Fashion preference is a fuzzy concept that depends on customer taste, prevailing norms in fashion product/style, henceforth used interchangeably, and a customer's perception of utility or fashionability, yet fashion e-retail relies on algorithmically generated search and recommendation systems that process structured d…
We consider the problem of learning the preferences of a heterogeneous population by observing choices from an assortment of products, ads, or other offerings. Our observation model takes a form common in assortment planning applications: each arriving customer is offered an assortment consisting of a subset of all pos…
A model for learning customer preferences in a dynamic product launch setting.
problem Learning customer preferences in a setting with new product launches.
method Proposes a sequential multinomial logit (SMNL) model and a learning algorithm with a regret bound.
result Demonstrates the tier structure can mitigate risks associated with learning new products.
Paper tackles regret bounds and exploration complexity for multi-objective reinforcement learning with picky preferences.
problem Formalizing multi-objective reinforcement learning with adversarial preferences.
method Model-based algorithm with nearly optimal regret bound and preference-free exploration.
result Achieves nearly minimax optimal regret bound and nearly optimal trajectory complexity.
Market research is generally performed by surveying a representative sample of customers with questions that includes contexts such as psycho-graphics, demographics, attitude and product preferences. Survey responses are used to segment the customers into various groups that are useful for targeted marketing and commun…
Personalized pricing analytics is becoming an essential tool in retailing. Upon observing the personalized information of each arriving customer, the firm needs to set a price accordingly based on the covariates such as income, education background, past purchasing history to extract more revenue. For new entrants of t…
We consider the problem of segmenting a large population of customers into non-overlapping groups with similar preferences, using diverse preference observations such as purchases, ratings, clicks, etc. over subsets of items. We focus on the setting where the universe of items is large (ranging from thousands to millio…
Proposes robust assortment optimization from observational data.
problem Real-world scenarios often violate assumptions of stable customer preferences and correct choice models.
method Develops a robust framework that accounts for potential distributional shifts in customer choice behavior.
result Uncovered the notion of ``robust item-wise coverage'' as the minimal data requirement for sample-efficient robust assortment learning.
Proposes new methods for Markov chain choice models with panel data.
problem Dependence among transactions for the same customer in historical data.
method Expectation-maximization (EM) algorithms incorporating partial-ordering preference information.
result EM algorithms outperform traditional methods on synthetic and real datasets.
Paper proposes a method to estimate consumer valuations from bundle sales data.
problem Estimating consumer valuations from bundle sales data using classical methods is challenging.
method Proposes an approach using EM algorithm and Monte Carlo simulation to estimate consumer valuations from bundle sales data.
result The approach can recover the distribution of consumers' valuations and is robust to unobserved no-purchases and clustered market segments.
Learning customer preferences from an observed behaviour is an important topic in the marketing literature. Structural models typically model forward-looking customers or firms as utility-maximizing agents whose utility is estimated using methods of Stochastic Optimal Control. We suggest an alternative approach to stud…
Paper proposes a method to aggregate customer engagement data for better ranking of e-commerce results.
problem Cold start problem and under-representation of new or under-impressed products in e-commerce search results.
method Aggregates customer engagements within a day for the same query as input training data for machine learning models.
result Training models on aggregated data leads to better ranking of new and under-impressed products.
It is of high interest for a company to identify customers expected to bring the largest profit in the upcoming period. Knowing as much as possible about each customer is crucial for such predictions. However, their demographic data, preferences, and other information that might be useful for building loyalty programs …
Tests for Esophageal cancer can be expensive, uncomfortable and can have side effects. For many patients, we can predict non-existence of disease with 100% certainty, just using demographics, lifestyle, and medical history information. Our objective is to devise a general methodology for customizing tests using user pr…
Deep learning predicts fit for fashion e-commerce.
problem Predicting correct fit for customer satisfaction and cost reduction.
method Deep learning content-collaborative approach using customer and article embeddings.
result Significant improvement over state-of-the-art methods.
Binary choice forests model customer choices in retailing.
problem Estimating DCMs using transaction data is challenging and prone to misspecification.
method Random forest of binary decision trees to represent DCMs, interpretable and consistent predictions.
result Random forest can predict choice probabilities and assortments unseen in training data.
