If you’re in B2B sales, you know the gold is in the calls. But figuring out what your customers really feel (not just what they say) is tough, especially if you’re juggling dozens of meetings a week. Enter Sembly—one of those AI tools promising to break down your sales calls and spit out “sentiment analysis” so you can supposedly read the customer’s mind. But does it actually work? And how do you get real value from it, not just another dashboard to ignore?
This guide is for sales managers, reps, and anyone drowning in sales call notes who wants to separate signal from noise using Sembly. We’ll go step-by-step, call out the hype, and focus on what’s genuinely useful.
Why Bother With Sentiment Analysis in B2B Sales?
Let’s be honest: B2B calls can be a minefield of politeness, vague objections, and half-commitments. Nobody’s going to say “I don’t trust your product” outright. Sentiment analysis tries to read between the lines—flagging when a buyer’s tone shifts, or when that “maybe” is really a “no.”
Done well, sentiment analysis can help you: - Spot churn risks before they blow up. - Identify blockers or hidden objections. - Coach your team based on real customer reactions, not gut feel.
But, and it’s a big but: automated sentiment analysis is far from perfect. AI is good at picking up tone and keywords, but it can miss sarcasm, context, and the subtleties of B2B politics. Use it as a starting point, not gospel.
What Sembly Actually Does (and What It Doesn’t)
Sembly records, transcribes, and analyzes meetings—Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, you name it. Its sentiment analysis claims to pick out positivity, negativity, and neutrality for each speaker, and sometimes even at the topic level. It’ll color-code your transcript, offer “insight” summaries, and let you filter by sentiment.
What you should know: - It’s fast: You’ll get a summary in minutes, not hours. - It’s not magic: Expect it to get the basics right, but don’t trust it to spot a passive-aggressive “sure” from your most important prospect. - It’s best for trends, not one-off judgments: Over dozens of calls, patterns matter more than any single line.
What it doesn’t do: - It won’t replace human review for big deals. - It won’t pick up on in-jokes, sarcasm, or cultural nuance. - It can’t read facial expressions (yet).
Step-by-Step: Using Sembly to Analyze Sentiment in Your Sales Calls
1. Set Up Your Sembly Account and Integrations
Get the basics out of the way: - Sign up for Sembly and connect your preferred meeting platforms (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, etc.). - Check your privacy settings and make sure your customers are okay being recorded—don’t skip this, especially in regulated industries. - Set Sembly to auto-join or manually invite it to each call. (Pro tip: Start with manual invitations for key calls until you trust the process.)
What matters: - If you’re only analyzing some calls, be consistent about which ones. Mixing in internal team huddles will just muddy your data.
2. Record and Transcribe Your Calls
Sembly joins your calls, records audio, and spits out a transcript within a few minutes after each meeting.
Tips: - Make sure everyone’s mic is decent—AI hates bad audio, and it’ll mess up the transcript (and sentiment results). - If possible, try to get each speaker to use their own login. Sembly does speaker identification, but it’s not perfect, especially with overlaps.
3. Find and Interpret the Sentiment Analysis
Once the call’s done, Sembly’s dashboard will show you a transcript with color-coded sentiment. Usually: - Green = positive - Red = negative - Gray = neutral
You’ll see sentiment by speaker, by section, and sometimes by topic (like “Pricing” or “Timeline”).
What to actually look for: - Sudden shifts: Did the customer go from positive to negative when you mentioned a competitor? That’s worth digging into. - Consistent negativity: If every time “implementation” comes up, the tone sours, you’ve got a problem. - Mismatch: If the rep sounds upbeat but the customer’s neutral or negative, that’s a coaching moment.
What to ignore: - Overanalyzing minor swings. A single negative line isn’t the end of the world. - Sentiment “scores” without context. A call that’s 70% “positive” might still be a lost deal if the key moment was negative.
4. Tag and Organize Calls for Better Insights
The real value comes when you stop looking at calls one by one and start spotting patterns across your team or pipeline.
- Use Sembly’s tagging features to mark calls by deal stage, product line, or rep.
- Filter transcripts to find recurring negative sentiment around specific topics (e.g. “integration,” “pricing”).
- Export summaries if you need to share them in your CRM or with leadership—just don’t turn it into another reporting chore.
Pro tip: Don’t rely on Sembly’s meeting “insights” alone. Pair the AI’s findings with your own notes. The AI might flag “budget” as a tense moment, but why was it tense? Only a human can answer that.
5. Coach Your Team (or Yourself) Using Real Sentiment Data
Here’s where sentiment analysis moves from “neat” to actually useful.
- Use flagged moments as coaching prompts. (“Hey, looks like the prospect pushed back hard at the 18-minute mark—let’s listen together.”)
- Celebrate calls where sentiment shifted from negative to positive—what did the rep do right?
- Watch for patterns: Does one rep always get neutral responses on pricing? Time for a role-play.
Don’t: Use sentiment analysis as a stick to beat your team. It’s a tool for improvement, not surveillance.
6. Track Patterns Over Time, Not Just Per Call
Single-call sentiment is noisy. Trends over weeks or months are much more useful.
- Are your later-stage deals getting more negative over time? That’s a red flag.
- Did negativity around “implementation” drop after you updated your onboarding process? Good sign.
- Use Sembly’s reporting to spot these patterns, but always sanity-check against reality.
Pro tip: Sometimes negative sentiment is a good thing—it means the customer’s being honest, not just polite. Don’t chase positivity for its own sake.
What Works, What Doesn’t, and What to Skip
What Works
- Catching trends: Sembly is great for surfacing repeated issues, like a new objection popping up across several calls.
- Coaching prompts: The timestamped sentiment makes it easy to find the moments that matter.
- Saving time: Automates the drudge work of reviewing call notes.
What Doesn’t
- Perfect accuracy: Expect false positives/negatives, especially with nuanced or technical conversations.
- Deep context: Sembly can’t tell you why someone’s negative—just that they are.
- Replacing human review: For big, complex deals, nothing beats listening to the actual call.
What to Ignore
- High-level “positivity scores” with no breakdown.
- Any single sentiment flag without listening to the snippet yourself.
- The temptation to automate all your call reviews—AI is a tool, not a replacement for judgment.
Quick FAQ
Is Sembly compliant with privacy laws?
Double-check your region’s requirements. Sembly offers compliance features, but you’re on the hook to inform participants and get consent.
Can it analyze video or body language?
Nope. Purely voice and transcript-based for now.
How does it compare to Gong or Chorus?
Sembly is usually cheaper and a bit lighter on features. If you need deep CRM integrations and coaching tools, the bigger platforms might be better. For transcript and sentiment basics, Sembly’s plenty.
The Bottom Line: Don’t Overthink It
Automated sentiment analysis is a helpful add-on, not a crystal ball. Use Sembly to spot patterns, flag moments for review, and save yourself some time—but don’t let it replace your own ears or common sense. Start small, see what pops up, and tweak your process as you go. The simplest workflow is usually the one you’ll actually stick with.