web?” Historically, there has been a wide gap between the functionality provided by internal and external searches. While a Web user can type in a few words and regularly come back with desired information, that ability has typically not been found with enterprise searches. Corporate users sometimes enter keywords several times, do not find what they desire, and end up so frustrated that they simply stop using their companies’ enterprise search systems. ments, database management system files, and imaging records. Also, information resides on central servers, department systems, or employee machines, which can be PCs, laptops, or handheld devices. To help users find desired enterprise information, a company needs a tool that can examine all of those information sources, something that no product was originally designed to do. Internet search is much simpler. These systems are able to easily pinpoint information sources, which usually are individual or company Web servers. Also, data is often limited to HTML Web pages. Compounding the challenge, the process of how users enter information for Web and enterprise searches is similar, but the desired results are much different. With Internet searches, users often have broad search goals—many times they don’t know exactly what they’re looking for—and are really only looking for places where they can find needed information. After they type in a word, such as “phones,” users frequently are satisfied with being brought to a comparison Web site where information about several phones is listed. Enterprise searches usually have a much narrower focus. If users type in a key phrase—“Joseph Smith’s address,” for example—they expect a specific piece of information to appear and are disappointed if that does not happen. One implication from this requirement is that companies need to put procedures in place to make sure that their data is clean, basically accurate, and up-to-date. While Web users have become accustomed to hitting dead links, it is something that can infuriate employees. High prices have also slowed the adoption of enterprise search systems. These products, selling for anywhere between $50,000 and $1 million, often require a lot of customization, which usually means hiring a systems integration team. Many firms have been unable to justify such significant expenditures. Security requirements are also different with the two types of searches. The basic goal of Internet search engines is to scour and index all of the information on the public Web. They were never designed to interpret that information and map it to security models and user permissions. Enterprise search systems do need to make such distinctions. They must differentiate between sensitive data, such as an employee’s annual pay or Social Security number, and nonsensitive data, such as the date the company was founded. These distinctions are especially important when a company opens up its search functions to clients and suppliers. “When customers access our search engine, we want to supply them with all of the content available to all clients as well as their own specific data,” explains Derek Matthews, lead knowledge architect at Ariba, which offers spend management software and services. “They should be able to generate a benchmark report but not be allowed to look at another customer’s benchmark report.” LOOKING FOR REASONS There are many reasons why search systems have not taken off in the enterprise. Vendors have delivered a variety of products that store data in various places: CRM systems, enterprise resource planning systems, email messages, text documents, and spreadsheets, to name just a few. This data is stored in many different formats, such as word processing docu- LOOKING FOR IMPROVEMENTS Consequently, corporations have begun clamoring for improvements in enterprise search systems. In response, a regiment of vendors has emerged to try and address the various problems. (See sidebar, “Searching for Search,” page 42, for a partial list.) Recently, these small niche vendors have been joined by industry goliaths Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, prompting search to become more common in the enterprise. In June 2004, Google shook up the market: Pricing for the Google Search Appliance started at $30,000, and the Google Mini, a scaled-down search system geared to departments or small companies, sold for $2,995. Since then, there has been pressure on enterprise search vendors to lower product pricing. “We have not seen many integrate CRM into enterprise search.” j 40 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | AUGUST 2008 www.destinationCRM.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - August 2008

CRM - August 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Maximum Security A Code Win Doesn’t Blow Forming the Platform CRM on Twitter CRM Class Is in Session Making CRM Mandatory for University Administration Required Reading Cover Story: Calling it Quits Wouldja Look at That? 8 Enterprise Strategies That Stick CRM Searches for Search All Lines Are Not Busy UC: As Easy as A-B-C Even Contact Centers Have Room for Improvement Money Lying Around? Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - August 2008

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