E-commerce managers at Barnesandnoble.com, Bell Canada, Iomega, and Office Depot are using customized versions of search tools such as Ask Jeeves, Copernic 2000, Google, and Northern Light to boost customer service, increase site traffic, learn about their users, and improve site design.

Straightforward site searches are found at most commerce destinations and many are licensed from consumer search engines such as Excite. But while these tools are widely used, they're often among the least useful.

"When you look at the search functions at most E-commerce sites, they're doing a horrible job," says Forrester Research analyst Paul Hagen. If a query doesn't exactly match a site's content, the search probably won't work. And if the user is unfamiliar with the Boolean logic and precise language required to make a typical search tool work--as many Internet newcomers are--he's likely to give up. As Hagen says, "Do a search on Godiva.com for white chocolate, and you'll get no results. But look for ivory chocolate, and it'll show 40 items."

To make results more relevant, site managers are employing search services licensed from the search-tool vendor and customized for their specific site. These services can add a degree of intelligence to responses, broaden the scope of explorations, and let questions be asked online in everyday language.

On the Web site of data storage company Iomega Corp., for example, users can type in technical-support questions and get answers. Some examples: Why does the computer freeze when I install Zip tools? Where can I download Iomega drivers?

The search tool is a customized version of the question-answering service from Ask Jeeves Inc. Called Find It, the service searches support-related knowledge bases on Iomega's site.

Iomega's customer support already makes good use of Web access--70% of all support interaction takes place online. Additionally, Find It's ease of use has made it very popular, very quickly. Since August, more than 20% of visitors to Iomega's support site have used Find It. "We want to give our customers service in whatever form they want--whether it's phone or Web," says Mike Nikzad, Iomega's director of Web and systems support, "but we'd like to maximize our contacts through the Web."

With customer-service calls often costing as much as $50 each, other businesses would like alternatives, too. Even a slight decrease in call volume could mean millions of dollars in savings. "Finding a tech-support answer without getting someone on the phone is really valuable," says Kathleen Hall, an associate analyst for Giga Information Group.

More than 20 companies in the online retail, financial-services, health-care, and technical sectors have signed up for custom services with Ask Jeeves. Compaq, Dell Computer, and Microsoft are using Ask Jeeves to handle customer-support questions, and many more customers are expected to be added since Jeeves' recent acquisition of Net Effect Systems Inc., a real-time online help system.

Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. uses the Net Effect service to let users chat with customer-service reps. After the merger between Net Effect and Ask Jeeves is complete, customers should be able to ask questions using the Ask Jeeves search engine, then follow up with a live customer-service rep using Net Effect technology.

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Illustration by Lisa Hernderling