Fixing Confusion: Elevating emotion detection for smarter customer support

Customer support thrives on understanding. Every message a person sends carries a story, an emotion, or a need. At EdgeTier, we’re taking a significant step forward in decoding these signals with the introduction of confusion emotion detection, adding it to our emotion analysis suite. 

We understand that confused customers don’t just struggle in the moment. They’re more likely to escalate issues, abandon processes, or lose confidence in your brand. Our latest feature empowers support teams to proactively address customer confusion, improving first-contact resolution and enhancing the overall customer experience.

Let’s take a closer look at why emotion detection should be a top priority in your support operation, and why detecting confusion is such a valuable addition.

Why emotion detection matters

Agent performance drives customer satisfaction, but emotion detection goes further by providing real-time insights into how customers feel during their interactions with your team. Frustration, gratitude, praise – and now confusion –  are directly tied to metrics like customer satisfaction (CSAT) and net promoter score (NPS), making them essential to monitor.

Yet, confusion is often the hidden culprit behind churn and dissatisfaction. By identifying it, you have the chance to clarify, guide, and improve the customer experience before issues spiral.

EdgeTier’s unique approach to emotion detection 

At EdgeTier, we believe that emotion detection should be precise, actionable, and tailored for real-world support needs. With our focus on satisfaction-related sentiment analysis, we help support teams turn insights into impactful actions.

Here’s what sets us apart:

• Built for customer service: EdgeTier’s models are trained on thousands of real customer service examples, not generic data, ensuring accurate emotion detection on the emotions that matter within customer conversations:
  • Praise: Highlights customer delight, enabling you to amplify what’s working well.
  • Gratitude: Reflects appreciation, helping identify moments of exceptional service.
  • Frustration: Pinpoints dissatisfaction, driving immediate corrective actions.
  • Confusion: Detects when customers are confused about a product, service, or when customers don’t understand the solutions offered by agents.
•  Multilingual Industry Models: EdgeTier’s language models work across all European languages and are fine-tuned for specific industries like travel, retail, and gaming, ensuring highly accurate emotion detection for each sector.

How confusion detection solves real-world customer service problems

Confusion signals opportunities to improve both customer experience and operational processes. Here’s how detecting it can make a real difference in your Customer Support function:

1. Proactively address patterns of agent miscommunication

This emotion often signals unclear instructions or missing information in customer conversations, helping you spot where agents need help. It also shows which agents are causing the most confusion compared to others, so you can guide your team to improve how they communicate with customers.

Example: When customers ask questions like “What do you mean?,” or “Can you explain this again?” confusion detection flags the specific message and interaction, showing you where customers are struggling.

2. Spot areas where processes or products may confuse customers

Patterns of confusion can reveal larger issues or frustration with processes or templated documentation. With these insights, you can make meaningful improvements at scale.

Example: Revise training materials or FAQs when you spot recurring confusion on the same topic.

3.  Eliminate Manual Tagging for Customer Confusion

Focus on fixing customer frustration, not finding it. Customer service teams once used manual triggers to detect confusion, requiring constant updates and missing key signals. Our always-on model works seamlessly, so you can focus on helping your customers.

Get to the root of confused customers 

This enhancement enables more precise coaching, faster issue resolution, and a clearer understanding of where customers struggle most. Whether you’re spotting praise, frustration, or confusion, EdgeTier’s sentiment analysis empowers your team to create exceptional customer experiences.

New to EdgeTier? Request a demo to see confusion detection in action. 

Already a customer? Click here to see the updates in action.