Avanti West Coast: Tens of Thousands of Comments, Zero Manual Tagging

The Challenge

Helen Dunnington, Voice of Customer Manager at Avanti West Coast, faced a familiar problem: drowning in verbatim feedback. The company received a mix of survey responses and social media comments—tens of thousands of data points each period. The sheer quantity made manual categorisation unfeasible.

"In the past we've manually categorised hundreds of comments per period. It's very, very laborious and it's not as accurate as having a tool that does that for you," Helen explained.

While existing social media platforms provided some categorisation, there was a need for deeper understanding of customer sentiment across all feedback channels. The team needed to get to the crux of what customers were thinking and feeling, not just surface-level themes.

Manual categorisation using Excel spreadsheets was time-consuming and frustrating for the team. "With thousands of surveys and tens of thousands of social media comments coming through, it's really key that we understand what the themes are, what is driving the negativity and the positivity," Helen noted. "There was a lot of Excel sheets and a lot of screaming."

The Solution

Wordnerds introduced a streamlined approach to managing and analysing customer feedback, transforming Avanti's process through automated categorisation and sentiment analysis.

Wordnerds automatically identified key themes and sentiment across all feedback, providing a holistic view of surveys, social media comments, and ad hoc feedback. This eliminated the need for manual reading and tagging of thousands of comments.

The platform enabled simplified feedback sharing across the organisation. Reports generated by Wordnerds were integrated into internal platforms like Yammer, highlighting both positive feedback and areas for improvement for the Avanti teams.

Positive mentions of staff—such as specific names or roles—were easily identified and shared with the team to highlight wins and recognise exceptional performance.

The Impact

Adopting Wordnerds enabled Avanti to extract meaningful insights from feedback so they know what's working, what isn't working, and exactly how to make improvements.

Automated analysis and categorisation eliminated the need for manual work tagging comments and working in Excel spreadsheets, saving countless hours and eliminating the frustration that came with repetitive manual processes.

Sharing positive feedback about staff performance fostered a sense of pride and motivation among employees. The ability to easily identify and celebrate individual contributions improved team morale across the organisation.

Most importantly, actionable insights helped Avanti focus on areas and make decisions that directly impact customer satisfaction. The team moved from being overwhelmed by volume to being empowered by insights.

"There was a lot of Excel sheets and a lot of screaming," Helen reflected on the old process. Now, those hours are spent on strategic improvements that actually make a difference to customers.

From manual Excel hell to automated insights and zero screaming.