Prestwick House Connects Teachers across the Country with Everything they Need for the English Classroom Using Site Search from SLI Systems

Premier Publisher of Teaching Guides and Other Educational Resources Increases Conversions and Creates a Richer, More Relevant Search Experience for Visitors to its Online Store

SAN JOSE, CA – June 28, 2010 – Established in 1983, Prestwick House is one of the country’s premier educational publishers with over 2,500 books in print and customers in every state across the U.S. The company was started by a high school administrator and English teacher who moved the business online 10 years ago as it expanded. To help teachers easily sort through the books and teaching guides available on the site to find the resources they need for their English language arts classrooms, Prestwick House turned to SLI Systems to provide a faster, more intuitive site search experience.

Prior to working with SLI Systems Learning Search solution, Prestwick House had developed its own in-house site search tool, which wasn’t working as expected. Many of the book titles on the site were not being categorized and indexed properly to return the best search results. For example, a search for a title like Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” would return thousands of results instead of a few relevant ones. This was problematic for Prestwick House customers who were complaining that they weren’t finding what they needed.

“With more than 40,000 educators relying on us to provide the most up-to-date teaching resources, it is imperative that we make it easy to find the precise information they are looking for on our site,” Keith Bergstrom, general manager of Prestwick House. “Prior to working with SLI Systems, our site visitors were unhappy with the online experience and weren’t converting at the rate we anticipated. We needed a solution that would allow our customers to quickly and easily navigate our books and teaching guides to find precisely what they need to customize their curriculum.”

After considering other site search solutions, Prestwick House turned to SLI Systems, as the company offers a greater selection of services, such as the ability to seamlessly integrate with analytics solutions like Google Analytics, to provide insight into performance and measurement. In addition, Prestwick House was impressed with the level of ongoing customer service SLI provides.

SLI’s Learning Search now enables Prestwick House customers to easily filter their searches by category, author, format (i.e. Paperback, DVD, VHS, downloadable PDF) and price. Every search result includes an image of the item and a short description, as well as links to related items, which helps with buying decisions

The move to SLI’s Learning Search is netting in significant returns for Prestwick House. Visitors to its site who aren’t using search are spending a mere $.50 per visit, whereas those who use the SLI search engine spend an average of $10 per visit – which equates to 20 times more value. In addition, the Prestwick House customer service department has stopped hearing complaints about the site, as customers can now easily find what they need. This saves Prestwick House time and improves its relationships with both its customers and employees.

In addition to the improvement in sales, the time customers are spending on the Prestwick House site has vastly improved with those that use site search. “Our customers are engaged and are willing to spend more time on our site now that our search is working well,” said Bergstrom. “On average, customers who use our search functionality spend eight minutes on the site and visit 15 pages, as opposed to those who don’t use search and are spending one-minute and 30 seconds and visiting less than three pages. It’s clear our work with SLI Systems is paying off and we look forward to expanding our relationship with them in the near future.”

About SLI Systems

SLI Systems is the developer of learning-based search and navigation technology for corporate Internet sites, e-commerce destinations and consumer Internet portals that Searches, Learns and Improves the user experience.  SLI Systems’ hosted site search and user-generated SEO solutions empower businesses to enhance customer satisfaction while increasing sales, reducing costs and yielding valuable customer information.  Unlike traditional search software, SLI Systems’ patented technology continuously “learns” from the behavior of visitors over time to deliver more relevant results. SLI Systems is a privately held company, with offices in Silicon Valley, London, and Christchurch, New Zealand.  For more information, visit www.sli-systems.com, or see the company’s blog at http://blog.sli-systems.com/.

About Prestwick House

About Prestwick House - Founded in 1983 by a former Dover High School administrator, Prestwick House is a leader in educational publishing. With a focus on helping English teachers in grades 9-12, Prestwick House publishes the largest selection of literature teaching guides in the country, a line of classic novels, and hundreds of other educational products. Find out more at PrestwickHouse.com.