2020 In Review: A Year of Challenges & New Opportunities to Serve Customers
As the COVID-19 virus spread across the world, 2020 will go down in history as one of the most challenging years in many decades. Despite the severe economic impact that the pandemic has had on so many businesses, 2020 saw an exponential increase in ecommerce sales and online information seeking as compared to just 12 short months ago.
Whether you are a web based B2C or B2B seller or an association looking to grow your membership base, there are many more opportunities today to reach the right audience. 2020 was also a very busy year for HawkSearch, as we continued to fulfill our commitment to providing personalized and meaningful search experiences for our customers’ website visitors. Here is just a brief summary of the initiatives that HawkSearch took on during the past year.
Organic Growth
HawkSearch continued to grow organically in 2020 as the result of many new customers coming on board who share our vision about the importance of delivering outstanding search experiences for their customers.
Investment in Technology and Functionality
Each year, we continue to heavily invest resources all across the company, particularly in the areas that have the greatest impact on our customers’ ability to optimize the capabilities of HawkSearch.
Search Information Manager
HawkSearch rolled out our Search Information Manager (SIM) product to the marketplace, the first of its kind in the industry. When it comes to the ways in which website visitors search, some of the chronic data inconsistencies that a PIM or ERP have never been able to resolve include fraction detection (1/2 or .5), standard measurements (14/16 vs. 7/8), symbols of measurement (1 inch vs. 1”) and phrases such as “6 inches” or “half a foot”. In addition, for websites that heavily utilize part numbers, the inclusion or exclusion of a dash can often erode effective search results. Moreover, searching by SKU numbers can also be adversely affected by users confusing the number zero with the letter “O”. Whether this data is coming from a PIM, ERP or an ecommerce system, the Search Information Manager further normalizes it, thus greatly increasing the quality of search results for site visitors.
Partnering with BigCommerce & Salesforce
We are proud that our company is now the only Elite partner with BigCommerce and one of only 3 search vendor partners for Salesforce B2B commerce. These designations illustrate that HawkSearch’s Marketing & Merchandising based search strategy separates us from even the industry’s biggest players. Integration Accelerators/Connectors 2020 also saw HawkSearch launch various integration accelerators and connectors for the latest versions of Magento, Shopify, EpiCommerce, WooCommerce, Sitefinity, Kentico, Sitecore and WordPress.
Enhanced Reporting
A new enhanced reporting interface further helps our customers understand and utilize key data about their businesses, including the ROI gained by implementing our Relevant Recommendations feature, spotting trends in customer search activities as well as utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning for maximum benefit.
Always Looking to the Future
While HawkSearch has cause to celebrate some accomplishments in 2020, we are hard at work and already focused on our goals for 2021. We look forward this year to providing our customers with even better strategies and tools to make the most out of their customers’ on-site search experiences.