The Co-operative Group's financial division is adding natural language technology to its web site search facilities to improve customer service.

The technology, to be in place by the summer, will allow visitors to the company's various financial services sites to ask questions that can be answered more accurately, directing them to a relevant page instead of searching through thousands of pages for single words or phrases.

The technology is being implemented following the bank's decision to bring web site management back in-house.

Dave Raferty, Co-op Financial Services (CFS) supplier management programme manager, says the firm is looking to make more improvements. 'It wasn't just the expense of the third-party outsourcers, it was difficult to make content changes because of lengthy sign-off processes,' he said.

'We brought the sites in-house and now marketing can make changes to the sites directly themselves, be more nimble, get things done quicker and eliminate mistakes.'

CFS was formed in April 2002, combining Co-operative Bank, Co-operative Insurance Society (CIS) and online bank Smile.

Management of Smile's web site was brought in-house two years ago and gave CFS the impetus to follow suit with the rest of its online activity.