FAQ

The EasyAsk solution uses a natural language engine to process the user’s query. This means that EasyAsk understands the query no matter how it is entered. Consider the following 2 examples:

black mens waterproof jacket

Men’s rainproof coat in black

EasyAsk treats both of these queries as the same, recognising that “mens” and “man’s” are gender constraints, “jacket” and “coat” are synonymous (in this context), and “black” is a color attribute. EasyAsk also knows how to handle the non‐product terms in a search (such as “in” above), meaning that verbose long‐tail searches can be processed correctly:

“I’m looking for a long‐sleeved cotton top in blue for not more than $25”

The ability to handle such searches and return exactly the right products makes EasyAsk the ideal solution as more and more customers turn to voice input when shopping on Smartphones.

With tuneable relevance, term relaxation, term redefinition, search redirects, intelligent spell‐ correction and concept matching (instead of keyword matching), EasyAsk natural language search ensures the customer sees the right products every time.

Yes. EasyAsk works at a data level, leaving your front‐end code to decide how any displays should appear. This means it will work exactly the same with your desktop site, your responsive site or even your dedicated mobile site or application.

Yes. Because EasyAsk interfaces with the site at a data level, it will work with all types of sites and all types of technology.

EasyAsk derived attributes allow merchandisers to create new navigation facets simply by creating rules to define the products. For example, to create a new filter “Suitable for Beginners” the merchandiser might create a rule for it such as:

Guitar by Squire or Epiphone less than $300

Or

Drum Kit by Mapex less than $400

Merchandisers can use their own product knowledge to categorize products as above or could use specific product IDs to create new “collections”:

Manager’s Choice: “product id = 1234 or 5678 or 9012 or 3456 or 7890 or ….”

All of the above examples will result in the shopper seeing new navigation filters such as “Manager’s Choice” and “Suitable for Beginners”.

Yes. Any information that can be read from your product catalogue can be used in business rules. This could include product sales rankings, review scores, stock levels, etc.

When viewing EasyAsk analytics reports within our Commerce Studio tool, all report entries are “live” links. Clicking on them will show instant preview of results and each entry, where applicable, will have an “edit” icon that allows the user to immediately analyse and fix problem areas.

A derived attribute is an attribute created entirely within the EasyAsk environment that does not exist in your source product catalog. To the website it appears just like an attribute that has come from the product catalog, but it is created by your business users without having to touch the catalog.

Derived attributes have a name and a set of values, for example “Color Family” and “Red”, “Blue”, “Green”, etc. Each value has a rule associated with it that determines which products have this attribute value. For example, the rule for “Red” may be “product name contains ‘red’ or ‘cherry’ or ‘wine’ or ‘cerise’ “. EasyAsk pre‐processes these rules to create internal lists of matching products in its high speed search indexes.

The ability to create new attributes without any IT involvement means that merchandisers can quickly create new ways to shop for their customers.

Derived attribute value names also become searchable, so in the color family example above, if a user searches for “red shoes” they will find shoes described as “red”, “cherry”, “wine” and “cerise”.

Derived attributes can be defined for merchandising use only, meaning they will not appear as search filters. This allows merchandisers to use derived attributes to make arbitrary product grouping, perhaps for landing pages, campaigns, etc.

Yes. Because EasyAsk is able to include any available data to include in its sort criteria for product ordering, businesses can choose to order products on any combination of information. This could include product view popularity, sales volume, margin, stock levels or any other information that can be made available to the EasyAsk index process. We do not recommend using just product popularity data like some of our competitors as this can simply lead to “self‐fulfilling prophecy” syndrome, where popular products are promoted and become more popular! Instead, using a combination of any data, coupled with merchandiser‐controlled business rules, provides a far more balanced approach.

In terms of automatic learning, the EasyAsk instant search facility (an advanced autocomplete system that shows products as the user types) will show the most popular searches first as the user types. This automatically evolves as the system is used and is driven by EasyAsk search analytics.

EasyAsk is priced based on the expected volume of search/navigation traffic. We always provide plenty of scope for those extra‐busy holiday periods without you having to pay more. Unlike many other vendors, when you pay for an EasyAsk license you get all functionality – you don’t pay extra for additional modules, and when we add new functionality you get it for free!

No. EasyAsk delivers results back to your own web application which then displays the results using its own templates and technology. This means the user (and search robots) see all content coming from your own domain.

Creating a rule to “boost” products in the results is simply a case of typing a natural language description of products to be boosted, for example:

“smart Samsung TVs over $400”

Or

“18V impact drills with stock > 50”

A boost rule can also be given a priority, allowing multiple applicable rules to be sorted correctly. Rules may also be event‐related, so they only apply during certain date/time limits, such a sale periods, holiday campaigns, etc.

Both. EasyAsk can be licensed as a cloud solution or as an “on premise” solution. EasyAsk has many customers in each category. You may also want to start by using the cloud solution first and switching to on premise later or vice versa.

EasyAsk supports natural language queries in English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Italian. Other languages could be made available if required but there may be additional cost associated with time. Please check with your local EasyAsk representative if you require additional language support.

EasyAsk technical support is comprised of a team of professionals with an in-depth understanding of the EasyAsk products and best practices for implementation and maintenance processes.
Maintenance services are available via Web or phone, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. (ET), with Web access to report problems and monitor status 24 hours per day, every day of the year. Support packages may vary depending on the level of maintenance purchased.

Need an answer to a technical question?
Email us at [email protected], or call us toll free at 1-800-425-8200

Need to access our support download site?
Access our FTP site at ftp://ftp.easyask.com/