Khoros Search - Detailed Review
Search Tools
Khoros Search - Product Overview
Overview
Khoros, while not specifically branded as “Khoros Search,” offers a comprehensive digital customer engagement platform that includes advanced search and AI-driven tools. Here’s a brief overview of its primary functions, target audience, and key features:Primary Function
Khoros is a digital customer engagement platform that integrates various communication channels such as social media, messaging, and online communities. It aims to enhance customer engagement, provide personalized experiences, and streamline customer interactions.Target Audience
Khoros’ target market includes medium to large enterprises across diverse industries like retail, technology, healthcare, and more. The primary users within these companies are marketing and customer service teams responsible for managing and optimizing customer interactions.Key Features
Integrated Platform
Khoros offers a unified platform that brings together multiple customer engagement tools, allowing businesses to manage customer interactions across different channels seamlessly. This integration enables a holistic view of customer interactions and enhances the overall customer experience.AI-Powered Insights
Khoros leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to provide valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. It uses natural language understanding (NLU) for intent detection, sentiment analysis, and automated responses, helping businesses make informed decisions and tailor their engagement strategies.Community Building
The platform facilitates the creation and nurturing of online communities where customers can connect with each other and with the brand. This community-building aspect fosters customer loyalty and advocacy, leading to increased customer retention and satisfaction.Personalization and Analytics
Khoros provides advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, including data on customer behavior, engagement metrics, and content gaps. These insights help businesses identify areas for improvement and quantify the success of their customer engagement strategies.Automation and Chatbots
Khoros includes AI-powered chatbots that can handle customer inquiries, automate repetitive tasks, and provide personalized responses. The platform also allows for the integration of third-party AI technologies and ensures seamless coordination between human agents and bots.Security and Scalability
The platform ensures data privacy and security by enforcing access permissions and analyzing user profiles in real-time. It is also designed to scale with the growing needs of businesses, accommodating increasing volumes of customer interactions and data.Conclusion
In summary, Khoros is a powerful tool for enterprises seeking to enhance their customer engagement strategies through integrated platforms, AI-driven insights, and personalized interactions. Khoros Search - User Interface and Experience
User Interface of Khoros Search
The user interface of Khoros Search, particularly when integrated with SearchUnify, is designed to be intuitive, user-friendly, and highly engaging. Here are some key aspects of the user interface and the overall user experience:
Intuitive Interface
Khoros Aurora, the latest iteration of Khoros communities, features a modern and intuitive interface that simplifies navigation. This design encourages user participation by making it easier for users to find relevant content and engage with the community.
Personalized Experiences
The integration with SearchUnify enables AI-driven algorithms that deliver personalized results and recommendations based on the user’s role, access permissions, behaviors, and interests. This personalization ensures that users receive relevant information, enhancing their overall experience.
Smart Search Capabilities
The search interface is enhanced by SearchUnify’s AI-powered search, which understands search intent and history. It guides users to relevant results by delivering rich snippets and pre-selected facets, making the search process more efficient and effective.
Real-Time Analytics and Insights
The platform provides a robust analytics dashboard that offers comprehensive insights into community performance, user behavior, and engagement metrics. This helps in measuring self-service success and proving the ROI of the online community.
Federated Search
Khoros and SearchUnify’s partnership allows for federated search, enabling users to search multiple content repositories from a single search console within the community. This includes information from both internal and external sources such as Slack, WordPress, or SharePoint, making it a one-stop shop for content discovery.
User-Friendly Features
Khoros Aurora includes features like live chat, discussion forums, polls, surveys, and gamification elements that encourage participation and engagement. The interface is customizable, allowing businesses to adapt it to their specific needs and enhance the user experience further.
Security and Access Control
The platform ensures data privacy and security by analyzing user profiles in real-time to maintain access permissions. This means users can only see content they are permitted to access, ensuring a secure and personalized search experience.
