Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/6344
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dc.contributor.advisorLycett, M-
dc.contributor.advisorBell, D-
dc.contributor.authorHassouna, Mohammed Bassam-
dc.date.accessioned2012-04-02T13:52:08Z-
dc.date.available2012-04-02T13:52:08Z-
dc.date.issued2012-
dc.identifier.urihttp://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/6344-
dc.descriptionThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.en_US
dc.description.abstractCustomer retention is an important issue for any business, especially in mature markets such as the UK mobile market where new customers can only be acquired from competitors. Different methods and techniques have been used to investigate customer retention including statistical methods and data mining. However, due to the increasing complexity of the mobile market, the effectiveness of these techniques is questionable. This study proposes Agent-Based Modelling and Simulation (ABMS) as a novel approach to investigate customer retention. ABMS is an emerging means of simulating behaviour and examining behavioural consequences. In outline, agents represent customers and agent relationships represent processes of agent interaction. This study follows the design science paradigm to build and evaluate a generic, reusable, agent-based (CubSim) model to examine the factors affecting customer retention based on data extracted from a UK mobile operator. Based on these data, two data mining models are built to gain a better understanding of the problem domain and to identify the main limitations of data mining. This is followed by two interrelated development cycles: (1) Build the CubSim model, starting with modelling customer interaction with the market, including interaction with the service provider and other competing operators in the market; and (2) Extend the CubSim model by incorporating interaction among customers. The key contribution of this study lies in using ABMS to identify and model the key factors that affect customer retention simultaneously and jointly. In this manner, the CubSim model is better suited to account for the dynamics of customer churn behaviour in the UK mobile market than all other existing models. Another important contribution of this study is that it provides an empirical, actionable insight on customer retention. In particular, and most interestingly, the experimental results show that applying a mixed customer retention strategy targeting both high value customers and customers with a large personal network outperforms the traditional customer retention strategies, which focuses only on the customer‘s value.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis work is funded by the Brunel Department of Information Systems and Computing (DISC)en_US
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherBrunel University, School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics-
dc.relation.ispartofSchool of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics-
dc.relation.urihttp://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/6344/1/FulltextThesis.pdf-
dc.subjectCustomer relationship managementen_US
dc.subjectCustomer churnen_US
dc.subjectMobile marketen_US
dc.subjectData miningen_US
dc.subjectAgent based modelling simulationen_US
dc.titleAgent based modelling and simulation: An examination of customer retention in the UK mobile marketen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
Appears in Collections:Computer Science
Dept of Computer Science Theses

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