Title: Service-choice behaviour modelling constructed with multiple decision-making processes

Authors: Takeshi Kurosawa, Ken Nishimatsu, Motoi Iwashita, Akiya Inoue, Moshe E. Ben-Akiva, Denis Bolduc

Addresses: Department of Mathematical Information Science, Tokyo University of Science, 1-3 Kagurazaka, Shinjyuku, Tokyo, 162-8601 Japan. ' NTT East, 3-19-2, Nishi Shinjyuku, Shinjyuku-Ku, Tokyo 163-8019, Japan. ' Department of Management Information Science, Chiba Institute of Technology, 2-17-1 Tsudanuma, Narashino, Chiba, 275-0016 Japan. ' Department of Management Information Science, Chiba Institute of Technology, 2-17-1 Tsudanuma, Narashino, Chiba, 275-0016 Japan. ' MIT Intelligent Transportation Systems Program, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1-181, 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 USA. ' Departement d'economique, Bureau 2268, Pavillon J.-A.-De Seve, 1025, avenue des Sciences humaines, Universite Laval, Quebec G1V 0A6, Canada

Abstract: Several models have been proposed to express customer preference variation. In this paper, we express it not by customer segmentation but by latent class. Not only decision-making factors but also decision-making processes differ according to the class. We propose a service-choice behaviour modelling constructed with multiple decision-making processes using an estimation method based on the expectation-maximisation algorithm. As an empirical experiment, we constructed a model of telephone service choice with optional services. We assume that there are two typical decision-making processes for this choice. One is to choose an optional service type first. The other is to choose a telephone company first. A nested structure model for the classified customer segment is constructed for each process. Namely, the model has two types of nested models which correspond to two decision-making processes. In a comparison with conventional models, we showed that the proposed model can improve the accuracy of the model.

Keywords: discrete choice analysis; expectation-maximisation algorithm; decision making; consumer behaviour; service choice; behaviour modelling; customer preferences; customer segmentation; latent class; telephone services; phone services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEM.2011.040829

International Journal of Services, Economics and Management, 2011 Vol.3 No.3, pp.301 - 322

Published online: 09 May 2015 *

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