Overall, the user interface of Khoros Search, when integrated with SearchUnify, is designed to be user-friendly, engaging, and highly effective in providing relevant information and enhancing community participation. It leverages AI to deliver personalized experiences and real-time insights, making it easier for users to find what they need quickly and efficiently.
Khoros Search - Key Features and Functionality
The Khoros Platform and SearchUnify Partnership
The Khoros platform, in partnership with SearchUnify, offers several key features and functionalities in the AI-driven search tools category that significantly enhance online community experiences. Here are the main features and how they work:
Federated Search
Khoros and SearchUnify integrate to provide a federated search capability, allowing users to search across multiple content repositories from a single search console. This includes sources such as knowledge bases, blogs, product manuals, Slack, WordPress, and SharePoint. This feature ensures that users can find relevant information quickly, whether it is within the community or from external sources.
AI-Powered Relevance
SearchUnify’s AI algorithms continuously learn from user behavior to display the most relevant search results first. This ensures that users can quickly find the best answers to their questions, improving self-service efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Personalization
The platform uses AI to provide personalized search results and recommendations based on the user’s role, access permissions, behavior, and interests. This personalization enhances engagement and ensures that users see content that is most relevant to them.
Auto-Tuning and Manual Tuning
SearchUnify offers both auto-tuning and manual tuning for search results. Auto-tuning allows algorithms to automatically adjust the ranking of search results, while manual tuning enables administrators to control the ranking for specific keywords, content sources, or intents. This flexibility helps in ensuring that the most relevant results are always at the top.
Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and Natural Language Generation (NLG)
The platform uses NLU algorithms to understand user queries, accounting for synonyms, spelling, and grammar lapses. Additionally, NLG is used to summarize conversations for support engineers, facilitating a seamless handoff from the AI chatbot to human support agents.
Intelligent Chatbot and Community Helper
SearchUnify’s intelligent chatbot and Community Helper are always-on bots that provide meaningful responses to new discussions and threads within the community. These bots use sentiment-adaptive templates and content repositories to frame auto-responses, ensuring 24/7 support and engagement.
Analytics and Reporting
The platform provides detailed analytical reports, including content gap analysis, self-service metrics, conversion ratios, and bounce rates. These reports help identify areas for improvement and quantify the success of the community, allowing administrators to make informed decisions.
Data Privacy and Security
SearchUnify ensures data privacy by enforcing robust access permissions. The platform analyzes user profiles in real-time to ensure that members can only access content they are permitted to view, maintaining the security of the community.
Integration with Multiple Platforms
With over 55 native connectors, SearchUnify can instantly index knowledge from various enterprise platforms such as Salesforce, JIRA, and SharePoint. This integration unifies data across different channels, providing a connected experience within the Khoros community.
These features collectively enhance community engagement, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce support costs by providing a unified, AI-driven search and self-service experience.
Khoros Search - Performance and Accuracy
Evaluating the Performance and Accuracy of Khoros Search
Evaluating the performance and accuracy of Khoros Search, particularly in the context of its AI-driven search tools, involves several key aspects.
Performance Improvements
Khoros has demonstrated significant performance enhancements, especially in scenarios where speed and load times are critical. For instance, F5 Networks saw a substantial reduction in page load times from 7.5 seconds to under 3 seconds after implementing Khoros. This improvement not only enhanced user experience but also boosted SEO rankings, resulting in a 36% increase in natural search visits.
Search Accuracy and Relevance
Khoros integrates AI and machine learning (ML) to enhance search accuracy. The platform uses Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to detect intent, route inquiries intelligently, and classify sentiment, ensuring that search results are relevant and contextually appropriate. This capability helps in filtering noise and spam, focusing on what matters most to the users.
Integration and Data Unification
Khoros allows for the integration of data from various enterprise platforms through connectors, which helps in unifying knowledge across different channels. This integration, often facilitated by third-party solutions like SearchUnify, ensures that users get relevant results by analyzing user profiles in real-time and auto-tuning search algorithms to display the most relevant content.
