Sentiment Monitoring

How to track the tone of your client communications over time and catch early signs of disengagement before they become churn.

What It Does

Armbrain analyzes the emails and communications you ingest for each client and tracks sentiment over a rolling window. It compares the current period to the previous period and tells you whether the relationship tone is improving, stable, or declining.

This is not a replacement for your gut instinct - it is a signal that confirms or challenges what you are sensing. When a client's emails get shorter, less frequent, and more formal, something is shifting. Sentiment monitoring surfaces that pattern before it becomes a crisis.

Checking Sentiment

Switch to the client, then ask:

"How's the sentiment trending for Acme?"

Or:

"Show me sentiment trend for Acme over the last 30 days"

Example output:

Sentiment: Declining
Current average:  0.42
Previous average: 0.68
Change:          -0.26
Emails analyzed:  12
Window:           30 days

Understanding the Results

The sentiment score is a number between 0 and 1, where higher is more positive. The score comes from analyzing positive and negative markers, word count, and engagement indicators in email communications.

When to Check

• Before a quarterly conversation - Know the tone trend before you sit down with the stakeholder
• When something feels off - Validate your instinct with data
• During your Monday planning - Flag clients who might need extra attention this week
• After a difficult meeting - See if the tone shift predates the meeting or started with it

What Drives Sentiment

The analysis looks at several signals from ingested emails:

• Positive markers - Enthusiasm, appreciation, detailed responses, questions, meeting requests
• Negative markers - Short replies, delayed responses, formal language where it was previously casual
• Engagement indicators - Message length, frequency, action items proposed

It compares the current window (default 30 days) against the previous window of the same size.

Adjusting the Window

The default window is 30 days. You can change it:

"Show sentiment trend for Acme over the last 14 days"

A shorter window (7-14 days) catches rapid shifts but can be noisy. A longer window (60-90 days) shows broader trends but misses recent changes. 30 days is a good default for most client relationships.

What to Do When Sentiment Declines

A declining sentiment score is a prompt, not a diagnosis. Common next steps:

1. Check recent interactions - Search for recent memories to understand what happened
2. Review open commitments - Are there overdue action items creating frustration?
3. Schedule a touchpoint - Sometimes a quick phone call or email check-in is all it takes
4. Prep for the next meeting - Run meeting prep to surface any context you might be missing
5. Look at client health - The health scorecard gives broader context beyond just sentiment

Limitations

• Sentiment is based on ingested email communications. If you primarily communicate via Slack, phone, or in-person, the email signal may not reflect the full picture.
• The tool needs at least 5 emails per window to compute a trend. New clients or clients with low email volume will show "insufficient data."
• Seasonal patterns (holidays, budget season) can create temporary shifts that are not relationship-related.