One of the most converting tools on an Ecommerce website is the search engine. With advanced features like autocomplete, typo correction, and natural language processing a good search experience can enhance user satisfaction, drive higher conversion rates, and contribute to overall brand loyalty.
69% of consumers use the search bar to look for products
A Google Cloud research from 2023 shows that 69% of consumers use the search bar to look for products, making it the most commonly used tool on an e-commerce website. Therefore, a well-designed search engine is a key catalyst in transforming user intent into conversions.
At the same time, one of the pain points in customer experience is not finding the product they are looking for. This creates challenges to your business and for customers, who remain frustrated and most likely abandon the site, or go back to Google Search, and perhaps end up on your competitor’s platform.
To improve this aspect, among other solutions, Hello Retail’s Search now also provides AI-Synonyms, a new AI-powered feature that finds and implements synonyms for search queries that end with a no-result page.
In this article, we explore the obstacles for businesses when customers encounter searches with no results and present you with our solution that adds new strengths to any e-commerce manager’s toolbox.
What happens when customers experience searches with no results?
In the fiercely competitive landscape E-commerce businesses that prioritize the optimization of their search experience stand to gain not only in terms of immediate revenue but also in the cultivation of long-term customer loyalty.
Reduced Conversion Rates and Lost Revenue
Zero search results have a direct impact on conversion rates. If customers cannot find what they’re looking for, they are less likely to make a purchase. A seamless and efficient search experience is crucial for guiding users from product discovery to successful transactions, maximizing conversion rates.
Increased Bounce Rates and Site Abandonment
Zero search results often lead to increased bounce rates as users may exit the site without exploring further. High bounce rates can signal to search engines that the site does not meet user expectations, potentially affecting its search rankings.
Customer Frustration and Dissatisfaction
The inability to find the desired product not only disrupts the user experience but may lead to dissatisfaction. This negative emotion can linger, potentially influencing the customer’s perception of the brand and decreasing the likelihood of future interactions.
How to avoid this?
The Search solution by Hello Retail allows any business to build a library of synonyms and redirects, to help their customers find what they are looking for. For instance, if a customer searches for “jumper”, but on the site, this clothing item is called “sweater”, then the term “jumper” can be added as a synonym.
It has proven to be a highly valuable tool for many of our customers. With access to Analytics, e-commerce managers can easily find the most used terms that show no results, and immediately add synonyms that match the contents of their site.
However, sometimes there are hundreds of these terms, and it would require a lot of manual work to fix all of them, which is nearly impossible. And we know e-commerce managers would rather use this time to upgrade and innovate on their site.
This is where AI-Synonyms come in.
What are AI-Synonyms?
This new feature applies Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address the issue of zero search results. It identifies potential alternative queries or keywords that produce relevant results and then implements these alternatives to improve the search experience.
E-commerce managers can continue adding synonyms manually in the Dashboard, but also take their minds off those cases that are out of their reach.
Benefits for your business:
- Better user experience with Search
- Positive impact on conversion rates and bounce rates
- Additional revenue with no resources spent
- Time saved on manual search optimization
How does it work
When a visitor types in a term that the Search engine can’t find on your website, the term is categorized as a “Search Without Results” in the Hello Retail Dashboard. With this new feature, using an AI language model, we analyze the words in this list and try to solve them by finding alternative terms that will ultimately match with keywords on your website.
This process is automatically repeated every 24 hours when our system scans the list again and solves the possible items. Therefore, no action is required from the e-commerce manager.
EXAMPLE
In the illustrated example, a user searched for “altra marathon” on a sports webshop. If the term “altra” or “marathon” is not found on the site, it will not be able to show any results.
With AI-Synonyms, we solve this search by finding 5 alternative terms. One of them “running shoes” for instance, succeeds in finding results on the webshop. Now, every time someone looks for “altra marathon” they will see the results for “running shoes”, that still match the customer’s need and encourage them to explore the options presented to them.
This new feature works with any webshop set-up, and with any language.
How to Activate the Feature
AI-Synonyms is a Beta feature available to all Hello Retail customers that use our Search, but are not enabled by default. You can do so in Search > Search Engines > Edit search settings
Do you want to learn about our Search solution? Our team is here to give you a tour!