Limitations and Areas for Improvement
One of the notable limitations is the potential issues that can arise from reverse proxy configurations. If not set up correctly, these configurations can introduce additional latency, increase response times, and create performance bottlenecks. This can negatively impact SEO and user retention. It is crucial for customers to work closely with Khoros to implement these configurations properly to avoid such issues.
Community Health and Engagement
Khoros also focuses on community health, as seen in the case of F5 Networks, where the Community Health Index (CHI) score improved significantly. This indicates better engagement and a healthier community, which is a direct result of improved search functionality and overall platform performance.
Human and AI Collaboration
Khoros emphasizes the balance between AI and human intelligence. Their AI and ML technologies are designed to enhance but not replace human interactions, ensuring authentic and meaningful engagements. This approach helps in maintaining high levels of accuracy and engagement by leveraging the strengths of both AI and human intelligence.
Conclusion
In summary, Khoros Search performs well in terms of speed, relevance, and integration, but it requires careful configuration, especially when involving reverse proxies, to avoid performance issues. The platform’s AI-driven features enhance accuracy and user engagement, making it a valuable tool for communities and enterprises.
Khoros Search - Pricing and Plans
Custom Pricing
Khoros does not offer fixed pricing plans that are publicly available. Instead, the pricing is quotation-based, meaning it is customized to meet the specific needs of each client.Cost Range
While there are no standard plans, the costs for Khoros software can vary widely. According to Vendr, the minimum price can vary based on a company’s specific needs, but the maximum price can reach up to $620,000. The average annual cost is approximately $165,000.No Free Plan
Khoros does not offer a free plan for its social media management or search tools. This means that users must contact Khoros directly to get a quote based on their requirements.Features
The Khoros platform includes a range of features such as:- Advanced search capabilities across multiple social media platforms.
- Boolean search options to refine search results.
- Multichannel search to analyze trends across different platforms.
- Tools for customer engagement, community building, and social media management.
- Analytics and insights into user demographics and engagement metrics.
Savings and Negotiation
For those looking to purchase Khoros, using services like Vendr can help secure a lower price. Vendr reports that their customers typically achieve an average savings of around 22%, or about $38,000 off the list price.Summary
In summary, Khoros pricing is highly customized and requires a direct quote from the vendor. There are no free plans or publicly listed tiered pricing options available. Khoros Search - Integration and Compatibility
Integration and Compatibility of Khoros
Integration with SearchUnify
Khoros has partnered with SearchUnify to enhance online community experiences through federated search and AI-powered capabilities. This integration allows Khoros-powered communities to become a one-stop shop for content discovery. SearchUnify’s AI-driven enterprise search solution enables the integration of information from multiple repositories, including sources outside the community such as Slack, WordPress, or SharePoint. This unified discovery experience makes it easier for community members to find relevant information quickly from a single search console.Compatibility Across Platforms
SearchUnify is fully compatible with Khoros Aurora Communities, as well as Khoros Classic Communities. It leverages AI-powered search, personalization, and analytics to enhance engagement and self-service. The platform uses over 55 native connectors to index knowledge from various enterprise platforms like Salesforce, JIRA, and SharePoint, providing a connected experience within the Khoros community.Cross-Device Compatibility
While the specific details on cross-device compatibility are not explicitly mentioned, the nature of Khoros as a digital customer engagement platform suggests that it is designed to be accessible across various devices. Khoros aims to deliver a seamless digital user experience across multiple channels, which typically includes desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices.AI-Driven Capabilities
The integration with SearchUnify also includes advanced AI capabilities such as natural language understanding (NLU), machine learning (ML), and unsupervised adaptive learning models. These technologies enable features like intent detection, sentiment analysis, and personalized responses, all of which contribute to a more effective and engaging community experience.Security and Access Permissions
To ensure data privacy and security, SearchUnify enforces robust access permissions, allowing members to see only the content they are permitted to access. The platform analyzes user profiles in real-time to maintain security, ensuring that the simplified access does not compromise the community’s security.Conclusion
In summary, Khoros integrates seamlessly with SearchUnify to provide a unified search experience across multiple content repositories, ensuring compatibility with various enterprise platforms and enhancing the overall engagement and self-service within the community. Khoros Search - Customer Support and Resources
Support Case Portal
Khoros provides a dedicated Case Portal within the Khoros Atlas Community where users can create, manage, and track support cases. To access the Case Portal, users need to register for Khoros Atlas using their platform login credentials and follow the verification steps. Once registered, users can create new cases, fill out detailed forms, attach relevant screenshots or videos, and track the status of their cases. This portal also allows users to view all open and resolved cases, both personally created and those of their organization, if access is granted.
