Creating survey summaries with sentiment scoring

Creating survey summaries with sentiment scoring involves analyzing survey responses and then categorizing them based on their sentiment (positive, neutral, or negative) to provide a clear and concise overview. Here’s a simple breakdown of the steps involved in creating these summaries:

1. Collecting the Data

Gather all responses from the survey. This could include multiple-choice questions, Likert scale ratings, and open-ended questions. For open-ended questions, ensure you have the full textual data for sentiment analysis.

2. Preprocessing the Data

Clean the responses by:

• Removing any irrelevant or incomplete answers.

• Correcting common typos and ensuring consistency in responses.

• For textual responses, remove stop words, punctuation, and other irrelevant characters to prepare them for analysis.

3. Performing Sentiment Analysis

Use sentiment analysis tools or libraries (such as TextBlob, VADER, or sentiment analysis APIs) to score the sentiment of each response. Sentiment is usually categorized into three groups:

• Positive Sentiment: Indicates satisfaction or agreement.

• Neutral Sentiment: Indicates indifference or a neutral stance.

• Negative Sentiment: Indicates dissatisfaction or disagreement.

For Likert scale-based questions (e.g., “Very Satisfied” to “Very Dissatisfied”), you can map the scale to a sentiment range, where higher satisfaction is assigned positive sentiment and lower satisfaction is assigned negative sentiment.

4. Summarizing the Results

Once sentiment scores have been assigned to each response, you can summarize them into categories:

• Overall Sentiment Score: Calculate the overall sentiment by averaging all sentiment scores. For instance, if the majority of responses are positive, the summary will reflect that.

• Categorical Sentiment Breakdown: Show the percentage of responses that were positive, neutral, and negative. This could help highlight overall trends.

Example:

• 70% Positive

• 20% Neutral

• 10% Negative

For open-ended questions, extract key themes or sentiments expressed frequently and include them in the summary.

5. Visualizing the Data

Use simple charts (bar charts, pie charts, word clouds) to visualize the sentiment breakdown. For textual responses, a word cloud can help highlight commonly mentioned topics or concerns.

6. Identifying Key Insights

Based on the sentiment scores, identify and summarize the key insights:

• What aspects are customers most satisfied with?

• What areas need improvement?

• Are there any common complaints or praises that stand out?

7. Creating a Clear Summary Report

Write a concise summary that encapsulates the overall sentiment of the survey, highlights the main insights, and provides actionable recommendations (if applicable).

Example Survey Summary:

• Overall Sentiment:
  75% of the responses were positive, 15% neutral, and 10% negative.
  Respondents expressed high satisfaction with the quality of service (85% positive), but several concerns were raised regarding the pricing (40% negative).

• Key Insights:

  • Positive feedback: Customers were particularly pleased with the user interface and customer support, with many mentioning quick response times.

  • Negative feedback: A recurring complaint was the high pricing of the service, especially among new users.

  • Neutral feedback: Some respondents indicated that while they were satisfied with the service, they felt there could be more features offered.

8. Actionable Recommendations:

Based on the analysis, it’s possible to suggest next steps. For example:

• Improve Pricing Structure: Consider offering discounts or more flexible pricing to address concerns about cost.

• Enhance Features: Evaluate the demand for additional features that customers feel are lacking.

By following these steps, you can create a comprehensive survey summary with sentiment scoring that provides clear, actionable insights based on the feedback from respondents.