Visualization method for customer targeting using customer map

An important issue in customer-oriented marketing area is target selection which enables the determination of potential customers. In this paper, we suggest a novel customer targeting method: customer map for a service industry. The customer map is the visualization method for customer targeting. It depicts value distribution across customer needs and customer characteristics. To develop the customer map, we integrate numerous customer data from various data sources, perform data analyses using data mining techniques, and finally visualize the information derived by the former analyses. The customer map helps decision makers to build customer-oriented strategy under the unified goal of customer targeting. It also affords to monitor and perceive real time state and the change of customer value distribution based on their information without preconception. We apply the customer map to a credit card company, build web-based prototype system for the customer map and acquire managerial implications from this study.