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Benchmarking sampling techniques for imbalance learning in churn prediction

Benchmarking sampling techniques for imbalance learning in churn prediction
Benchmarking sampling techniques for imbalance learning in churn prediction

Class imbalance presents significant challenges to customer churn prediction. Many data-level sampling solutions have been developed to deal with this issue. In this paper, we comprehensively compare the performance of several state-of-the-art sampling techniques in the context of churn prediction. A recently developed maximum profit criterion is used as one of the main performance measures to offer more insights from the perspective of cost-benefit. The experimental results show that the impact of sampling methods depends on the used evaluation metric and that the impact pattern is interrelated with the classifiers. An in-depth exploration of the reaction patterns is conducted, and suitable sampling strategies are recommended for each situation. Furthermore, we also discuss the setting of the sampling rate in the empirical comparison. Our findings will offer a useful guideline for the use of sampling methods in the context of churn prediction.

Churn prediction, class imbalance, maximum profit measure, sampling technique
0160-5682
49-65
Zhu, Bing
208ad68b-d16c-48ac-84b0-faefc7dca958
Baesens, Bart
f7c6496b-aa7f-4026-8616-ca61d9e216f0
Backiel, Aimée
c5eae1ee-5a39-4d4b-b5f7-45dd03d61d69
Vanden Broucke, Seppe K.L.M.
89c69367-232e-4c1e-9e57-531bf474e12d
Zhu, Bing
208ad68b-d16c-48ac-84b0-faefc7dca958
Baesens, Bart
f7c6496b-aa7f-4026-8616-ca61d9e216f0
Backiel, Aimée
c5eae1ee-5a39-4d4b-b5f7-45dd03d61d69
Vanden Broucke, Seppe K.L.M.
89c69367-232e-4c1e-9e57-531bf474e12d

Zhu, Bing, Baesens, Bart, Backiel, Aimée and Vanden Broucke, Seppe K.L.M. (2018) Benchmarking sampling techniques for imbalance learning in churn prediction. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 69 (1), 49-65. (doi:10.1057/s41274-016-0176-1).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Class imbalance presents significant challenges to customer churn prediction. Many data-level sampling solutions have been developed to deal with this issue. In this paper, we comprehensively compare the performance of several state-of-the-art sampling techniques in the context of churn prediction. A recently developed maximum profit criterion is used as one of the main performance measures to offer more insights from the perspective of cost-benefit. The experimental results show that the impact of sampling methods depends on the used evaluation metric and that the impact pattern is interrelated with the classifiers. An in-depth exploration of the reaction patterns is conducted, and suitable sampling strategies are recommended for each situation. Furthermore, we also discuss the setting of the sampling rate in the empirical comparison. Our findings will offer a useful guideline for the use of sampling methods in the context of churn prediction.

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Benchmarking sampling techniques for imbalance learning in churn prediction - Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 19 December 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 6 December 2017
Published date: 2 January 2018
Keywords: Churn prediction, class imbalance, maximum profit measure, sampling technique

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 421167
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/421167
ISSN: 0160-5682
PURE UUID: cd47bbd9-2d87-46c1-b38e-8755341cc2dd
ORCID for Bart Baesens: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5831-5668

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Date deposited: 24 May 2018 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 06:40

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Contributors

Author: Bing Zhu
Author: Bart Baesens ORCID iD
Author: Aimée Backiel
Author: Seppe K.L.M. Vanden Broucke

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