Escalation Process
For urgent issues, users can escalate support cases by changing the “Customer Priority” field to “high.” However, same-day escalations are generally discouraged to allow the support team to follow the standard triage process. It is recommended to escalate cases directly via Khoros’ support chatbot, Maia, rather than through account teams to avoid creating back channels and duplicating efforts.
Additional Information and Best Practices
When reporting issues or requesting support, providing detailed information is crucial. This includes the URL of the Khoros product, steps to reproduce the issue, expected and actual behavior, browser and OS details, and relevant screenshots or videos. This helps eliminate confusion and speeds up the resolution process.
AI-Driven Customer Service
Khoros integrates AI into its customer service tools to offer 24/7 omnichannel support. This allows customers to initiate inquiries through various channels (such as chat, email, social media, or phone) and continue the conversation seamlessly across different platforms. AI-powered self-service and omnichannel workflows are key features that enhance the customer experience and support efficiency.
Federated Search and Partnership with SearchUnify
Khoros has partnered with SearchUnify to provide a federated search capability within Khoros-powered communities. This integration enables users to search for information across multiple content repositories, both within and outside the community, using a unified search console. This feature is enhanced by AI-driven enterprise search solutions, making it easier for community members to find relevant information quickly.
Community Resources
The Khoros community offers various resources, including a knowledge base, forums, and blogs. Users can engage with these resources to find answers to common questions, share experiences, and get tips on how to use Khoros products effectively. The community is also a place where users can report issues and receive support from both the Khoros team and other community members.
By leveraging these support options and resources, users can maximize the benefits of Khoros’ AI-driven search tools and ensure a smooth and efficient experience.
Khoros Search - Pros and Cons
When considering Khoros
Particularly in the context of its search and AI-driven capabilities, here are the main advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages
Enhanced Self-Service
Khoros, especially through its partnership with SearchUnify, offers a powerful self-service platform. The integration of federated search allows community members to find relevant information quickly from multiple content repositories, including external sources like Slack, WordPress, or SharePoint.
AI-Powered Search and Recommendations
The AI-driven search capabilities provided by SearchUnify enable personalized and contextual results, helping users find the most relevant information. This includes auto-tuning and manual tuning options to ensure accurate search results.
Improved Customer Satisfaction and Engagement
The platform enhances community engagement and customer satisfaction by providing a unified discovery experience. This leads to reduced support costs and improved overall community participation.
Real-Time Analytics and Reporting
SearchUnify offers detailed analytical reports, including content gap analysis, self-service metrics, conversion ratios, and bounce rates. These insights help in identifying areas for improvement and quantifying community success.
Security and Access Control
The platform ensures data privacy and security by analyzing user profiles in real-time and enforcing robust access permissions, allowing members to access only the content they are permitted to view.
Disadvantages
Cost
Khoros is known to be expensive, which can be prohibitive for smaller businesses or organizations with limited budgets. The comprehensive features, while valuable, may not justify the cost if not fully utilized.
Complexity
The platform can be overwhelming, especially for smaller organizations or those not requiring all the advanced features. It may pose challenges for those looking for a more lightweight solution.
Feature Utilization
Some users have reported that they do not use a majority of the features available, which can make it difficult to justify the expense. The analytics and content library features, in particular, have been noted as not fully meeting some users’ needs.
User Experience
The monitoring streams can be challenging to filter, and there isn’t an easy way to understand where you left off when monitoring streams, which can be frustrating for users.
