The Google Search Appliance provided document indexing. The product was discontinued in favor of Google's cloud-based options.
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Guru
Score 9.3 out of 10
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Enterprise AI Search, Intranet, and Wiki in one platform. Guru lives in tools organizations already use, so no need to context switch. Users can find info across any app, have an expert help if the info can't be found, and let Guru proactively identify knowledge gaps, duplicate knowledge, and translate it to 100 languages.
The Google Search Appliance is well suited to most site search needs and it is possible to customize the front end seen by website visitors to produce a satisfactory basic interface with basic branding applied to it. However, in some situations it may be necessary to instead make API calls from a web page to retrieve search results and the format in which those results are returned might be a little more difficult to work with.
Anything related to knowledge Management, that is to say; Updating knowledge from the side of maintainers, grouping and learning it from the side of learners, leaving feedback to maintainers, unverifying cards in a pinch and creating courses of related content for people of different disciplines and favouriting content that you find the most useful.
It's not clear how to relate/ attach other guru cards. The feature exists but is not very easy to spot.
We often find it difficult to search because we don't remember the card's title. I would love it if the tag words worked better.
Once editing a card, instead of adding someone to collaborate on a draft, it would be good to send the draft to someone via email. I find people often ignore these emails/pings if it's just a draft collaboration. The wording could be to ask someone to verify the draft.
I rated Guru a 9 out of 10 for renewal likelihood because it has significantly enhanced our processes and customer satisfaction in the automotive rental company. Guru’s user-friendly interface and organized knowledge base make it easy to access and update essential information, which is crucial for maintaining high operational standards. The tool’s integration with other platforms, like the Guru Chrome extension, streamlines our workflow, increasing efficiency and productivity. One of the standout features is the ability to favorite cards, allowing quick access to frequently used information, which saves time and ensures accuracy in customer interactions. Additionally, Guru’s analytics feature helps us identify which resources need updating, ensuring our knowledge base remains relevant and effective. The only reason it’s not a perfect 10 is occasional slow performance and occasional inaccuracies in search results. However, these minor issues do not overshadow the overall benefits Guru provides. Its consistent updates and reminders further enhance our ability to deliver excellent customer support, making it an indispensable tool for our team.
Guru is straightforward to pick up. Even if something takes a minute, I'm usually able to find a support article that answers my question quickly. Guru has served its purpose, and training others within our organization is very easy. It's very useful during the onboarding process. Usability is great.
I have never encountered an outage with Guru in the year+ we've had it. I also never encountered an outage at the previous company where I used Guru. It has been extremely reliable.
There is some occasional slowness, or multiple refreshes before content will load. This doesn't happen frequently, though, and I don't get complaints from teammates about it.
The only reason I do not give it a a ten is because I think there is still some room for improvement in meeting the different time zone needs of their customers, but overall their support is top notch. Friendly, capable, and quick.
I would rate the in-person training for Guru a solid 9 out of 10. The session was incredibly valuable as it provided comprehensive insights into using Guru effectively. I learned a lot about the tool's functionalities, which significantly enhanced my proficiency and confidence in utilizing Guru for my daily tasks. The training was engaging, informative, and tailored well to ensure I could apply what I learned immediately. Overall, it was a highly productive and beneficial learning experience.
I would rate the online training for Guru a strong 8 out of 10. While it lacked the interactive nature of in-person sessions, the content was well-structured and delivered effectively. The training modules were clear and comprehensive, covering all essential aspects of using Guru. The flexibility of online training allowed me to learn at my own pace and revisit topics as needed. Overall, it provided a solid foundation and practical understanding of Guru's functionalities, making it a valuable learning experience despite the virtual format.
You will need a very strong team of guru champions in order to get EVERYONE and EVERYTHING on Guru, it takes some craziness and over talking about guru everywhere to get people to be exicted, contribute and use. If you are starting any kind of buisness and you need KB, just go for guru as fast as you can because when you will grow you will thank yourself.
I prefer Guru because it's easy to follow, user-friendly, and really helps resolve different kinds of issues and concerns. We use it as the basis for the steps and instructions that we need to follow to make sure that we are providing effective resolutions to customers and that we are calibrated.
Guru is somewhat expensive compared to what our org is typically willing to spend on software solutions. Additionally, there is a price difference per seat when paid monthly versus annually, which was a big downside for us as my company didn't want to commit to an annual cost.
There has also been a cost associated with our need to switch to another site search solution in the near future, due to Google ending support for the sppliance.
That said, we have so much support content that we owed it to our customers to offer a comprehensive search tool to help them find the most relevant content - and of course Google are the masters of this. However, it's worth noting that the alogorithms used on the GSA are far older than those used on google.com.
Guru allows our team to quickly reference available learning/knowledge materials with our clients on a daily basis and provide better support at every outreach
With that said, spreading those same resources across two major global teams in the USA and Germany can lead to some inconsistencies. The i-frame process is not very intuitive for this scenario and our team treats policy/procedural differences as separate card or article entities.
Guru allowed our organization to pioneer and establish a dedicated knowledge team component, of subject matter experts who work in tangent with existing resources, create new ones, and vet collective knowledge.
