Understanding and Leveraging Customer Sentiment for Brand Success​

Customer sentiment is a measurement of how customers feel about your business, products, or services. It shows whether customers have a positive, negative, or neutral view based on their experiences.

The customer is why we are here! Yes, as a business owner, you must understand how your customers feel about:

• Your business
• Your products
• Your services

Such an understanding allows you to grow and build stronger relationships. The study behind this research is known as “customer sentiment”. It’s the emotional tone behind your customer’s words, whether they’re happy, frustrated, disappointed, or satisfied.

To make a customer sentiment analysis you usually:

• Look at what your customers say on social media
• Read their responses in surveys
• Listen to what they tell your customer service team

Nowadays, most business owners use specialised tools that go through large amounts of written feedback and determine whether the tone is positive, negative, or neutral. 

So, do you want to know what your customers like and what annoys them? A study found that about 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. In this article, we will study what customer sentiment is and how you can quantify it. Next, we will study how you can measure it using some proven techniques.

What is Customer Sentiment?

Customer sentiment (also known as user sentiment) is a way to check how customers feel about your business, products, or services. To analyse customer sentiment, you usually look at feedback from different sources, such as:

• Live chat
• Call transcripts
• Written messages

Now, please understand that customer sentiment is expressed in the form of a customer sentiment score. Once you have scores for individual pieces of feedback, you can calculate an average sentiment score for your business, a specific product, or a service. 

Next, you can use this score to:

• Find out what customers like or dislike
• Identify parts of your business that need improvement
• Make better decisions based on what your customers are saying
• Track changes in customer opinion over time

In this way, this score acts as a useful guide. It allows you to focus on what matters most to your customers and gives you clear direction on how to improve the customer experience (CX). 

How to Quantify Customer Sentiment?

Customer sentiment may seem like a feeling that’s hard to measure. But you can assign it a score. This score lets you understand if customers are generally happy, unhappy, or somewhere in between. 

Generally, it is based on how customers express their thoughts and feelings through:

• Reviews
• Surveys
• Social media posts
• Other feedback

Now, please note that there are two parts to customer sentiment:

By combining polarity and intensity, each piece of feedback is assigned a sentiment score. This score reflects both:

• The direction (positive, negative, neutral)

• The strength of the feeling

For more clarity, let’s study an example:

Let’s say you ask customers to rate a new loyalty program on a scale of 1 to 5:

Now, you receive several ratings from customers. Some give a 5, others a 3, and a few give a 1. You then calculate the average of all these numbers.

Assume that the average score is 4.5 out of 5. This means most customers are satisfied. However, it also shows that some are not. So, you may want to look at their comments to see what went wrong.

How to Measure Customer Sentiment Score?

Did you know? A study found that about 55% of customers report increased stress levels after negative interactions with brands. This significantly impacts loyalty and churn rates. Thus, you as a business owner must regularly measure your customer sentiment score to timely determine what annoys your customers. Below are five proven techniques you can use:

1. Use Sentiment Analysis Software

Sentiment analysis software lets you measure customer sentiment by analysing written feedback, such as:

• Reviews
• Emails
• Support tickets

It uses technology to identify the tonality of a customer’s words.

How Does it Work?

The software uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning to examine text. It assigns a sentiment label to each comment (based on the words used), such as:

• Positive
• Negative
• Neutral

Now, if we talk about data sources, the software collects and processes feedback from different places, such as:

• Online reviews
• Emails
• Chat messages
• Survey responses

Through such an analysis, you can find patterns and trends in how customers feel over time. Using it, you can track changes in customer sentiment and respond to any negative shifts.

2. Send Surveys and Feedback Forms

Surveys and feedback forms allow customers to share their thoughts directly. This method gives you measurable results related to customer sentiment.

How Does it Work?

You create surveys with questions about:

• Satisfaction
• Experience
• Expectations

Next, customers respond using rating scales (e.g., 1 to 5 or 1 to 10). Each response is scored numerically and you calculate an average score. Higher scores usually mean customers are satisfied, while lower scores suggest issues.

3. Monitor Social Media

Customers often share opinions about brands on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and others. To monitor these social media channels, you can use social listening tools to track what people are saying.

How Does it Work?

