Studies show that 95% of purchasing decisions are driven by emotions rather than logic. That’s why businesses must focus on how customers feel at every stage of their journey. A positive emotional experience can lead to loyalty, while a negative one can drive customers away.
But what is customer emotion?
Ever walked into a store and immediately felt welcomed? Or had a frustrating online shopping experience that made you vow never to return? That, right there, is customer emotion.
In this blog, we will explore the different types of customer emotions, their impact on businesses, and how companies can measure them using modern tools and techniques.
What is customer emotion?
Customer emotion refers to the feelings and sentiments that customers experience while interacting with a brand, product, or service. These emotions can range from happiness, excitement, and trust to frustration, disappointment, and anger.
Throughout the customer journey, emotions can change based on experiences at different touchpoints. For example, a customer might feel excited about purchasing a new smartphone but may become frustrated if the device has technical issues or if customer support is unhelpful.
When discussing customer experience, customer emotions are generally classified into three categories:
- Positive emotions – Happiness, satisfaction, excitement, trust, and gratitude
- Neutral emotions – Indifference, uncertainty, or lack of strong feelings
- Negative emotions – Frustration, anger, disappointment, or distrust
Importance of customer emotions
Customer emotions are highly important for businesses. Wondering why? Because a single emotional experience—whether positive or negative—can influence a customer’s future interactions with a brand.
Let’s consider an example:
Let’s say you visited a restaurant for dinner, and the service is slow. You wait for nearly an hour before receiving your meal, which turns out to be cold. How would you feel? Annoyed, frustrated, and possibly disappointed. Now, if the restaurant staff apologizes sincerely, replaces your meal quickly, and offers a discount for the inconvenience, your emotions might change from frustration to relief or appreciation.
On the other hand, if the staff ignores your complaint or dismisses your concerns, your frustration will likely escalate. You might decide never to return to the restaurant and even warn others about your bad experience through word of mouth or online reviews.
This scenario highlights why businesses need to pay close attention to customer emotions:
- Influence on purchasing decisions – Customers are more likely to buy from brands that evoke positive emotions.
- Impact on customer retention – A single negative experience can drive customers away, while a positive one fosters long-term loyalty.
- Brand reputation – Emotional experiences shape public perception. Negative word-of-mouth spreads quickly and can damage a brand’s image.
- Revenue growth – Happy customers are more likely to make repeat purchases and recommend the brand to others, ultimately boosting sales.
That’s why businesses actively measure and analyze customer emotions. Their goal is to create positive emotional experiences that enhance customer satisfaction, strengthen brand loyalty, and minimize negative interactions.
How to measure customer emotions
Measuring customer emotions is essential for understanding how people feel about your brand at different stages of their journey. It helps businesses identify areas that need improvement and optimize customer interactions to create a better overall experience.
One of the most effective ways to measure customer emotions is by sending real-time surveys. These surveys capture customer sentiments at critical touchpoints, helping businesses respond proactively.
piHappiness is one such customer experience platform that helps you create and send surveys to your customers automatically across various channels. Not just that, it helps you analyze real-time feedback and access advanced reports that provide detailed customer feedback insights.
We have listed two primary methods you can use to measure customer emotions by conducting surveys:
Use sentiment analysis
Sentiment analysis is an advanced method that categorizes customer feedback into positive, negative, and neutral sentiments. It uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning to detect emotions in text-based responses.
For instance, when customers provide written feedback, piHappiness instantly processes and categorizes the responses, making it easier to analyze overall customer sentiment.
Here is how sentiment analysis works in piHappiness:
- It scans customer feedback and identifies emotional tone.
- It highlights recurring themes in customer feedback.
- It provides a clear breakdown of what aspects customers appreciate and what frustrates them.
Example:
Let’s say a business receives several customer reviews.
- Positive Sentiment Topic: Customers frequently mention “helpful customer support” in their feedback. This phrase will appear under positive sentiment topics in the piHappiness dashboard.
- Negative Sentiment Topic: Many customers complain about “long waiting times at the reception.” piHappiness will flag this as a negative sentiment topic, helping the business address the issue.
Calculate Net Emotional Value (NEV)
Another best way to measure customer emotions is by calculating Net Emotional Value (NEV). Net Emotional Value (NEV) is a customer experience metric that quantifies the emotional impact of interactions with a brand, product, or service. Unlike traditional satisfaction scores, NEV focuses on the intensity of emotions, giving businesses a clearer picture of how customers truly feel.
NEV score usually ranges from –1 to +1. It is based on emotional responses. Typically, emotions are categorized into:
- Positive emotions: Happy, valued, satisfied, appreciated, delighted.
- Negative emotions: Frustrated, disappointed, annoyed, ignored, angry.
Here is how to calculate NEV:
Step 1: Ask a question
Question: On a scale of 1-7, how did this experience make you feel?
Step 2: Provide an emotion-based scale
Response scale:
😭 | 😡 | 😠 | 😕 | 😐 | 🙂 | 😃 |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
Here, you can define them as below:
- Scores 6-7 = Positive (+1)
- Scores 4-5 = Neutral (0)
- Scores 1-3 = Negative (-1)
Step 3: Apply the NEV formula
In order to calculate NEV, you need to subtract negative responses from positive responses and divide it by the total sum of responses.
NEV = total positive responses – total negative responses / total sum of responses
For example, let’s say 100 customers responded.
- 50 gave positive responses
- 20 gave neutral responses
- 30 gave negative responses
Now, NEV = (50 – 30) / 100
NEV = 20 / 100 = 0.2
The overall Net Emotional Value score of your customers is 0.2 on a scale of –1 to +1.
Wrapping up
To sum it up, customer emotions influence every interaction with a brand—from the first impression to long-term loyalty. Businesses that understand and manage these emotions can improve customer experiences, build stronger relationships, and enhance their reputation.
Try piHappiness to keep an eye on customer emotions and make improvements where needed. This way, you can turn customers into loyal fans. And isn’t that what every brand wants?
FAQs
1. What is customer emotion?
Customer emotion refers to the feeling a customer experiences while interacting with your brand. There are numerous customer emotions, which are classified into positive, neutral, and negative emotions.
2. What are different types of customer emotions?
There are different types of customer emotions, which are mainly categorized into positive and negative emotions. Under positive emotions, you can find happiness, excitement, joy, delight, surprise, trust, gratitude, and more. Under negative emotions, anger, sadness, frustration, disappointment, worry, and others are included.
3. How do customer emotions influence purchase decisions?
Positive customer emotions increase the likelihood of a purchase, encourage repeat business, and strengthen brand loyalty. On the other hand, negative experiences can drive customers away and harm a brand’s reputation through word-of-mouth and online reviews. Businesses that create positive emotional connections with customers are more likely to see higher retention, better public perception, and increased revenue growth.
