You can learn how customers feel from many places, including online reviews, social media mentions, survey answers and conversations with your support team. Sorting through all of that by hand quickly becomes too much, particularly when you deal with a large number of customers.
Sentiment analysis solves that problem. By assessing what customers tell you, it helps you spot patterns, sharpen your support approach and lift the overall customer experience. Below, we look at how it works, what it offers and how to put it to good use.
Sentiment Analysis, Defined
Sentiment analysis reviews what customers say, in writing or out loud, and decides whether the feeling behind it is positive, neutral or negative. A few examples:
"I'm really happy with our new phone system." Positive sentiment
"The phone system does its job." Neutral sentiment
"Our call quality keeps cutting out." Negative sentiment
With this kind of insight, you get a clearer picture of what customers think, so you can respond to their concerns, make your products better and keep people satisfied.
How It Reads a Conversation
The analysis works from the text of call transcriptions. It looks for words on preset lists of positive, neutral and negative terms and uses them to judge the general mood of a call. Words such as "helpful" or "excellent" push the score toward positive, while words like "issue" or "frustrating" signal a negative tone. Results are colour-coded right in the transcript so they are easy to scan. Because it works only from the text, it cannot pick up sarcasm, tone of voice or subtle context.
Four Ways to Put Sentiment Analysis to Work
Sharper Customer Support
Support teams field a huge number of requests every day. Sentiment analysis flags urgent or negative feedback so it can go to the front of the line, which means customer problems get solved sooner.
Gauging Satisfaction
Knowing how customers feel about a product or service tells you what to improve. Reviewing customer reviews and support conversations shows you where you shine and where you need work.
Research and Competitor Insight
Sentiment analysis is handy for checking how your own brand is perceived, and it works for competitors too. Following what customers say about rival products can reveal ways to stand out and improve what you offer.
Reviewing Agent Performance
Looking at customer sentiment across support calls, chats and emails gives managers a way to assess how agents are doing. Seeing how well concerns get resolved makes it possible to target coaching and training where it is needed.
Turn Feelings Into Better Service
Knowing how your customers feel is key to great service and to staying ahead of the competition. Sentiment analysis lets you get in front of concerns, fine-tune your approach and create more positive conversations.
RBI Cloud Connect provides advanced communication tools that boost customer engagement and simplify how your business runs. Find out how our hosted phone systems and contact centre solutions can help you deliver a better customer experience.
Frequently asked questions
Can sentiment analysis detect sarcasm?
No. Because it relies only on the text of call transcriptions, it does not detect sarcasm, tone or contextual nuances.
How are results shown?
Sentiment is colour-coded within call transcripts so it is easy to review.
How can managers use sentiment analysis?
Managers can assess sentiment across support calls, chats and emails to evaluate agent performance and provide targeted coaching and training.
