Ranking review themes without burying the conversion question

Trading meetings rarely have time for forty themes. When we score review sentiment for conversion impact, we start with the events the client already watches — add-to-bag, shipping reveal, payment — and ask which themes appear in the same window as softness at those steps.

A workable ceiling

Twelve themes is usually the upper bound for a first dictionary. Beyond that, teams stop arguing about tone and start arguing about labels. Merge rare themes into a neighbour only when the verbatim language overlaps; keep a distinct bucket when care and merchandising treat the complaint differently.

Polarity is not a star rating

A three-star review can carry warm tone about fit and cold tone about delivery. We score polarity per theme inside the review, then roll volume by theme. That keeps conversion discussions attached to specific language instead of a single average.

What to bring to the next huddle

Carry the top three themes by negative polarity near the weakest funnel step, each with two verbatim lines. Leave the full table in the appendix. The room remembers pictures and quotes; it forgets dense matrices.