Generally speaking, if your customers have positive sentiment, they are more likely to buy and become repeat loyal customers. Customers who think of your brand negatively are less likely to buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What affects sentiment? Your products are the biggest factor. If people love your products, they\u2019ll probably think well of your brand. But your service quality, personal interactions, charity work, company values, website experience, and other factors can influence sentiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadly, there is a discrepancy between companies\u2019 opinions on customer sentiment and how customers actually feel. A NICE CXone report discovered that 50% of businesses believe their customers have a positive sentiment<\/a> toward their brand, but only 15% of customers agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s interesting about sentiment is that it\u2019s infectious. It can spread from one customer to others. For instance, suppose a customer has a delightful experience with your brand. They will undoubtedly share their experience with others, which will improve those people\u2019s sentiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you gather enough feedback from customers about their feelings, you can take steps to address any issues and build a better brand experience. But to get this feedback, you have to ask the right questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Customer sentiment relies on direct and indirect feedback. Both are valuable. Their differences lay in how you get them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Direct feedback refers to statements your customers make to you directly. This includes emails, phone calls, customer support tickets, live chat, or in-person conversations. Generally, these only happen when customers aren\u2019t happy, though direct praise isn\u2019t uncommon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indirect feedback refers to statements your customers make publicly, but aren\u2019t intended for you. This includes conversations with friends and social media conversations. With the right tools, you can find and listen to these statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some communications straddle the line between direct and indirect. A Twitter complaint, for example, is directed at the brand, but the tweeter relies on the pressure of a public conversation to make their point or get a response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have lots of ecommerce metrics<\/a> to measure how <\/em>people feel, such as customer satisfaction (CSAT), customer effort score (CES), ease of doing business (EODB), or Net Promoter Score (NPS\u00ae).<\/p>\n\n\n\n While those metrics are valuable, they don’t attempt to understand why <\/em>customers feel the way they do. To learn why, <\/em>we have to approach it qualitatively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 90% of communication is nonverbal<\/a>, but that presents a challenge when you\u2019re dealing with written <\/em>communication, which lacks visual and acoustic aid. The words people use are only a fraction of their feelings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is referred to as the Iceberg Principle<\/a>. Like an iceberg\u2019s mass, which sits mostly under the water, your audience\u2019s sentiment is similarly obscured. It\u2019s your job to decipher the true meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Customer sentiment is based on words, so we have to either a) have to have conversations with our customers, or b) peer into their conversations with their friends, family, and followers. A star rating will tell you whether a customer had a good or bad experience, but it doesn\u2019t give you any information in regards to fixing the bad and leaning into the good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sentiment analysis, therefore, will put you on the path toward improving the experiences<\/a> of all of your future customers. According to the Customer Service Trends for 2022<\/a> report, 64% of consumers stop doing business with a brand after only two or three bad experiences, so it\u2019s important to make sentiment-improving changes quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sentiment analysis is the process of trying to understand your customers\u2019 and potential customers\u2019 feelings about your brand, products, and overall experience. Furthermore, it helps you look beyond their words at the tone<\/em> of their comments. You can do this manually or with a customer sentiment analysis tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s use a basic example. Suppose a customer leaves a product review that simply says, \u201cIt\u2019s fine.\u201d At face value, that\u2019s a good review. \u201cFine\u201d certainly isn\u2019t negative, but even through the text we can see that the customer isn\u2019t really happy with their purchase. Maybe the product isn\u2019t what they wanted, but not worth initiating a return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They said “Fine,” but in actuality, they had a negative experience. Even the most basic customer feedback can help you discover potential optimizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that you understand customer sentiment, you\u2019re probably wondering how to improve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a general correlation between higher sentiment and more conversions. It\u2019s not a linear relationship, however. While customers who like your brand are more likely to buy, increasing sentiment doesn\u2019t always improve conversions and boost sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDirect vs. indirect feedback<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Measuring customer sentiment<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"image](\"https:\/\/thegood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/pasted-image-0-10.png\")
Source. <\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe Intersection of Ethical Website Design and Customer Sentiment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"model](\"https:\/\/thegood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sentiment-Leverage-Model-1-1-1024x941.png\")