Call Center Analytics: Part 3 - Sentiment Analysis with Amazon Comprehend

In the customer service landscape, understanding the emotional undertones of customer interactions at the click of a button can be extremely helpful. Sentiment analysis is key in unlocking the "emotional data" from customer calls, allowing companies to fine-tune their customer service and product offerings. In this article, I show how I've used Amazon Comprehend to perform sentiment analysis, offer a technical walkthrough, and explore the nuances of Natural Language Processing (NLP) as they apply to real-world call center data.

Check out the code repo here.

Amazon Comprehend Basics

Before diving into sentiment analysis, lets grasp the capabilities of Amazon Comprehend. As an AWS service, Comprehend provides NLP in a fully managed and continuous learning environment. It identifies the language of the text, extracts key phrases, places, people, brands, or events, understands how positive or negative the text is, and automatically organizes a collection of text files by topic.

Understanding how to harness these capabilities within AWS begins with configuring the service to meet the specific needs of your call center data.

Performing Sentiment Analysis

Setting up sentiment analysis with Amazon Comprehend is straightforward but requires attention to detail. We must configure the Lambda to have permission to utilize Comprehend.

Calling Comprehend from the Lambda

def process_transcript(transcript, speaker_labels):

    dialogue_entries = []

    last_speaker = None



    for segment in speaker_labels['segments']:

        speaker_label = segment['speaker_label']

        speaker_name = {"spk_0": "Customer", "spk_1": "Agent"}[speaker_label]



        if last_speaker != speaker_label:

            if last_speaker is not None:

                dialogue_entries.append("\n")

            dialogue_entries.append(f"{speaker_name}:")

            last_speaker = speaker_label



        segment_dialogue = ""



        for item in segment['items']:

            word_info = next((word for word in transcript['items'] if

                              'start_time' in word and word['start_time'] == item['start_time']), None)

            if word_info and 'alternatives' in word_info and len(word_info['alternatives']) > 0:

                if segment_dialogue:

                    segment_dialogue += " "

                segment_dialogue += word_info['alternatives'][0]['content']



        if segment_dialogue:

            dialogue_entries.append(f" {segment_dialogue}")



    formatted_script = "".join(dialogue_entries)

    return formatted_script

Integrating with Lambda and DynamoDB

The real power of sentiment analysis comes with its integration into the broader architecture. Using AWS Lambda, the sentiment analysis results can be processed and then sent to DynamoDB for storage. This integration allows the sentiment data to be actionable, informing business decisions and customer service strategies.

With the sentiment data stored in DynamoDB, retrieving and analyzing historical sentiment trends becomes possible, adding a new dimension to customer interaction analytics.

Advanced Sentiment Analysis Techniques

While Amazon Comprehend provides a robust platform for sentiment analysis, its application presents challenges. Language is inherently complex; customer calls often include slang, jargon, and varying dialects. To address this, Comprehend allows for customization and training to better accommodate the unique communication styles encountered in calls.

Implementing sentiment analysis using Amazon Comprehend can profoundly impact the quality of customer service. By providing a window into the customer's emotional journey, businesses can pivot and adapt to respond to their clientele's needs. As AWS continues to enhance Comprehend, the potential for even more nuanced analysis grows, promising a future where customer sentiment is not just heard but understood at a granular level.

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