Speaking Sensis

There’s a lot of improvement going on at Sensis. And our customers like what they’re seeing.

If there’s one thing this world definitely doesn’t want for, it’s business advice.

I mean, there’s more business books out there today than skivvies at a Trekkies convention. If you don’t believe me, try searching for “marketing” at Amazon.com’s book section… and be amazed by the mind-snapping 535,000 results you get .

The irony is that this torrent of advice all boils down to some pretty basic principles. And the most fundamental of them all is:

Give your customers what they want.

With that in mind, Sensis has been working closely with the buyers and sellers who rely on our services: listening to them, learning about their needs and launching the solutions to help them.

This approach has led to a stream of new innovations over the last couple of years. From info-rich advertising and metered ads to the Yellow™ in the car directory, to agreements with Ninemsn and Google Maps, to re-builds of our directory web sites to the new mobile sites that are now delivering 8% of our total digital traffic (1) .

More importantly, this customer-centric approach – which can be seen not just in our product development, but in our focus on effective sales and customer service – has contributed to a real spike in customer satisfaction. Between February 08 and May 09, for example, satisfaction among users of our directory sites increased by 10 percentage points (pp) for Yellow Pages® OnLine (2) and 14pp for White Pages® OnLine (3).

And we’re keeping the heat on the innovation front so we can deliver continuous improvement to our customers. In just the last fortnight, for example, we’ve launched the following upgrades to our digital local search sites.

Easy to access

Buyers are looking for more touchpoints, so they can access our services whenever and wherever they want to.

To assist this, we’ve just launched White Pages® Mobile. The new mobile version of White Pages® gives you access to residential, business or government contacts together with maps and directions and the ability to save listings to your contacts or share them with friends. And it’s all just one click away from the BigPond mobile menu.

We’ve also improved the popular send to mobile feature on Whereis.com. Send to mobile is a simple way to send your online search results to your mobile. That way, you can easily take the business details you found on your computer out on the road with you.

Easy to search

People are also looking for easier ways to search – less entry boxes and more relevant results. Over the last fortnight, we’ve continued to answer this call by launching:

• Streamlined search in White Pages® OnLine. We’ve reduced the number of entry windows, which means less typing and faster results. For example, the number of business search windows has shrunk from four to two.
• Auto-complete for White Pages® OnLine searches. By suggesting answers while you’re typing this new facility saves even more time and helps ensure more relevant results.
• New user-friendly URLs for Yellow Pages® OnLine advertiser pages. This means site users can easily bookmark the results page for businesses they’re interested in. And, if you’re an advertiser, you can link straight from your web site to your Yellow Pages® OnLine ad.
• The addition of business listing names to the Yellow Pages® OnLine search algorithm. This has the potential to greatly expand the relevant results site users will receive. For example, a search for Thai Restaurants on the Gold Coast currently returns 87 listings, instead of only 26 in the past.

Easy to find

And what about when you’ve found the business listing you want? What are we doing to make it easier for you to get in contact with that business?

If you’re hungry, Yellow Pages® OnLine has made it easier than ever to book a restaurant or order a meal. There are already over 500 registered Menulog restaurants across Australia that are now also listed with Yellow Pages® OnLine under headings like Restaurants and Cafes.  For example, you can search for Indian Restaurants in Melbourne VIC, and find restaurants like Nirankar Fine Indian Cuisine or Bombay Beat Restaurant that provide one click access to Menulog’s booking and ordering facilities.

We’ve also added landmark navigation to the Whereis.com web site. As a result, you’ll begin seeing turn by turn directions like “turn right at the Post Office” rather than just “turn right in 200m”. This enhancement is the result of research undertaken by Melbourne Uni’s Geomatics department and Whereis. The research clearly showed that people are able to navigate more easily and precisely using landmarks.

I hope you’ll agree that that’s not a bad haul for a fortnight. But it’s far from the end. Continuous improvement means continuous innovation, so keep your eye on Speaking Sensis for more listening, learning and launching in the future.