Overall, Khoros is an excellent choice for large enterprise organizations seeking to establish strong community engagement and self-service capabilities, but it may not be the best fit for smaller businesses due to its cost and complexity.
Khoros Search - Comparison with Competitors
Khoros Search Capabilities
Khoros, especially through its integration with tools like SearchUnify, offers several unique features:AI-Powered Search
Khoros leverages AI to provide contextual self-service, personalization, and deep analytics to boost customer satisfaction (CSAT).Real-Time Analytics
It offers real-time insights and analytical reports, including content gap analysis, self-service metrics, conversion ratios, and bounce rates, to quantify community success.Security and Access Control
Ensures data privacy by restricting access to content based on user permissions, analyzed in real-time.Integration
Khoros integrates with various enterprise platforms like Salesforce, JIRA, and SharePoint through native connectors, unifying data across channels.Unique Features
Community Helper Bot
An ‘always on’ bot that monitors discussions and provides meaningful responses 24/7, using sentiment adaptive templates and content repositories.Contextual Ads
Allows creating ads with custom text and images that appear alongside search results for chosen keywords.Personalized Recommendations
Uses natural language understanding (NLU) and machine learning (ML) to display relevant results and recommendations based on user search behavior.Potential Alternatives
If you are looking for alternatives or competitors to Khoros, here are a few options:Floatbot
Floatbot specializes in AI-powered services, including chatbots and other AI-driven tools, which can be integrated into community platforms to enhance engagement.Wizard
Wizard uses conversational AI to increase engagement, particularly in e-commerce businesses. It offers a platform that can be compared to Khoros in terms of AI-driven engagement and customer interaction.Sprout Social
Sprout Social is another competitor that offers comprehensive social media management tools. While it may not match Khoros in certain AI-specific features, it excels in handling a high volume of posts across multiple channels and provides detailed analytics.Hootsuite
Hootsuite is known for its robust social media management capabilities, including deep data analysis and bulk automation. While it may lack the creative and collaborative content management approach of Khoros, it is strong in handling multiple channels and detailed metrics. In summary, Khoros stands out with its AI-powered search, real-time analytics, and integrated community management features. However, alternatives like Floatbot, Wizard, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite offer different strengths that might be more suitable depending on your specific needs. Khoros Search - Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions about Khoros
What is Khoros and how does it enhance search functionality?
Khoros is a platform that helps enterprises build and manage community and customer service solutions. One of its key features is the ability to enhance search functionality through intelligent enterprise search. This search capability, often integrated with partners like Coveo, allows users to search not just within the community but also across other connected cloud platforms, surfacing relevant content directly within the community.How does Khoros’ intelligent enterprise search work?
Khoros’ intelligent enterprise search transforms the community search bar into a unified search engine. It can search across multiple cloud platforms, including SaaS products, and display the results within the community. This functionality can also be extended to other platforms, such as support ticket portals, ensuring that users can find information seamlessly across different systems.Does Khoros offer AI-powered customer service tools?
Yes, Khoros provides AI-powered customer service tools through its Khoros Service solution. This includes features like customer-facing chatbots that can handle tasks from greeting visitors to managing complex queries, and agent-facing chatbots that assist customer service representatives by suggesting responses based on previous interactions and identifying customer intent.How does Khoros support omnichannel customer service?
Khoros enables businesses to offer 24/7 omnichannel support by integrating AI across multiple service channels, including email, chat, social media, and phone. This ensures that customers can initiate and continue conversations through their preferred method without having to repeat information, providing a seamless and consistent support experience.Can Khoros integrate with existing technology stacks?
Yes, Khoros solutions are designed to seamlessly integrate with existing technology stacks. For instance, the AI-powered features in Khoros Service can be integrated with current systems, allowing for customization and ensuring that the tools work cohesively with what businesses already use.What are the benefits of using Khoros for community building and customer service?