Adapts large transformer model for search query intent understanding.
problem Understanding and predicting user intents from search queries.
method Adapts BERT-like architecture for search queries, accounts for query noisiness and sparseness.
result Builds a shareable deep learning model for query intent identification.
Customer retention campaigns increasingly rely on predictive models to detect potential churners in a vast customer base. From the perspective of machine learning, the task of predicting customer churn can be presented as a binary classification problem. Using data on historic behavior, classification algorithms are bu…
Outfittery uses machine learning to help stylists choose appropriate fashion items.
problem Selecting appropriate fashion items and ensuring relevance to customers.
method Combining machine learning with human expertise to recommend items by style fit and relevance.
result The method successfully recommends fashion items by style fit and relevance.
New model recommends stocks considering individual preferences and diversification.
problem Inaccurate stock price predictions and ignoring investment theories.
method Portfolio Temporal Graph Network Recommender (PfoTGNRec) incorporating diversification-enhancing sampling.
result PfoTGNRec outperforms state-of-the-art models in real-world data.
Improved resource allocation method reduces procurement costs.
problem Online resource allocation with procurement costs.
method Primal-dual algorithm with surrogate function optimization.
result Enhanced competitive ratio through design methods.
Model dynamic customer sensitivities across categories.
problem Dynamic heterogeneity in customer sensitivities to marketing elements.
method Hierarchical dynamic factor model with Bayesian nonparametric Gaussian processes.
result Dynamic heterogeneity can be explained by a few global trends.
We introduce normalized nonnegative models (NNM) for explorative data analysis. NNMs are partial convexifications of models from probability theory. We demonstrate their value at the example of item recommendation. We show that NNM-based recommender systems satisfy three criteria that all recommender systems should ide…
Proposes dual product embedding for complementary product representation learning.
problem Detecting complementary relationships from noisy and sparse customer purchase activities.
method Knowledge-aware dual product embedding with multi-task learning and user bias terms.
result Complementary relationships are captured more accurately than simple similarity.
A fast algorithm speeds up training of pairwise kernels.
problem Training pairwise kernels efficiently for large datasets.
method Generalized vec trick for Kronecker product kernels.
result Pairwise kernels can be expressed as sums of Kronecker products.
We study platforms in the sharing economy and discuss the need for incentivizing users to explore options that otherwise would not be chosen. For instance, rental platforms such as Airbnb typically rely on customer reviews to provide users with relevant information about different options. Yet, often a large fraction o…
Decouples data privatization from user preferences for privacy-preserving data.
problem Privacy-preserving data with user-specific private information.
method Decouples data privatization from user preferences using a Variational Autoencoder (VAE) and a generative filter trained by a GAN-type robust optimization.
result Effective privatization of data with minimal disturbance to utility, as shown by experiments on MNIST, UCI-Adult, and CelebA.
We are interested in learning customers' video preferences from their historic viewing patterns and geographical location. We consider a Bayesian latent factor modeling approach for this task. In order to tune the complexity of the model to best represent the data, we make use of Bayesian nonparameteric techniques. We …
Paper generalizes Markov chain model to handle dynamic preferences and choice overload.
problem Modeling dynamic customer substitution behavior in assortment optimization.
method Generalizes Markov chain model to account for choice overload.
result Proposes a Markov chain model that reduces to a generalized MNL model with assortment-dependent no-purchase attractions.
In online learning, the dynamic regret metric chooses the reference (optimal) solution that may change over time, while the typical (static) regret metric assumes the reference solution to be constant over the whole time horizon. The dynamic regret metric is particularly interesting for applications such as online reco…
The purpose of this study was to build a customer selection model based on 20 dimensions, including customer codes, total contribution, assets, deposit, profit, profit rate, trading volume, trading amount, turnover rate, order amount, withdraw amount, withdraw rate, process fee, process fee submitted, process fee retai…
DCE learns customer embeddings from digital activity and financial context.
problem Comprehensive customer understanding in financial services.
method Leverages customers' digital activity and financial context to learn dense representations.
result DCE showed performance lift in three prediction problems.