Special tools scan social media platforms for posts that mention your:

• Business
• Brand
• Products

These tools look at the tone of the messages and classify them as positive, negative, or neutral. Now, let’s check out the calculation process and industry benchmark:

4. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is a simple way to measure customer loyalty and overall satisfaction. Using it, you can:

• Measure loyalty
• Spot problems early
• Decide where to improve customer service

How Does it Work?

You ask your customers one question: “How likely are you to recommend our business to a friend or colleague?” They answer using a scale from 0 (not likely) to 10 (very likely). Let’s understand what happens next in sequence:

1. Scoring
   1. Promoters (9–10): Very satisfied and likely to recommend
   2. Passives (7–8): Neutral
   3. Detractors (0–6): Unhappy or unlikely to recommend
2. Calculation
   1. NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
   2. Mathematically, we can write it as follows:
      1. NPS = % Promoters – % Detractors

1. Benchmark
   1. A score above 0 is positive.
   2. A score above 50 is strong.
   3. A score above 70 is excellent.
   4. A score below 0 means you have more unhappy customers than happy ones.

5. Text Analytics and Topic Modeling

Text analytics and topic modelling are techniques that let you analyse the written feedback left by customers. Particularly, these methods are useful when you have a large amount of unstructured text, such as:

• Reviews
• Comments
• Survey responses

How Does it Work?

Special algorithms [like Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)] scan written feedback. Post-scanning, it groups similar topics together. For example, comments about “delivery time,” “product quality,” or “customer support” can be grouped into separate categories. 

After grouping, the tool checks the tone of the feedback within each group. This shows whether customers feel positive, negative, or neutral about each topic.

Primary Benefit

Using this method, you can understand what issues are being discussed most, and how customers feel about each one. It turns a large amount of raw text into organised and useful information.

For example,

• Say you receive hundreds of reviews per month.
• You run text analytics and topic modelling to reveal patterns. 
• Now, you find that many customers mention “slow shipping” and express negative sentiments.
• By improving this area, you can boost customer sentiment. 

Do Customer Sentiment Analysis with Atidiv. No Stress! Just Valuable Insights

A recent study found that 66% of customers are likely to switch brands if they feel unappreciated. Thus, you must understand customer sentiment and behaviour to identify what customers like, dislike, and expect from your business. 

To measure customer sentiment you can analyse:

• Reviews
• Surveys
• Social media

Whether it’s recognising a drop in satisfaction or discovering common complaints, sentiment data gives you a clear direction to improve CX, retain loyalty, and grow your brand.

Do you find it tough to measure customer sentiment? Why not outsource to CX specialists like Atidiv? Our expert team at Atidiv allows businesses to improve customer sentiment through:

• Advanced tools
• Real-time analysis
• Personalised support

Let us offer 24/7 omnichannel assistance, AI-powered chatbots, and empathy mapping, Turn feedback into action! Let Atidiv strengthen your customer relationships and build loyalty. Partner with us today to position your brand for long-term success!

FAQs on Customer Sentiment

1. How do I know if my customers are unhappy if they don’t complain directly?

Not all unhappy customers speak up. Thus, you must regularly monitor:

• Reviews
• Social media
• Survey responses 

You can use sentiment analysis tools to scan for negative words or tones. This lets you catch problems early (even when customers don’t say them outright).

2. I don’t have time to read every review. What can I do?

You can use sentiment analysis software, which:

• Automatically reads and scores customer feedback
• Highlights negative, neutral, or positive trends
• Gives you a summary at the end

Such automation eliminates the need to read every message.

3. What’s a good customer sentiment score for a small business?

Aim for a score above 4 out of 5 on reviews and surveys. On social media, a positive sentiment rate of 75% or more is usually strong. If scores drop below that, it’s a sign to investigate and improve.

4. How often should I measure customer sentiment?

It’s best to check customer sentiment monthly or after major events like:

• Product launches
• Starting a new marketing campaign
• Major workforce changes in the customer support department 

Through frequent monitoring, you can track if changes are working!

5. I don’t have a big budget. Can I still measure customer sentiment?

Yes, you can use free or low-cost tools like:

• Google Forms (for surveys)
• Hootsuite (for social media monitoring)
• Basic analytics plugins 

Also, you can start small by tracking customer reviews and asking for feedback directly through email or messages.