Distributed model for customer churn prediction using convolutional neural network

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the proposed model is to assist the e-business to predict the churned users using machine learning. This paper aims to monitor the customer behavior and to perform decision-making accordingly.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed model uses the 2-D convolutional neural network (CNN; a technique of deep learning). The proposed model is a layered architecture that comprises two different phases that are data load and preprocessing layer and 2-D CNN layer. In addition, the Apache Spark parallel and distributed framework is used to process the data in a parallel environment. Training data is captured from Kaggle by using Telco Customer Churn.

Findings

The proposed model is accurate and has an accuracy score of 0.963 out of 1. In addition, the training and validation loss is extremely less, which is 0.004. The confusion matric results show the true-positive values are 95% and the true-negative values are 94%. However, the false-negative is only 5% and the false-positive is only 6%, which is effective.

Originality/value

This paper highlights an inclusive description of preprocessing required for the CNN model. The data set is addressed more carefully for the successful customer churn prediction.

Citation

Tariq, M.U., Babar, M., Poulin, M. and Khattak, A.S. (2022), "Distributed model for customer churn prediction using convolutional neural network", Journal of Modelling in Management, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 853-863. https://doi.org/10.1108/JM2-01-2021-0032