Financial institutions use LSTM models to predict customer goals.
problem Predicting customer goals and actions in financial services.
method Used LSTM models with state-space graph embeddings on historical customer traces.
result Demonstrated the effectiveness of LSTM models in predicting customer goals and actions.
Customer momentum is a positive relationship between a firm's returns and past returns of its customers.
problem Understanding the relationship between a firm's returns and its customers' past returns.
method Examined customer momentum using a long-short equally-weighted decile portfolio and Fama-French factor models.
result Customer momentum generates significant monthly returns and is statistically significant.
Paper proposes a new topology for AML analysis using Poincaré embeddings.
problem Complex money laundering schemes and regulatory constraints hinder AML analysis and information sharing.
method Proposes a new topology for AML analysis using Poincaré embeddings.
result Demonstrates improved AML analysis and information sharing through Poincaré embeddings.
Study uses Open Banking data to estimate customer value, showing potential 21% increase.
problem Limited CLV estimation using single-entity data.
method Introduces PCLV framework using Open Banking data for comprehensive customer value estimation.
result Open Banking data can estimate PCLV per competitor, showing a 21.06% increase over Actual CLV.
Predicts customer call intent for auto dealerships using CNN.
problem Understanding customer intent from phone calls for better service.
method Developed a CNN-based supervised learning model for multi-class classification.
result CNN model performs well on customer call intent classification.
In order to better engage with customers, retailers rely on extensive customer and product databases which allows them to better understand customer behaviour and purchasing patterns. This has long been a challenging task as customer modelling is a multi-faceted, noisy and time-dependent problem. The most common way to…
VAE learns latent representations for bank customers' creditworthiness.
problem Improving marketing, CRM, and credit risk assessment in retail banks.
method Adopted Variational Autoencoder (VAE) to learn latent representations.
result VAE latent representations capture customers' creditworthiness and generalize to new data.
The paper uses RFM and clustering to segment bank customers.
problem Challenges in customer retention and profitable segmentation in banking.
method RFM technique and clustering algorithms applied to real data.
result Successful customer segmentation improves conversion rates.
The study improves CLV predictions in retail banking with machine learning.
problem Estimating customer lifetime value in retail banking is challenging.
method Developed a novel framework for CLV predictions over arbitrary time horizons.
result 43% improvement in out-of-time CLV prediction error.
Study shows competition feedback can make ML predictors biased towards specific user groups.
problem How competition affects machine learning predictors and user prediction quality.
method Flexible model of competing ML predictors, empirical and mathematical analysis.
result Competition causes predictors to specialize for specific sub-populations at the cost of general performance.
Study clusters bank customers using LSTM and DTW.
problem Efficiently segmenting bank customers for targeted offers.
method Encoder-decoder LSTM network and Dynamic Time Warping (DTW).
result Hybrid method yields more accurate clusters.
Improved item recommendations for repeat interactions using sequence analysis.
problem Limited effectiveness of traditional recommender systems in handling repeated user-item interactions.
method Designed a recommender system that considers sequences of item interactions for each user.
result Empirically shown to give highly accurate predictions and increase sales by 5%.
Study compares classification techniques to predict customer churn in banking.
problem Predicting customer churn in banking industry.
method Comparison of six supervised classification techniques (ANN and random forest) on 10000 European bank customers.
result ANN structure with five nodes in a single hidden layer is the best performing classifier.
Silent abandonment reduces contact center efficiency by 5%-15%.
problem Measuring customer abandonment and patience in text-based contact centers is challenging due to uncertainty.
method Developed methodologies to identify silent-abandonment customers and estimate customer patience using text analysis and queueing models.
result Silent abandonment accounts for 30%-67% of customer abandonments and reduces system efficiency by 5%-15%.
DALC customizes LSTM models for detectors in large-scale traffic networks.
problem Fine-grained traffic prediction for large-scale transportation networks.
method Formulated as a finite Markov decision process, introduced ALC algorithm for automatic customization, and developed DALC for distributed customization.
result DALC provides higher prediction accuracy than Apache Spark MLlib approaches.
Insurance firms use RL to optimize customer offers for desired target portfolios.
problem Optimizing insurance offers to achieve a desired customer portfolio.
method Developed a novel reinforcement learning algorithm.
result The RL algorithm outperforms traditional methods in a synthetic market.