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Sentiment: what customers feel about your products
The Sentiment tab turns your customer reviews into a picture of how people feel. Open it at Insights > CX. It is the default tab.
Nexus uses AI to read each review. It records the emotional tone, the reasons behind it and the best quotes. The tab sums these up for the date range you pick at the top of the page. A separate AI step writes the Key Insight card from those totals.
Problem and intended user
The ecommerce manager (the person who runs the store) wants to know which products customers are unhappy with, and why. The creative strategist (the person who plans and makes ad creatives) wants the words customers use when they are happy. The media buyer (the person who runs your paid ads) wants to know whether a product that gets ad spend is losing the customers' goodwill.
The problem arises when reviews grow past what one person can read. A product with rising complaints stays hidden in the pile.
Current workflow
A merchant reads review text in the review app's own dashboard. To find the reasons behind a rating, the merchant tags each review with a theme in a spreadsheet and counts how often each theme appears. Some merchants hand this reading to an agency.
Prerequisites
- Connect a review platform, or import reviews from a CSV file. See Review apps and CSV import.
- Wait for the first sync to finish, and for the analysis to complete. The CX overview explains the review sync bar.
- Sentiment needs no minimum number of reviews. It needs synced reviews inside the date range you pick.
How Nexus works
Nexus pulls reviews from your connected platform or from your CSV file. AI reads each review and records its emotional tone, drivers and quotes. Nexus then sums the results for your date range.
Each review counts as Positive, Neutral or Negative by its sentiment score. Nexus takes the score from your review platform. With no platform score, it uses the AI reading once the review is analysed. Until then, it estimates from the star rating. The shares can move when analysis finishes. Fixed rules, not AI, set the Needs attention mark and the Trend word.
You do not approve anything on this tab. Each block depends on the first sync and on the analysis of each review. The CX overview explains how to start a sync.
Filter the reviews
Two checkboxes sit at the top of the tab. Both start cleared, so Nexus counts all reviews.
| Filter | What it removes |
|---|---|
| Exclude unpublished reviews | Reviews your platform has not published |
| Exclude negative reviews (1–2★) | Reviews with a rating of one or two stars |
The filters change the numbers in the blocks below. When a filter removes reviews, Overall Sentiment says how many.
Exact output
Read the top of the tab
Analysis line. A note above the blocks says how many reviews are analysed in your period and in total. If some reviews wait for analysis, the note says the rest process on the next sync. If the sync is failing, it says analysis is paused and shows the error.
Key Insight. A card with a short summary of what your reviews say. AI writes it from the totals on this tab, not from the review text. The wording can change each time the tab loads. A fixed template replaces it when AI is not available. Select See more> to open the Sentiment Key Insight window with the full text.
Overall Sentiment. The large figure is the share of positive reviews. Under it, a bar and three tiles show Positive, Neutral and Negative, each with a percentage and a review count. A line beside the figure reads like "N of M reviews in this period · T in total". When a filter removes reviews, the line adds "(K excluded by your filters)".
Sentiment Trend. A line chart of the three shares over your period. Each point is a running share: it covers all reviews from the start of your period up to that point. The last point matches Overall Sentiment. Nexus groups the points by day, week or month, and moves to a longer group as your date range grows. The D, W and M buttons at the top of the page do not change this chart.
To compare with the period before, turn on Compare in the date range menu. The trend chart adds dashed lines for the earlier period. Overall Sentiment adds a line starting "vs. prev:". If the earlier period has no reviews, the card says "No data for comparison period".
Understand why customers feel this way
| Block | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Emotional Tone in Reviews | The emotions reviewers express, each with a share and a count. |
| Top Positive Quotes | Review quotes, each with a label, the product name and the star rating. |
| Positive Sentiment Drivers | The reasons customers give for positive reviews, with a share for each. |
| Negative Sentiment Drivers | The reasons customers give for negative reviews, with a share for each. |
| Word Cloud | The most frequent terms in your reviews. A larger word appears more often. |
Find products that need attention
Sentiment by Product lists the products with the most reviews, with these columns:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Product | The product name. |
| Positive, Neutral, Negative | The share of its reviews in each group. |
| Trend | An arrow and a word: Improving, Stable or Declining. It compares the share of positive reviews in the most recent weeks, counted back from today, with the weeks before. A clear change moves it off Stable. |
The Positive, Neutral and Negative shares use the reviews in your date range. Trend counts only reviews inside your date range, and it needs reviews in both periods. A short date range, or one that ends before today, can leave it on Stable. Pick a longer range to see a change.
A product gets a warning mark, labelled Needs attention, when a high share of its reviews are negative or its trend is Declining. Hover over the mark to see which reason applies.
Product-Specific Warnings repeats each flagged product as a card with a short explanation. When no product is flagged, it says "No product warnings — all products are within healthy sentiment ranges."
What to do with it
| What you see | Decision or action | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| A product with the Needs attention mark, or a card in Product-Specific Warnings | Read the product's reviews in your review app's own dashboard. Fix the product, the page or the delivery in your store, outside Nexus. | ecommerce manager |
| A product with a Declining Trend that you still advertise | Check its ads in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads, outside Nexus. Decide whether to keep promoting it. | media buyer |
| Negative Sentiment Drivers | Rank the reasons by share. Decide which reason to fix first, starting with the largest. | ecommerce manager |
| Top Positive Quotes and Positive Sentiment Drivers | Reuse the customers' own words in ad copy and creatives. This work happens in your design tool, outside Nexus. | creative strategist |
| The analysis line says analysis is paused | Check the review sync bar. Reconnect the platform in Settings > Integrations if needed. | ecommerce manager |
Expected value and measurement
This tab can help you notice a product whose reviews turn negative, and see which reasons customers give.
To check the effect of a fix, open Insights > CX > Sentiment. Read the Trend word for the product in Sentiment by Product. For whole periods, turn on Compare in the date range menu and read Overall Sentiment. Keep the two filters in the same state for both periods.
You cannot isolate the effect of one change. A promotion or a season can move the shares too.
Limitations and exceptions
- Reviews only. The tab does not read survey answers. They are on the NPS tab.
- AI can be wrong. AI reads each review. A separate AI step writes the Key Insight from your totals. Either can misjudge. Read the quotes before you act on a driver. Without AI, Nexus builds the Key Insight from your numbers with a fixed template.
- Unknown Product. A review that carries no product name, and that Nexus cannot match to one of your products, appears under the name Unknown Product in Sentiment by Product.
- Not analysed yet. Until a review is analysed, its label can rest on the star rating. The label can change after analysis. Exclude negative reviews (1–2★) works on star ratings only.
When a block is empty
If analysis has not finished, a block says it appears once review analysis completes. If analysis seems stuck, it points you to Re-analyze in Settings > Integrations. A block that has no data for your period says "No ... data for the selected period".
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| No reviews in this period | Widen the date range. The message tells you how many reviews you have in total. |
| No reviews synced yet | Wait for the first sync to finish. Select Check review sync to see its state. |
| Failed to load sentiment data | Select Try again. |
Demo Mode
In Demo Mode the tab shows sample reviews for the Demo Mode store. Sync and re-analysis do not change them.