Why businesses need to pay attention to customer well-being and sentiment

Think about the worst customer service experience you’ve ever had. Did you stop doing business with that company and tell all your friends and family about it? Well, you’re not alone and your customers would probably do the same if they ever experienced a service interaction that went south. Being misunderstood, having to repeat the issue over and over again, and not having the problem resolved quickly can be frustrating and can take a toll on the customer’s emotions.

According to the Zendesk CX Trends 2023 report, 72% of consumers in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region said that a bad interaction with a business can actually ruin their day. Nearly half feel that brands don’t care about their well-being. Globally, half the customers said their frustration levels have grown over the past year, with 52% saying support interactions leave them feeling exhausted.

Evidently, customers want to be seen, heard and valued. And if they don’t, it will quite literally cost businesses. As many as 66% of consumers in India would switch to a competitor after just one bad interaction. It’s not enough to have a good product alone—businesses need to understand their customers better to deliver memorable experiences that’ll keep them coming back for more. 

Supporting disgruntled customers

Agents on the frontline have always found it challenging to support customers who feel frustrated and angry. They often have to manage complex support services and difficult interactions while factoring in the customer’s emotions. And providing a good experience can become increasingly difficult when the customer expresses rising distress. This happens more often than businesses anticipate—69% of agents in the APAC region say their organisation's overall customer experience often causes customers to behave in negative ways.

Globally, 37% of agents said that when a customer cannot complete simple tasks on their own, they often become noticeably angry, frustrated, or stressed. Over three in 10 agents say they lack basic information online, leading to a self-service gap that also plays a role in angering customers.

When businesses don’t actively track customer well-being and sentiment, they cannot anticipate and fix persistent issues. And this only leads to more frustrated customers. In APAC, only 24% of businesses say that they utilise customer sentiment to personalise the service. Businesses that fail to recognise the effects of negative experiences stand to lose more than a few disgruntled customers—their brand may also sustain irreparable damage. 

Strong customer loyalty is built when customers recognise, respect, and ultimately, harness consumer emotions. As per the Zendesk report, paying attention to customer emotions is good for business. Around 71% of consumers in India are more likely to purchase from a business that cares about their emotional state. 

Harnessing AI to track customer sentiment 

Customers want to know that businesses care about their emotional state. To show them that their well-being is prioritised, businesses need to be able to tune into them and capture, understand, and have metrics that can measure success. One way to do it is by using AI-powered technology that predicts intent and sentiment, which helps our understanding of customers’ emotions. 

Customer sentiment analysis examines feedback left by customers in surveys, social media posts, and more. This process uses machine learning to analyse huge amounts of customer data, scanning past interactions to identify negative, positive, and neutral language. This helps businesses understand how consumers view your business and the level of support. 

Understanding customer emotions 

Businesses are increasingly interested in improving their customers' well-being and emotional state, with 92% actively seeking ways to do so, as per the report. AI solutions, such as generative AI software like ChatGPT, can make this transition easier by providing retail companies with a deeper understanding of their customers. This data can then be used by business leaders to shape product offerings and marketing strategies, resulting in highly personalised experiences for customers.

Harnessing the power of AI to track sentiment and mood as they travel through their journey can be invaluable. AI solutions trained with large CX-specific datasets can provide fast and accurate responses to customer issues, resulting in a better overall customer experience. For example, it can help automatically enrich support tickets with critical information like customer intent, sentiment, and even language prediction. This allows companies to monitor tone in written communication and emotional signals such as the use of all-caps. 

Having these insights allow agents to route, prioritise and enter into an interaction with the right sense of urgency and sensitivity. With AI, as it goes, becoming more effective and accurate over time, it is better equipped to guide agents toward more successful outcomes by providing important context and recommendations. 

Understanding and acting on customers’ emotions will lead to happier customers and agents who are better prepared and more confident. This ultimately leads to increased revenue—the true measure of good CX.

The key to exceptional CX is striking the right balance between human interactions and AI. AI can be a great tool that helps agents access all information they need about a specific customer request quickly, while giving them the mental space to focus on being empathetic with the customer and avoid long waits that add to the frustration. In the end, understanding customers benefits everyone in the long run and it's time businesses start paying attention to their well-being. 

(Vasudeva Rao Munnaluri is currently the RVP for India & SAARC at Zendesk, where his focus is on helping businesses get more out of their CX Strategy. )