The other day I read a customer experience report from my company that said:
“Customer satisfaction score: 87%.”
My reaction:
It looked great. Really. But I couldn’t help wondering:
Did they smile when answering? Or did they roll their eyes and say ‘Fine’ with clenched teeth?
Because between a customer saying “I’m satisfied” and a customer feeling joy, relief or excitement… there’s a galaxy of emotion.
And the problem is: most dashboards don’t feel anything.
The KPIs don’t feel anything either
NPS, CSAT, CES… nice metrics, but not very emotional creatures.
Let’s be honest: most of us in marketing or customer support have used these KPIs at some point. We track them. We report them. We celebrate them when they go up.
But deep down… we know something’s missing.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) tells you how likely someone is to recommend your brand. But it doesn’t tell you why. Or how they felt when they answered.
Were they excited? Bored? Confused? Annoyed but loyal? - Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) gives a number after an interaction.
But you can get a 5/5 with a very dry, neutral comment. “Yes, the issue was fixed.”
OK, cool. But did the person feel relief? Or did they feel like they lost 20 minutes of their life? - Customer Effort Score (CES) says how easy the experience was.
Also useful. But again — ease is not emotion.
You can make something easy and forgettable.
Let me give you a real example.
In one of the companies I worked for, a customer once gave us 10/10 on a CSAT survey.
People were really proud. Until I read the comment:
“Thank you for replying after 6 days of silence. Finally.”
Technically, it was a perfect score.
Emotionally, it was a disappointment.
That’s the problem. We treat these KPIs like magic numbers.
But they are indicators, not complete pictures.
They show behavior, not emotion.
And in customer experience, emotion is everything.
Because we don’t buy products.
We buy how they make us feel.
Emotions, the invisible driver
“People don’t remember what you said. They remember how you made them feel.”
You’ve heard this sentence before, right? Probably in a TED Talk… or on LinkedIn with a picture of Maya Angelou (even if she maybe didn’t say it):
Still, it’s true.
In marketing, sales, and customer support, emotions are the real boss.
They decide if people trust you. If they stay loyal. If they forgive your mistakes. If they recommend you.And if they never come back again.
And it works in both directions.
- A rude email from support can make someone leave forever.
- A human call during a crisis can turn a complainer into a fan.
- A small gesture (free dessert, follow-up email, quick fix) can be remembered for years.
We are humans. We act based on feelings. Even in B2B.
Yes, the CIO also has emotions.
Yes, the Head of Procurement too. (They just hide it better.)
How to actually measure emotions today?
OK, so now we agree: emotions matter.
But let’s be honest — they’re also messy.
They don’t fit in nice dashboards. They don’t always come with a number.
So how do you actually measure them?
1. Read what people really say
Start with what you already have: reviews, emails, feedback forms, chat logs.
Don’t just look at the rating. Look at the tone. The words.
Is the customer calm, excited, sarcastic, disappointed?
Use text analysis tools (like Medallia or even ChatGPT if you want to keep it simple) to spot patterns. Words like “finally”, “wow”, “ugh”, “amazing”, “still waiting”… they all show emotional signals.
Quick tip: Create a weekly ritual. Take 10 random customer comments. Try to label them with 1 emotion. That’s it. You’ll learn a lot.
2. Ask better questions
Most surveys ask boring things like: “How satisfied are you on a scale from 1 to 5?”
Try asking more human stuff:
- “How did this make you feel?”
- “What surprised you today?”
- “If this experience was a movie scene, what kind would it be?”
(OK, this one is for brave brands — but the answers are gold.)
You don’t need 10,000 responses.
Sometimes 20 real feelings are more useful than 2000 cold scores.
3. Listen to the voice, not just the words
If you have a call center or support team, start paying attention to tone of voice.
Some companies now use voice analytics to detect stress, hesitation, or satisfaction in real time. It’s still new. But very promising.
And even without fancy tools — you can ask your agents: “How did the customer sound today?”
That question alone can change how you see the day.
4. UX tools can feel emotions too (almost)
For websites and apps, tools like Hotjar or Crazy Egg let you see where users hesitate, click in panic, or rage-click. That’s frustration, right there. Captured live.
Pair that with a short popup question like: “Did you find what you were looking for?” or “Was anything annoying today?”
…and boom, you’re not just measuring actions. You’re measuring feelings.
5. Just… be human
Sometimes, the best way to feel emotions is… to be emotional.
Call a client. Ask them how they’re doing — not just with your product, but in general.
The more you treat them like humans, the more they’ll show you how they feel.
We spend hours looking at dashboards, charts, and KPIs.
We celebrate when numbers go up. We panic when they go down.
But what if the real signal was hidden in a sigh, a smile, or a silence?
Customers don’t think about scores.
They remember moments. They remember how your product, your email, your team made them feel.
If you want real loyalty, start listening like a human.
Not like a spreadsheet.
Start small:
📌 Read real comments, not just averages.
📌 Ask emotional questions.
📌 Train your team to feel, not just to fix.
📌 And maybe… stop thinking of CX as a dashboard, and more as a relationship.
Because in the end, what creates value is not the data.
It’s the connection.
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