The Role of Peer Influence in Churn in Wireless Networks

Subscriber churn remains a top challenge for wireless carriers. These carriers need to understand the determinants of churn to confidently apply effective retention strategies to ensure their profitability and growth. In this paper, we look at the effect of peer influence on churn and we try to disentangle it from other effects that drive simultaneous churn across friends but that do not relate to peer influence. We analyze a random sample of roughly 10 thousand subscribers from large dataset from a major wireless carrier over a period of 10 months. We apply survival models and generalized propensity score to identify the role of peer influence. We show that the propensity to churn increases when friends do and that it increases more when many strong friends churn. Therefore, our results suggest that churn managers should consider strategies aimed at preventing group churn. We also show that survival models fail to disentangle homophily from peer influence over-estimating the effect of peer influence.Comment: Accepted in Seventh ASE International Conference on Social Computing (Socialcom 2014), Best Paper Award Winne

OTT SUBSCRIBER CHURN PREDICTION USING MACHINE LEARNING

Subscriber churn is a critical issue for companies that rely on recurring revenue from subscription-based services like the OTT platform. Machine Learning algorithms can be used to predict churn and develop targeted retention strategies to address the specific needs and concerns of at-risk subscribers. The research questions are 1) What Machine Learning algorithms are used to overcome subscriber churn? 2) How to predict subscribers’ churn in the OTT platform using Machine Learning? 3) How to retain subscribers and improve customer targeting? The dataset was collected from the Kaggle repository and implemented it into the various prediction algorithms used in previous research. Then, evaluate the performance of each algorithm to find out the highest accuracy model. The findings and conclusion for each question are 1) Logistic regression, multi-layer perceptron, random forest, decision trees, and gradient boosting machines were identified as effective algorithms for churn prediction analysis. 2) By sending the test data to a trained model by their historical dataset, customers are likely to leave a company (i.e., churn) based on their characteristics can be predicted. 3) Personalized offers and promotions, improving customer service, developing loyalty programs, and optimizing pricing strategies were suggested strategies for retaining subscribers. The gradient boosting machine model was found to have the highest accuracy and maximum AUROC, making it a powerful tool in the fight against customer churn. Areas for further study include incorporating unstructured data sources, deep learning techniques, and integrating real-time data sources to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of churn prediction models

Measuring churner influence on pre-paid subscribers using fuzzy logic

In the last decades, mobile phones have become the major medium for communication between humans. The site effect is the loss of subscribers. Consequently, Telecoms operators invest in developing algorithms for quantifying the risk to churn and to influence other subscribers to churn. The objective is to prioritize the retention of subscribers in their network due to the cost of obtaining a new subscriber is four times more expensive than retaining subscribers. Hence, we use Extremely Random Forest to classify churners and non-churners obtaining a Lift value at 10% of 5.5. Then, we rely on graph-based measures such as Degree of Centrality and Page rank to measure emitted and received influence in the social network of the carrier. Our methodology allows summarising churn risk score, relying on a Fuzzy Logic system, combining the churn probability and the risk of the churner to leave the network with other subscriber

Predviđanje odljeva utjecajnih mobilnih pretplatnika korištenjem značajki niske razine

In the last years, customer churn prediction has been very high on the agenda of telecommunications service providers. Among customers predicted as churners, highly influential customers deserve special attention, since their churns can also trigger churns of their peers. The aim of this study is to find good predictors of churn influence in a mobile service network. To this end, a procedure for determining the weak ground truth on churn influence is presented and used to determine the churn influence of prepaid customers. The determined scores are used to identify good churn-influence predictors among 74 candidate features. The identified predictors are finally used to build a churn-influence-prediction model. The results show that considerably better churn prediction results can be achieved using the proposed model together with the classical churn-prediction-model than by using the classical churn-prediction model alone. Moreover, the successfully predicted churners by the combined approach also have a greater number of churn followers. A successful retention of the predicted churners could greatly affect churn reduction since it could also prevent the churns of these followers.Posljednjih godina, predviđanje odljeva korisnika jedna je on važnijih tema među pružateljima telekomunikacijskih usluga. Među odlazećim korisnicima, oni najutjecajniji zaslužuju posebnu pažnju, jer njihov odljev može okinuti i odljev sljedbenika. Cilj ovog članka je pronalazak dobrih prediktora utjecaja odljeva na mobilne uslužne mreže. U tu svrhu, razvijena je metoda za njihovu identifikaciju među 74 potencijalna kandidata. Identificirani prediktori su potom korišteni za konačnu izgradnju modela predviđanja odljeva korisnika. Znatno bolji rezultati ostvaruju se kada se koristi predloženi model u kombinaciji s klasičnim modelom, nego kada se klasični model koristi zasebno. štoviše, kombiniranim predviđanjem izdvojeni utjecajni korisnici imaju veći broj sljedbenika. Uspješno zadržavanje predviđenog odljeva moglo bi uvelike utjecati na njegovo smanjenje, pošto bi samim time spriječilo i odljev sljedbenika

Review of Data Mining Techniques for Churn Prediction in Telecom

Telecommunication sector generates a huge amount of data due to increasing number of subscribers, rapidly renewable technologies; data based applications and other value added service. This data can be usefully mined for churn analysis and prediction. Significant research had been undertaken by researchers worldwide to understand the data mining practices that can be used for predicting customer churn. This paper provides a review of around 100 recent journal articles starting from year 2000 to present the various data mining techniques used in multiple customer based churn models. It then summarizes the existing telecom literature by highlighting the sample size used, churn variables employed and the findings of different DM techniques. Finally, we list the most popular techniques for churn prediction in telecom as decision trees, regression analysis and clustering, thereby providing a roadmap to new researchers to build upon novel churn management models

Improved Customer Churn and Retention Decision Management Using Operations Research Approach

The relevance of operations research cannot be overemphasized, as it provides the best possible results in any given circumstance, through analysis of operations and the use of scientific method thus, this paper explore the combination of two operations research models (analytic hierarchy process and Markov chain) for solving subscribers’ churn and retention problem peculiar to most service firms. A conceptual model for unraveling the problem customer churn and retention decision management was proposed and tested with data on third level analysis of AHP for determining appropriate strategies for customer churn and retention in the Nigeria telecommunication industries. A survey was conducted with 408 subscribers; the sample for the study was selected through multi-stage sampling. Two analytical tools were proposed for the analysis of data. These include: Expert Choice/Excel Solver (using Microsoft Excel) and Windows based Quantitative System for Business (WinQSB). This paper plays important role in understanding various strategies for effective churn and retention management and the ranking of churn and retention drivers in order of importance to stakeholders` decision-making. The study provided a framework for understanding the application of AHP and Markov chain for modeling, analysing and proffering solution to problem of churn and retention. The study recommends organizational strategies (corporate, business and functional) that reverse the churn alternatives with high priority and equally strengthen service delivery on high priority retention alternatives in order to ensure firms sustainable competitive advantage. An erratum to this article has been published as https://doi.org/10.5195/emaj.2017.131