Coveo Improves Digital CX with Intelligent Search for Sitecore
Coveo, a provider of intelligent search technology, rolled out a new Sitecore native search app, Coveo for Sitecore Pro Cloud Edition and a new version of its native, on-premise Sitecore integration, 
Coveo for Sitecore v4.0. The point of both new editions is to assist Sitecore users and system integrators to provide and optimize more sophisticated digital customer experiences.
"As Sitecore's largest technology partner, we are committed to giving the Sitecore SI community and expansive customer base next-level tools for personalized, digital customer experiences -- without the heavy lifting, yet with the performance, scalability and security that SIs and large organizations require," Coveo CTO and Founder, Laurent Simoneau, explained in a statement. "Our beta program participants reported striking results."
With support for over 25 types of documents, including PDF, Office, and so on, in over 40 languages, Coveo for Sitecore indexes and brings together all content to quickly and securely perform the most relevant results in response to user inquiries.
With the release of Coveo for Sitecore 4.0, the provider has taken a significant leap forward, both in terms of architecture and capabilities. The new cloud edition is the first and only cloud-based intelligent site search app with native integration to Sitecore which definitely simplifies the architecture. Unlike the previous process where a lot of the configuration was done using XML files and typically needed technical capabilities and access to the servers, Coveo Cloud now provides a web-based interface for viewing search analytics and making configuration changes that instantly distribute to the indexes.
Advantages of migrating to a cloud-based index:
No upgrades, updates, and maintenance or on-premise hardware required: It’s now in the cloud, meaning Coveo is always up to date. No longer will customers need to install Coveo Enterprise Search (CES), the Coveo Search API or deal with the Admin Service and RabbitMQ. To install the Coveo for Sitecore package in the Sitecore instance would be enough as the installation takes care of the rest.
Quick provisioning: Coveo can be up and running within minutes, not hours or days.
Less certificate: The complicated configuration steps such as copying certificates from CES to your CM and CD instances have been eliminated.
High availability and scalability: The Coveo Cloud infrastructure is elastic and scales automatically with demand.
Auto-updating license: License files are all managed in the cloud so when upgrading or relicensing, Coveo will handle it on their end without the need of emailing/installing license keys.
Best-of-breed security: Security has been a serious concern, especially given the huge impact of data breaches such as Panama Papers. Therefore, Coveo has built their solution, including a SOC I & II compliant infrastructure that supports fully-encrypted, single tenant indexes, all architected to meet HIPAA and other regulatory standards.
Coveo for Sitecore Pro Cloud Edition includes the advanced, analytics-based machine learning capabilities of Coveo Reveal, a self-learning search service to ensure contextual relevance for every site visitor. Coveo Reveal analyzes search behavior patterns to increase the relevancy of Coveo search results and understands visitor intent, continuously learning and improving its ranking algorithm based on successful search queries and users’ behavior.
How Does It Work?
Coveo Reveal uses machine-learning to analyze search results and can be set to automatically tune search relevance for results based on search. For instance, when users search for a particular term but the result they were looking for are not at the top of the search results. In this case, Coveo Reveal will identify the situation and make sure the result they are looking for turn up higher in future searches with the same term by adjusting its relevancy sorting. Additionally, when no results are returned, Coveo Reveal analyzes future searches and learns to display options not matching specific keywords, and as results it will decrease the possibility of zero results returned for a search inquiry.
Usage Analytics
Usage Analytics, which was apart of Coveo for Sitecore 3.0 has now upgraded to Cloud indexing, enabled by default in version 4.0. The Coveo Usage Analytics module allows users to track analytics data for a Coveo Search Page and provides insights on what site visitors really want and what engages them most. The various events that occur within it (queries, clicks, etc.) are logged in the Coveo Cloud Platform, where they can be used to generate custom reports. Furthermore, Coveo for Sitecore 4.0 enables its user to take advantage of Reveal, Coveo's machine learning service.
"Both B2B and B2C users have high expectations for search because we all learned search from Google," says Mark Floisand, Chief Marketing Officer at Coveo, formerly VP Product Marketing. "For most users, search is a navigation tool. It's how people get around site pages, so it has to be contextually relevant. You don't want to make customers dig deep for the content that they need. It should be easy to find."
