Keeping up with current technological advancements in the ever-evolving world of CX is both a challenge and a necessity. But behind all of the technical buzz, it’s important toconsider, how are your customers feeling at each stage of the buyer’s journey? Sentiment analysis offers a practical way for businesses to monitor and respond to customer emotions within seconds.
What Is Sentiment Analysis?
Zendesk defines sentiment analysis as a metric that businesses use to measure customer perceptions and feelings toward their brand. Sentiment analysis relies on automation to examine feedback left through surveys, social media comments, website reviews, and much more to provide valuable insights into customer sentiments, which are crucial for tailoring personalized experiences and improving overall satisfaction.
The Role of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning
According to yellow.ai, sentiment analysis relies on NLP and machine learning technology to identify the consumer’s emotional tone by analyzing patterns and inflections in customer feedback. NLP and machine learning algorithms analyze textual data to detect patterns, inflections, and emotional nuances, providing a deeper understanding of customer sentiments.
Analyzing and Acting on Customer Feedback
Implementing a robust sentiment analysis strategy involves more than just collecting data; it requires a thorough analysis and responsive action plan. Feedback from online reviews, social media, chat bots, and live chat sessions can be mined for insights that reflect customer experiences. By continuously analyzing this feedback, businesses can identify trends, uncover pain points, and implement changes that enhance the customer journey.
Datamark captures all data from customer interactions into Microsoft Power BI, a data visualization tool. This allows our technology team to analyze the results, and innovate solutions based on customer feedback.
Sentiment Scores
Sentiment gained through various forms of customer feedback is compiled into sentiment scores, intended to track the success of implementation efforts. High sentiment scores typically indicate positive customer experiences, while lower scores can highlight areas needing improvement. Tracking sentiment varies by company, but the overall concept of monitoring sentiment scores remains consistent in the BPO world.
The flagship scoring model for sentiment analysis is the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which is presented through a customer survey that measures customer loyalty and satisfaction on a ten-point scale based on the question, “How likely are you to recommend our company/product/service to a friend or college?” Customers are divided into three categories based on their responses and likelihood of their recommendation, with customers choosing 0 through 6 as detractors, customers choosing 7 through 8 as passives, and customers choosing 9 or 10 as promoters of the brand.
Ultimately, if the data proves that there are more promoters than detractors, it indicates positive customer satisfaction. Businesses using the NPS score to track customer sentiment tend to benefit more from this testing method rather than traditional customer satisfaction metrics.
Service Recovery
Though many companies in the BPO sector pride themselves on the positive aspects of their first-call resolution (FCR) metrics, it’s important to consider how a BPO’s customer service agents respond to the remaining unresolved calls in their queue. For example, let’s say that a company has a 97% FCR rate; what happens to the remaining 3% of customer service issues that were not resolved? Ultimately, those remaining calls fall to service recovery.
Service recovery refers to a company’s capacity to fix unhappy customer issues through outstanding customer service tactics. In BPO, this often involves leveraging sentiment analysis to turn dissatisfied customers into satisfied customers, reviving the client-customer bond, and increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty in the process.
Real-time Sentiment Analysis for Contact Centers
Our proprietary in-house solution, DataSpark, employs a real-time sentiment analysis feature. This feature tracks customer sentiment by analyzing the tone and inflection of their voice during interactions. This real-time capability allows agents to monitor and respond to customer emotions dynamically and alerts supervisors when intervention is needed to de-escalate situations on the contact center floor. Our team’s service recovery method has led to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, and rebuilding trust for our clients.
Combined with our proprietary call summarization tool, DataScribe, which transcribes agent notes within seconds. DataScribe has reduced average handle time (AHT) by 12% with the largest contributing factor the reduction of after call work (ACW). DataScribe has streamlined the after-call note summarization process, allowing agents to continue with their scheduled calls, while documenting data through conversational analytics.
Benefits of Sentiment Analysis
Real-time sentiment analysis provides immediate insights into customer emotions, enabling businesses to understand their customers better and tailor interactions to fit the needs of their clients and customers. The data derived from sentiment analysis offers valuable inputs for strategic decision-making, helping to refine products, services, and CX strategies. Agents equipped with real-time sentiment data can adjust their communication styles to better meet customer needs, leading to more positive interactions, resulting in stronger, long-term customer relationships.
The Bottom Line
Incorporating sentiment analysis into CX strategies allows businesses to gain deep, actionable insights into customer feelings and attitudes. By leveraging cutting-edge technologies like NLP and machine learning, companies can not only enhance the customer experience but also drive satisfaction and loyalty for their clients.
At DATAMARK we understand that we must develop the most efficient and profitable business services for our clients with a continued commitment toward excellence in quality, and a focus on the customer experience- all within the highest ethical business practices. Contact us for personalized solutions to your unique business challenges.