Using Khoros can lead to several benefits, including significant cost savings through self-service options (up to $500 million per year), increased revenue from engaged community members (2-5 times more), and a lift in Net Promoter Score (NPS) by up to 25% from community visitors. Additionally, Khoros helps in building world-class communities with fewer resources and improves customer support efficiency.Does Khoros offer any analytics or reporting features?
Yes, Khoros provides embedded analytics functionality that helps in understanding user activity within the community. This can be further enhanced with unified analytics that integrate data from various channels, providing a comprehensive view of customer interactions and community engagement.Is there a free trial or free plan available for Khoros?
No, Khoros does not offer a free plan. However, it does provide custom pricing for its software, which can be tailored to the specific needs of the business. It is recommended to contact the vendor directly for detailed pricing information.How does Khoros support the creation and management of chatbots?
Khoros allows businesses to build, manage, and optimize chatbots for custom automation experiences. This includes using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand customer inquiries, automate routing and prioritization based on sentiment and intent, and manage high volumes of customer interactions across various channels.Can Khoros improve the efficiency of customer service agents?
Yes, Khoros can significantly improve the efficiency of customer service agents. The platform provides AI-driven guides and quick responses, and an omnichannel desktop that helps agents resolve cross-channel inquiries from a single place. This integration ensures that agents receive timely and relevant assistance, enhancing their ability to manage customer inquiries efficiently. Khoros Search - Conclusion and Recommendation
Final Assessment of Khoros Search
Khoros, a leading customer engagement platform, offers a sophisticated search tool that integrates AI-driven capabilities to enhance user experience and efficiency. Here’s a comprehensive assessment of who would benefit most from using Khoros Search and an overall recommendation.
Key Benefits
- Unified Search: Khoros Search, particularly when enhanced by partners like Coveo, transforms the search bar into a unified search engine. This allows users to search across multiple cloud platforms, including SaaS products, and surfaces relevant content directly within the community or other connected platforms.
- AI-Powered Insights: The platform leverages artificial intelligence to provide valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. This helps businesses optimize their engagement strategies and deliver personalized experiences.
- Omnichannel Engagement: Khoros enables seamless communication across various channels, ensuring a consistent and cohesive customer experience. This is crucial for businesses that need to engage with customers through multiple touchpoints.
- Community Building: The platform facilitates the creation and nurturing of online communities where customers can connect with each other and the brand. This fosters customer loyalty and advocacy, leading to increased customer retention and satisfaction.
Target Users
Khoros Search is most beneficial for medium to large enterprises across various industries such as retail, technology, healthcare, and more. These businesses are typically looking to enhance their customer engagement strategies and leverage technology to drive growth and success.
- Industry: Companies in sectors where customer engagement is critical, such as retail, e-commerce, telecommunications, and technology, would greatly benefit from Khoros Search.
- Company Size: Medium to large-sized companies with a significant customer base are the primary targets. These companies often have marketing and customer service teams responsible for managing and optimizing customer interactions.
- Geographic Location: While Khoros is a global platform, companies in regions with a high concentration of technology companies or a strong focus on customer experience may be more inclined to adopt it.
Recommendation
For businesses seeking to improve their customer engagement, reduce operational costs, and enhance the overall customer experience, Khoros Search is a highly recommended tool. Here’s why:
- Scalability: Khoros is designed to scale with the growing needs of businesses, making it suitable for both small startups and large enterprises.
- Customization: The platform offers a high level of customization, allowing businesses to tailor the search functionality and other features to their specific needs and requirements.
- Cost Savings: By enabling self-service and automating support processes, Khoros can help businesses save significant costs. For example, Khoros communities have been known to save companies up to $500 million per year via self-service.
- Improved Customer Satisfaction: The AI-powered search and community tools can lead to a significant lift in Net Promoter Score (NPS) and increased revenue from engaged members.
In summary, Khoros Search is an invaluable tool for any business aiming to create a seamless, personalized, and efficient customer engagement experience. Its integration capabilities, AI-driven insights, and community-building features make it a standout in the customer engagement market.