Sentiment Analysis: Actually Understanding How People Feel

Here’s something we all know but often ignore: what people say and how they feel aren’t always the same thing. A customer might say “it’s fine” while their tone screams “I’m about to switch providers.”

AI sentiment analysis picks up on these signals. Emotion detection picks out frustration early enough to do something about it. It spots enthusiasm that could mean an upsell opportunity. It flags calls where someone’s genuinely upset and needs senior attention.

This matters more than you might think. Patterns emerge over time. You’ll see which products cause problems, which team members are brilliant at calming angry customers, even which times of day people are most stressed. That’s the kind of insight you can actually use to improve things.

Follow-Ups That Happen Without Chasing

We all know follow-up matters. We also all know it’s the first thing that gets dropped when people are busy.
AI-powered systems can trigger follow-ups automatically based on what was discussed. Customer asked about a feature? They get relevant information sent over within minutes. Support issue needs escalating? The right person gets notified with all the context they need.

This isn’t about replacing the human touch, it’s about making sure nothing slips through the cracks when you’re juggling fifty things at once.

Smarter Call Routing in Contact Centres

Traditional call routing is basically “who’s been waiting the longest?” which is fair, but not exactly smart.

AI routing looks at who’s calling, why they’re calling, their history, and even how they’re feeling, then connects them with the best person to help. Not just anyone who’s available, the right person.

Your VIP customers get experienced agents. Technical questions go to technical people. Someone who’s clearly frustrated gets connected with your best problem-solvers. First-call resolution goes up, customer satisfaction improves, and your team feels more effective.

Enter Agentic AI: Your Always-On Team Member

Now, here’s where things get really interesting. While AI is making human agents more effective, there’s another development changing the game: agentic AI that can handle calls independently.

When we launched Evoke Telecom’s Agentic AI, Ellie became our team member who never sleeps, never has a bad day, and can handle multiple conversations simultaneously. It’s not a chatbot reading from a script, it’s AI that can understand context, solve problems, and know when to bring in a human.

You can have an Ellie too, this means your customers get instant answers at any time. Simple queries get resolved immediately. Your human team focuses on the complex, relationship-building conversations that actually need a person. And every interaction, whether handled by AI or humans, generates the same rich data and insights.
The combination is powerful: AI handling routine calls efficiently while your team tackles the interesting stuff, all feeding into the same analytics and improvement cycle.

Performance Improvement Through Real Data 

Once you’ve got transcribed calls, you can actually search them. Need to find every conversation mentioning a specific competitor? Done in seconds. Want to see how your team handles price objections? You can pull up every example and identify what works.

Coaching becomes specific rather than generic. Quality assurance becomes comprehensive rather than random sampling. Training addresses actual gaps instead of assumed ones.

So Is Voice Communication Dead?
Not even close. Actually, AI is proving that voice is still the best way to communicate about anything complex, important and to keep those invaluable relationships going.

The logic is simple: Voice → Recording → Transcription → Powerful Insights

Every phone call becomes valuable data. But, and this matters, the quality of your recording affects the quality of your insights.

Why Stereo Recording Makes a Difference?
Standard call recording is fine. Stereo recording is better. Much better.

When you record each speaker on a separate channel (in high-quality MP3 or WAV format), AI can analyse each person independently. This means more accurate sentiment analysis, better stress detection, more reliable customer satisfaction scoring.

You can measure who’s talking more, who’s interrupting, how the conversation flows. These details matter when you’re trying to understand what makes some interactions brilliant and others awkward.

Better recording quality means better insights. Better insights mean better decisions. It’s that straightforward.