Peter Fader and the Walking Dead
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So what do you think of our interview with Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader on "What Data Mining Can and Cannot Do"? I've been talking with this Wharton B-school professor for years about the use and misuse of customer data -- an incredibly important topic for CIOs. I've seen his earlier papers on probability models, and frankly they were pretty tough to understand. It's interesting to see that he now believes these models can be simple and straightforward to be useful. Let us know what you make of his criticisms of data mining, and his views on modeling. |
If you liked our interview with Peter S Fader, you'll want to check out his Web site, where you can find a list of his articles. And be sure to read a just-posted article at the Knowledge@Wharton site: "Beware the 'Walking Dead': Analyzing Customer Data from a Multi-Service Firm."
These zombies are "customers who currently maintain service but whose next action will be to discontinue all services." According to the Knowledge@Wharton article,
"Companies would be wise to identify their walking dead and not market additional services to them because there may be an unintended effect.... `Not only are you going to waste marketing and advertising dollars, you're going to remind these customers they're dead,' perhaps prompting them to cancel their service altogether, said Wharton marketing professor Fader. `It's better to leave the walking dead alone.'"
