1. A method for providing information to a user in response to a received user query, said method comprising: a processor of a computer system receiving the user query from the user, said received user query expressed in a free-form text format; said processor performing a natural language analysis to generate substrings relevant to the received user query; after said performing the natural language analysis, said processor performing an ontology analysis to output terms of an ontology of domain-specific information and to further output relationships between pairs of said terms, said outputted terms constrained to match the relevant substrings generated by said performing the natural language analysis; after said performing the ontology analysis, said processor performing a query analysis to analyze the user query with respect to the outputted terms and relationships between the terms, said performing the query analysis comprising ascertaining whether the user query is more suitable for service than for a search for information; if said ascertaining ascertains that the user query is more suitable for service than for said search for information, then identifying, to the user, service actions to be performed by the user; if said ascertaining ascertains that the user query is not more suitable for service than for said search for information, then refining the user query based on the outputted terms and relationships between the terms, generating a search query based on the refined user query, initiating a search based on the search query, and providing results of the search to the user.