A friend of mine was telling me recently about how his internet completely gave out — right in the middle of a critical meeting with a major client.
He had spent days preparing for this presentation, only for everything to come to a screeching halt when his connection cut off.
No hotspot back-up, no quick fix, just awkward silence on the other side of the Zoom call. He panicked, scrambling to reconnect, but by the time he was back online, the client had dropped from the call and the damage was done.
Naturally, he tried calling customer service, and that’s where things got worse.
After being bounced around by automated menus…
waiting on hold forever…
and enduring cheesy hold music…
He was ready to throw in the towel. When an agent finally picked up, he was bracing himself for the usual script. But instead, the rep surprised him—they didn’t just troubleshoot the issue.
The agent really listened, apologized genuinely, and even made sure he had a temporary solution until the repairs were done in his neighborhood.
It wasn’t just about getting his internet back — it was the way the agent made him feel like someone actually cared about the hassle, his frustration, and the missed opportunity.
He told me that single interaction shifted his whole outlook on the company. It was a reminder that, in today’s world, a contact center can do so much more than simply respond to issues. It can actually be the key to winning or losing a customer for good. And in this edition of Cresta IQ, we’re diving into anonymized customer conversations to uncover what drives customer dissatisfaction and how the contact center can turn things around well beyond a simple customer conversation.
When it comes to customer service, one wrong move can send customers running for the hills. Not only is competition at an all-time high, but so are customer standards and expectations.
In fact, 1 in 3 customers will leave a brand after just one bad experience, and 92% will turn their backs after two or three slip-ups. With the Federal Trade Commission ramping up regulations to make it even easier for consumers to cancel subscriptions, it puts even more pressure for companies to drive excellent customer experiences.
In today’s installment of Cresta IQ, we are taking a deep dive into over 1 million anonymized customer conversations classified as having negative sentiment to understand the driving forces behind pissed off customers calling into contact centers. How does that differ by industry? And what happens after that call lands in the contact center?
Measuring Sentiment
Before we get into what we found in the data, let’s look at how Cresta measures sentiment. Using the latest state-of-the-art natural language understanding (NLU) techniques, Cresta understands complex statements, emotions, behaviors, and more. Cresta’s technology classifies sentiment and emotion, and importantly, understands how both are changing over the course of a call. What are some of the guidelines for our understanding whether the sentiment in a call is positive, negative, or neutral?
Here are a few examples:
Positive
- Customer’s question or problem is resolved and they express gratitude
- Customer is satisfied with service, and they name a specific reason for that and/ or compliment the agent
- Customer uses positive language – great, perfect, wonderful – without sarcasm
- Customer expresses gratitude beyond pleasantries – strong, repeated, unusual. Ex: thank you so much, I appreciate you, etc.
Negative
- Customer’s question or problem is unresolved and they express dissatisfaction
- Customer expresses frustration, annoyance, disappointment in any way – could include negative language, sarcasm, abruptly leaving the conversation
- Customer is impolite, rude, uses curse words, or displays sarcasm
- Customer threatens legal action or requests an escalation to a manager
Neutral
- Sentiment does not satisfy positive or negative categories
(Boy, those negative ones are a doozy).
So, Why Are People Calling In Pissed Off?
Let’s break it down by industry.
So what do best-in-class agents do when they’re faced with an angry customer – maybe even one threatening legal action? How do they turn them into happy, lasting customers? We turned to our resident subject matter expert and former contact center leader, Brittany Bell, to share some of her top tips from over a decade of experience.
We handpicked three to share with you below – to get the rest of the top ten (plus a bonus!), download our cheat sheet.
Empathize, Don’t Apologize
Tip: Instead of saying, “I’m sorry”, use phrases like, “I understand how this must feel for you,” or “That sounds frustrating”.
Why it works:
“Customers often view apologies as empty if there’s no solution. Empathy shows that you’re connecting with their emotions and taking the situation seriously. Over-apologizing can sometimes come off as defensive or dismissive, whereas showing empathy builds rapport and opens the door to constructive problem-solving.”
-Brittany Bell, Customer Success Manager at Cresta
Take Ownership of the Problem
Tip: Once you understand the issue, reassure the customer by saying, “I will take care of this for you” or “I’m going to make sure we get this resolved.”
