Classifying the Customers of Telecommunication Company in order to Identify Profitable Customers Based on Their First Transaction, Using Decision Tree: A Case Study of System 780

Abstract

Effective knowledge and awareness of customers require the market segmentation, through which the customers who have the same needs and purchasing patterns as well as the same response to marketing plans are identified. The selection of a proper variable is a requirement, among other, for a successful market segmentation. In today' world, on one hand, the consumers are bombarded with new goods and new services, and on the other hand, they face the varying qualities of the goods and services. Consequently, such uncertainties will lead to more vague decisions and cumulative data. The timely and accurate analysis of these cumulative data can bring about competitive advantages to the enterprises. Furthermore, thanks to new technology and global competition, the majority of organizations have focused on Customer Relationship Management (CRM), with the goal of better serving the customers. The customer relationship planning entails the facilitation and creation of interfaces related to market segmentation, which is considered as a requirement for predicting behavior of the prospective customers in the future. Market segmentation refers to the process of dividing the customers into some segments based on their common characteristics while different groups have the least similarity to each other. This is followed by the formulation of plans for new product production, advertisement and marketing in accordance with the characteristics of each group of customers. Current study aims at identifying the profitable customers of a telecom System, based on their first transaction, using binary tree. The customers of System 780 participated in this case study.  The dependent variable and independent variable of the study were identified through mining the data of customers, registered in the databases of System 780. The results showed the acceptable calculation error in distinguishing the profitable customers from other customers.