Beyond optimizing search results, Coveo Reveal also makes intelligent, proactive search query recommendations and understands common misspellings and auto-completes search terms.
According to Darren Guarnaccia, Sitecore Executive Vice President, Customer Experience, "Intelligent search helps to drive personalization and make contextual content marketing pervasive throughout the search experience for Sitecore customers. The new Coveo for Sitecore Pro Cloud Edition not only makes it easier to deploy and manage site search but also introduces machine learning capabilities that learn from the search behavior of previous site visitors to automatically improve the results and experience for everyone. This is a great example of partners extending the value of Sitecore through Omnichannel Automation."
There is also an addition tool for registered customers to customize their search. Although this option has not been automated yet, it will be very useful for an e-commerce site as Coveo's intelligent search will be able to take into account previous online purchases made by customers. After all, the product is designed to leverage consumers’ initial interactions with sites.
Beta program testing participant Dan Cruickshank, President of Sitecore Fishtank Consulting, stated:
"In my opinion, Coveo for Sitecore Pro Cloud Edition, in combining its cloud architecture and Coveo Reveal, is the most significant innovation on the Sitecore platform in years. The new cloud-model provides the perfect architecture for enterprise integrations and is proving to be the most value-rich part of any Sitecore implementation we do. The simplicity of the Coveo for Sitecore cloud-based architecture is proving to be a revelation in simplifying complex integrations."
Jeff Hansen, Content Solutions Lead with Coveo's partner, SingleStone Consulting, also a beta program partner, commented:
"We’ve always been fans of Coveo for Sitecore, and now with the Pro Cloud Edition we can give our customers the ability to personalize digital experiences with less effort than ever before. It’s a win-win for our customers and for our firm. Our experience with the beta program has been very positive and we’re looking forward to working with the Pro Cloud Edition, even more, to help our customers provide the best experience for their site visitors."
Coveo for Sitecore 4.0 on the cloud or on-premise is supported on Sitecore +7.2. Even if your Sitecore instance is stuck in the past, your search can still be from the future.
Coveo for Sitecore 4.0 is available in three editions as Free, Pro, and Enterprise to meet the needs of Sitecore implementations of all sizes. The free version of Coveo for Sitecore has been retained for version 4, but they only supports an on-premises installation. To get the most out of the Coveo Cloud, a Pro Cloud license would be required, also all future development would be done the new version 4 platform.
Record-breaking Quarter
Coveo achieved another record-breaking quarter for CY Q1 2016 and reported the revenue bookings growth of 107 percent and GAAP revenue growth of 109 percent over CY Q1 2015.
"This is an exciting time for Coveo with our significant technology advances in machine learning, analytics, and search intelligence in the cloud," said Louis Tetu, Coveo CEO. "Our financial performance in Q1 was exceptional, with record growth and high levels of efficiency in our sales and marketing investments. Moving forward we will invest even more in sales and marketing as the importance of our technology for businesses has been well proven and our efficiency metrics will scale in a very healthy fashion to accelerate our already fast growth.”
Coveo plans to open new offices in Montreal, Silicon Valley, expand their R&D headquarters in Quebec City, and hire an additional 70 staff this year. Coveo recently announced the appointment of Mark Floisand as CMO, reporting to Coveo Chairman and CEO Louis Tetu. Floisand has over 20 years of marketing, sales and general management experience in the enterprise and cloud software industry, spanning blue chip and start-up companies, including Apple, Adobe, BusinessObjects, SAP, and most recently - Sitecore, a Coveo technology partner, where he led product marketing globally.
Coveo didn’t only achieve impressive financial results, but also collected multiple technology awards throughout the first quarter, due to the company's success in machine learning, analytics, and intelligent cloud search.
In conclusion, although the rising magnitude of content has been a positive development for content marketers, sorting it out can be overwhelming for users and visitors. After all, neglected content hurts digital customer engagement and ROI. It is exciting for both users to see the progress of the new version of Coveo Sitecore Pro Cloud, as it will provide a wealth of information and configurability.
Venus Tamturk
Venus is the Media Reporter for CMS-Connected, with one of her tasks to write thorough articles by creating the most up-to-date and engaging content using B2B digital marketing. She enjoys increasing brand equity and conversion through the strategic use of social media channels and integrated media marketing plans.