IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v218y2012i1p211-229.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

New insights into churn prediction in the telecommunication sector: A profit driven data mining approach

Author

Listed:
  • Verbeke, Wouter
  • Dejaeger, Karel
  • Martens, David
  • Hur, Joon
  • Baesens, Bart

Abstract

Customer churn prediction models aim to indicate the customers with the highest propensity to attrite, allowing to improve the efficiency of customer retention campaigns and to reduce the costs associated with churn. Although cost reduction is their prime objective, churn prediction models are typically evaluated using statistically based performance measures, resulting in suboptimal model selection. Therefore, in the first part of this paper, a novel, profit centric performance measure is developed, by calculating the maximum profit that can be generated by including the optimal fraction of customers with the highest predicted probabilities to attrite in a retention campaign. The novel measure selects the optimal model and fraction of customers to include, yielding a significant increase in profits compared to statistical measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Verbeke, Wouter & Dejaeger, Karel & Martens, David & Hur, Joon & Baesens, Bart, 2012. "New insights into churn prediction in the telecommunication sector: A profit driven data mining approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 218(1), pages 211-229.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:218:y:2012:i:1:p:211-229
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2011.09.031
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221711008599
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2011.09.031?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Buckinx, Wouter & Van den Poel, Dirk, 2005. "Customer base analysis: partial defection of behaviourally loyal clients in a non-contractual FMCG retail setting," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 164(1), pages 252-268, July.
    2. Ruth N. Bolton & Katherine N. Lemon & Matthew D. Bramlett, 2006. "The Effect of Service Experiences over Time on a Supplier's Retention of Business Customers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(12), pages 1811-1823, December.
    3. B Baesens & T Van Gestel & S Viaene & M Stepanova & J Suykens & J Vanthienen, 2003. "Benchmarking state-of-the-art classification algorithms for credit scoring," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 54(6), pages 627-635, June.
    4. Van den Poel, Dirk & Lariviere, Bart, 2004. "Customer attrition analysis for financial services using proportional hazard models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(1), pages 196-217, August.
    5. Piramuthu, Selwyn, 2004. "Evaluating feature selection methods for learning in data mining applications," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(2), pages 483-494, July.
    6. K. Coussement & D. Van Den Poel, 2006. "Churn Prediction in Subscription Services: an Application of Support Vector Machines While Comparing Two Parameter-Selection Techniques," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 06/412, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    7. E Lima & C Mues & B Baesens, 2009. "Domain knowledge integration in data mining using decision tables: case studies in churn prediction," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(8), pages 1096-1106, August.
    8. Bart Baesens & Rudy Setiono & Christophe Mues & Jan Vanthienen, 2003. "Using Neural Network Rule Extraction and Decision Tables for Credit-Risk Evaluation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(3), pages 312-329, March.
    9. Lemmens, A. & Croux, C., 2006. "Bagging and boosting classification trees to predict churn," Other publications TiSEM d5cb664d-5859-44db-a621-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. Athanassopoulos, Antreas D., 2000. "Customer Satisfaction Cues To Support Market Segmentation and Explain Switching Behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 191-207, March.
    11. Dudyala Anil Kumar & V. Ravi, 2008. "Predicting credit card customer churn in banks using data mining," International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(1), pages 4-28.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ballings, Michel & Van den Poel, Dirk, 2015. "CRM in social media: Predicting increases in Facebook usage frequency," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 244(1), pages 248-260.
    2. Lessmann, Stefan & Voß, Stefan, 2009. "A reference model for customer-centric data mining with support vector machines," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 199(2), pages 520-530, December.
    3. Coussement, Kristof & De Bock, Koen W., 2013. "Customer churn prediction in the online gambling industry: The beneficial effect of ensemble learning," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(9), pages 1629-1636.
    4. De Caigny, Arno & Coussement, Kristof & De Bock, Koen W., 2018. "A new hybrid classification algorithm for customer churn prediction based on logistic regression and decision trees," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 269(2), pages 760-772.
    5. M. Ballings & D. Van Den Poel & E. Verhagen, 2013. "Evaluating the Added Value of Pictorial Data for Customer Churn Prediction," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 13/869, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    6. Risselada, Hans & Verhoef, Peter C. & Bijmolt, Tammo H.A., 2010. "Staying Power of Churn Prediction Models," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 198-208.
    7. Matthias Bogaert & Lex Delaere, 2023. "Ensemble Methods in Customer Churn Prediction: A Comparative Analysis of the State-of-the-Art," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-28, February.
    8. De Caigny, Arno & Coussement, Kristof & De Bock, Koen W. & Lessmann, Stefan, 2020. "Incorporating textual information in customer churn prediction models based on a convolutional neural network," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1563-1578.
    9. K. W. De Bock & D. Van Den Poel, 2012. "Reconciling Performance and Interpretability in Customer Churn Prediction using Ensemble Learning based on Generalized Additive Models," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 12/805, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    10. Coussement, Kristof & Benoit, Dries Frederik & Van den Poel, Dirk, 2009. "Improved Marketing Decision Making in a Customer Churn Prediction Context Using Generalized Additive Models," Working Papers 2009/18, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
    11. Arno de Caigny & Kristof Coussement & Koen W. de Bock & Stefan Lessmann, 2019. "Incorporating textual information in customer churn prediction models based on a convolutional neural network," Post-Print hal-02275958, HAL.
    12. E Lima & C Mues & B Baesens, 2009. "Domain knowledge integration in data mining using decision tables: case studies in churn prediction," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(8), pages 1096-1106, August.
    13. Johannes Habel & Sascha Alavi & Nicolas Heinitz, 2023. "A theory of predictive sales analytics adoption," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 13(1), pages 34-54, June.
    14. Arno de Caigny & Kristof Coussement & Koen de Bock, 2020. "Leveraging fine-grained transaction data for customer life event predictions," Post-Print hal-02507998, HAL.
    15. K. Coussement & D. Van Den Poel, 2008. "Improving Customer Attrition Prediction by Integrating Emotions from Client/Company Interaction Emails and Evaluating Multiple Classifiers," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 08/527, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    16. K. W. De Bock & D. Van Den Poel, 2011. "An empirical evaluation of rotation-based ensemble classifiers for customer churn prediction," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 11/717, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    17. Stefan Lessmann & Stefan Voß, 2010. "Customer-Centric Decision Support," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 2(2), pages 79-93, April.
    18. B. Larivière & D. Van Den Poel, 2004. "Predicting Customer Retention and Profitability by Using Random Forests and Regression Forests Techniques," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 04/282, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    19. Vera Miguéis & Dirk Poel & Ana Camanho & João Falcão e Cunha, 2012. "Predicting partial customer churn using Markov for discrimination for modeling first purchase sequences," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 6(4), pages 337-353, December.
    20. R Fildes & K Nikolopoulos & S F Crone & A A Syntetos, 2008. "Forecasting and operational research: a review," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(9), pages 1150-1172, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:218:y:2012:i:1:p:211-229. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.