Title: A critical customer identification model for technology and service providers

Authors: Jiang-Liang Hou, Shih-Ting Yang

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu (300), Taiwan. ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu (300), Taiwan

Abstract: The Technology and Service Providers (TSPs) play a critical role for innovative technology provision. Effective suggestions for potential customer identification are required for the TSPs. In order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of business promotion, this research proposes a data-mining model to explore the characteristics of critical customers for the TSPs. This paper utilises the project history to classify customers into critical and noncritical customer categories. Features of the critical customer category are extracted to serve as the basis for potential customer identification. The explicit customer characteristics discovered via the proposed model can provide the TSPs with systematic suggestions for business promotion.

Keywords: critical customer identification; technology and service providers; TSPs; customer relationship management; data mining.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSS.2006.010473

International Journal of Services and Standards, 2006 Vol.2 No.4, pp.417 - 436

Published online: 24 Jul 2006 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article