What is Sentiment Analysis?

Sentiment analysis is an AI technique that determines the emotional tone behind text or speech, classifying it as positive, negative, or neutral, and sometimes detecting specific feelings like frustration or satisfaction. In a dealership, sentiment analysis can scan customer reviews, survey responses, chat logs, and call transcripts to reveal how customers actually feel at scale, far faster than reading everything manually. It helps managers spot an unhappy customer who needs immediate attention, identify recurring complaints about a process, and measure whether service quality is improving over time. Applied to sales and BDC calls, it can flag conversations that went poorly for coaching. Combined with the raw comments, sentiment analysis turns unstructured customer feedback into trends leaders can act on. Because tone can be subtle, results should guide attention rather than replace human judgment, especially for sensitive or high-stakes interactions.