Speaking Sensis

When I hear that a company has a digital strategy, I say – “so what; I want to know the details of the plan and when it will deliver something that makes a difference to people”. 

It is reassuring to know that right now at Sensis people are busy delivering the digital strategy to make a positive difference to advertisers and the people who use our products and services.  Of course there are some big plans, and exciting projects as part of this, but at the grassroots its also about continuing things such as improving the way we do the basics – like improving the online user experience.  This is something we work on continually using consumer feedback and historical site data.

A few of the latest improvements for Yellow Pages® and White Pages® online sites, set to go live in March include:

• the removal of the radio buttons used to select a business type search or business name search. Instead, yellowpages.com.au will automatically determine, based on the search term, whether the user was looking for a type of business, or a specific business, and handle the search accordingly. For example, a user searching for bunnings is obviously looking for a specific business. On the other hand, a user searching for used cars is clearly looking for a type of business. We’re making this change because we know that users don’t always notice the radio buttons, and consequently accidentally run the wrong type of search, leading to poor results;
• Auto-suggest functionality is being enhanced, with business names now also being suggested;
• Update of the business profile page for Yellow Pages® advertisers. We have updated the look and feel and added new video and photo tabs for advertisers who choose this type of ad. Plus, now when you print business profile pages you will get a cleaner and simpler result; and
• Extension of “my list” tool on White Pages® online from business search to residential.  My lists allows users to “select” advertisers contact details and create personalised lists which can be shared via email with others. 

There is more coming soon in the development pipeline including work on widgets, linking with facebook and twitter, plug-ins, brand name search, geocoding and more.  Stay tuned.