Why it works: Taking personal responsibility builds trust, not only in you during this conversation, but in your company on the whole. The customer feels as though they have an advocate on their side, which can significantly lower their frustration.
Provide a Clear Solution – and Set Expectations
Tip: After explaining what steps you’ll take to resolve the issue, give a clear timeline for resolution. If it’s a complex problem, explain what you’ll do in stages.
Why it works: Clear communication helps avoid misunderstandings. It also sets realistic expectations, so the customer knows what to expect and when.
To get the rest of our top ten tips – plus a bonus tip – download our cheat sheet.
Turning Complaints Into a Competitive Advantage
While contact center agents have incredible power to change the course of a customer’s experience and satisfaction with a brand, that 1:1 scale is not enough; you have to dig deeper and change business processes.
It’s when contact centers are enabled and empowered with the ability to understand more deeply that a true understanding of the root causes of these issues driving negative customer sentiment. And in that, a much deeper understanding of the Voice of the Customer (VoC) emerges.
In our analysis digging a level deeper, we found that some of these problems are beyond the agents’ control; no amount of training on behaviors like apologizing at the right time, showing empathy, or turning on the charm can fix a fundamentally flawed policy or product. Often, it’s beyond the scope of what an agent can influence — it’s something baked into the system. And while individual agents can’t rewrite policy, your company can.
The contact center holds a treasure trove of information. Every complaint, every frustrated sigh is a data point telling you what needs to change. And all of this data helps you answer a critical question that directly impacts your customers’ experiences: how can we leverage this goldmine of data to fix what’s broken?
If you keep getting frustrated calls about your rigid return policy, maybe it’s time to revisit whether or not this policy is still the right one. If customers are annoyed about the same billing issue, it might be worth a second look at your pricing structure. These insights aren’t just useful for the contact center — they’re strategic fuel for the entire business.
The smartest companies don’t just fix the problem on the phone; they use that intel to make proactive changes. By addressing root causes like policies, products, and customer service protocols, you can minimize negative sentiment and call volume, eventually keeping these calls from even hitting the contact center. And when that happens, costs go down and customer satisfaction goes up.
For example, when we dug into a sampling of the actual calls making up the ‘Booking errors & issues’ segment in our Hospitality analysis, we found that what actually drove the call was, unsurprisingly, more nuanced than that. In one particular call, the customer complained about a lack of follow up, resulting in confusion on the details of their reservation.
In many contact centers today, customer calls can be treated as isolated incidents – momentary fires to put out – rather than a cache of broader strategic information. So how do you shift from merely triaging negative calls after they’ve already reached your agents to proactively improving your organization, driven by the voice of your customers?
The Contact Center: Your Secret Weapon
With the right skills and technology, your contact center can become more than just a problem-solving unit – it can act as the central nervous system for customer feedback, processing critical insights that influence real-time business decisions.
Most businesses don’t have multiple direct engagement points with their customers along the customer journey; most have a limited number of touchpoints. Every interaction, therefore, becomes a crucial opportunity to impress, retain, and build trust with your customers. Each call or message is not just a conversation – it’s a moment that could define whether a customer stays or leaves.
To stay ahead and maintain a competitive edge, equip your agents with AI-powered tools that provide real-time insights, personalized coaching, and in-the-moment assistance. When agents are empowered to solve issues immediately, you’ll not only watch them turn more grumpy customers into advocates, you’ll also capture invaluable data that can prevent future frustrations.
But real-time insights aren’t just a luxury; they’re a necessity. In an age where customers can cancel subscriptions or switch providers with a single click, businesses need to act on feedback instantly. Whether it’s adjusting a product, refining a policy, or reshaping a service offering, fast responsiveness helps prevent minor issues from turning into lost revenue.
Because the reality is, customers don’t expect perfection, but they do expect responsiveness. And the companies that listen, learn, and adapt? They’re the ones that turn fleeting frustrations into long-term loyalty.
Did you miss our last Cresta IQ post? Check out a new way to think about and measure Average Handle Time in our last installment. Follow Cresta to stay updated with the latest research and insights.
