Leveraging sentiment analysis via text mining to improve customer satisfaction in UK banks

Purpose This study examines the role of online customer reviews through text mining and sentiment analysis to improve customer satisfaction across various services within the UK banking sector. Additionally, the study analyses sentiment trends over a five-year period. Design/methodology/approach Using DistilBERT and Support Vector Machine algorithms, customer sentiments were assessed through an analysis of 20,137 Trustpilot reviews of HSBC, Santander, and Tesco Bank from 2018 to 2023. Data pre-processing steps were implemented to ensure data integrity and minimize noise. Findings Both positive and negative sentiments provide valuable insights. The results indicate a high prevalence of negative sentiments related to customer service and communication, with HSBC and Santander receiving 90.8% and 89.7% negative feedback, respectively, compared to Tesco Bank’s 66.8%. Key areas for improvement include HSBC’s credit card services and call center efficiency, which experienced increased negative feedback during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings also demonstrate that DistilBERT excelled in categorizing reviews, while the SVM model, when combined with customer ratings, achieved 96% accuracy in sentiment analysis. Research limitations/implications This study focuses on UK bank consumers of HSBC, Santander, and Tesco Bank. A multi-country or cross-cultural study may further enhance our understanding of the approaches and findings. Practical implications Online customer reviews become more informative when categorised by service sector. To enhance customer satisfaction, bank managers should pay attention to both positive and negative reviews, and track trends over time. Originality/value The uniqueness of this study lies in its exploration of the importance of categorisation in text-mining-based sentiment analysis, its focus on the influence of both positive and negative sentiments, and its emphasis on tracking sentiment trends over time.