Using Copilot in Excel to analyze text insights

I was talking to a small business owner who said he wanted to focus on improving customer service and ratings. However, the process of reading feedback and survey responses was taking a lot of time. I often spend time analyzing customer questions and comments. Literally analyzing and identifying themes and insights, let alone developing an action plan to solve the problem, is always a daunting task. with Recently Announced ImprovementsI thought it would be appropriate to explore some of the ways in which Copilot can help make this task much simpler, including the commonly available Copilot in Excel.

Tip 1: Use Copilot in Excel to summarize unstructured text in a table.

One of the best time-saving tips when trying to analyze raw feedback and gain insights is to ask Copilot for you! Just ask Copilot to summarize your text data, including customer feedback, survey results, and focus group studies.

In this example, we open a spreadsheet containing customer ratings and feedback. Then open Copilot in Excel in the top right corner and ask, “Please summarize the feedback on this sheet.”

Copilot screenshot in Excel summarizing feedback rows verbatim

Copilot provides high-level summaries. Group your feedback into different themes. With just a little effort, you’ll already have some insights you can start working on very quickly!

Tip 2: For more precise insights, add specific details to your prompt.

As covered in previous versions, how you write your prompt is important. Let’s say you want to take a closer look and get more insights focusing on the more negative reviews and areas for improvement.

Here, you can use the same example data to write a prompt like, “Can you learn more about the feedback that received a rating of less than 3, summarize this feedback, and provide key themes and areas for improvement?”

Copilot first explains what it does.

Screenshot from Copilot explaining how to summarize feedback for responses with a rating of less than 3.

I then provide more detailed and specific information to help me focus on the specific aspect of customer service I want to address, including tips on how to take action based on that focused information.

Screenshot of more detailed insights focusing on analyzed neutral to negative feedback.
Screenshot of Copilot’s recommendations on how to improve customer service based on feedback analysis

That way, we were able to find insights from the raw feedback. It would have been Otherwise, manual analysis would take time and you could instead focus on developing an action plan to help solve the problem. my problem!

If you have any other ways to use Microsoft 365 Copilot or any tips you’d like to see, please let us know in the comments below!