“This woman says Equifax mixed up her father’s credit report and ‘destroyed’ his life — and now she hopes to convince a jury,” begins a recent article in MarketWatch. The article details the tragic story of James Rennick, a man who requested a home-equity loan for renovations that would help his dying wife breathe more easily – but was denied the loan because his credit history information was mixed up with someone else’s. Rennick filed a lawsuit, but both his wife and he died before the problem was solved.

Unfortunately, this issue is not a one-time occurrence. In fact, in 2013, Equifax’s expert witness at another trial stated that credit mix-ups may occur in 1% to 2% of all files. In addition to putting Equifax’s problems in the public eye once again, this article highlights the issues that are intrinsic to credit scores, which we covered in the past.

The story was especially compelling to us because it featured a powerful word in a customer’s complaint: “destroy.” Do customer complaints to financial institutions commonly feature the word “destroy”? If customers use the word “destroy” in their complaints, what might we be able to predict about their future actions?

Uncovering the hidden value of the word, “destroy”

To gain deeper insights into this word usage, we explored the word “destroy” in over a million complaints in the PositivityTechⓇ intelligent platform. We discovered the following:

  • Proprietary Severity Score: 44% worse than the average complaint

Our proprietary severity score is built on financial language and captures both the customer’s emotion and the seriousness of their standpoint. Customer complaints featuring the word “destroy” reveal that they have a severity score that is 44% worse than that of the average complaint, indicating the customers’ high level of frustration.

  • Proprietary Lawsuit Score: 18% higher than the average complaint

Our proprietary lawsuit score shares the likelihood that a customer will file a lawsuit, based on their complaint. Customer complaints featuring the word “destroy” reveal that the complaining customers are 18% more likely to file a lawsuit.

  • Proprietary Account Closure Score: 13% higher than the average complaint

Our proprietary account closure score shares the likelihood that a customer will close their account, based on their complaint. Customer complaints featuring the word “destroy” reveal that the complaining customers are 13% more likely to close their accounts.

Transforming negatives to positives

While in the past, we may have regarded emotional complaints as just that, we now see that they can hold deep business implications. Through the PositivityTech platform, we can see the significance of a single word and predict its business impacts.

If you’d like to learn more about the hidden value of your customers’ words, please email me at marcia.tal@positivitytech.com. I look forward to speaking with you.