TUI let customers search in plain language. What that means for your webshop

What TUI switched on

Visitors to TUI's UK sites now type what they are looking for, in ordinary sentences. No column of checkboxes for destination, star rating, departure date and meal plan. Just write down what you feel like.

Of the people who search that way, a larger share goes on to book. TUI reports 28 percent more conversion from search to booking, according to Emerce.

There is no magic in it. A company removed a barrier.

Why filters lose customers

A filter asks something awkward of your customer: that they already know how you organise things. Which category their problem falls under. What you call your sizes. Under which heading you filed that one product.

Someone who is searching thinks in their own words. "Something warm for a three-month-old baby." "A tap that fits an old worktop." "A gift for my dad who owns everything already." That sentence does not exist in a filter column. So they click three times, find nothing, and leave.

You do not have to take my word for it. Open the search log on your own site. It shows you literally what people type and how often they got zero results. That is the most honest list you have, and most owners have never looked at it.

What this costs, and where the time actually goes

TUI has a technical team. You do not. That does not put this out of reach, because the building blocks are available to rent these days.

I will not name a figure without seeing your catalogue, that would be guesswork. What I can say: the money is rarely in the technology. It is in the preparation.

• Your product copy. Smart search reads what is written. If a product says only "art. 4471-B, black", there is nothing to understand.
• Your synonyms. Customers say "bracket", you say "wall support". You write that list once.
• Your zero-result searches. You work through them week by week. Dull work, and it pays back the most.

I can do that clearing up. It is exactly the kind of job you never get round to in the evening.

Also useful if you have no webshop

If you sell services, the same principle applies to your quote request. I see forms with fourteen required fields, half of which you can only answer once you already think like the installer.

Put one field there instead: write in a few sentences what you need. I ask the follow-up questions afterwards, in a conversation, based on what someone just told me. The request that reaches you is complete, and your customer spent two minutes on it instead of ten.

Same effect, different button.

What you can do with this tomorrow

You do not have to build anything yet. Start small, with what you already have.

• Open your search log for the past three months. Note the twenty most typed search terms and which of them returned nothing.
• Walk that list with a customer's eyes. How many of them does your site actually understand?
• Take your ten most important products or services and write a proper description for each, in the words your customer uses.

That is an afternoon of work and it improves your site already, without a single line of AI. If you then want to take the step to plain-language search, the groundwork is done. Nobody has to throw something together in a hurry, and that saves you the most hassle.