Modify Default search to phrase search Is there a way to change the default search settings of the built in search module to default search to phrase match? 

Phrase search as in by default terms would be searched with exact match:

"foo bar" over "foo" "bar"

The client doesn't seem to like the way the out of the box search works.
Even if it's kind of hacky you could do a hook_form_alter, set a submit function before the default one and look at the form input. Then wrap it with "" if it's not there already.

So what you need is


a custom module
hook_form_alter
Register a '#submit' function
Alter the value $form_state['values']