CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION AND PROFILING WITH RFM ANALYSIS

This paper is a case study on segmentation and profiling of customers according to their lifetime value by using the RFM (Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value) model which is an analytical method for behavioral customer segmentation. Real customer data that is gathered from a fuel station in Istanbul, Turkey is used for the case study. The data contain 1015 customers’ arrival frequency, last arrival date and total spend amount in the first half of 2016, and 10 descriptor variables of customers. First, demographic characteristics of fuel station customers were analyzed by descriptive statistics. Then customers' RFM score was calculated through SPSS program, and customers were divided into 5 segments according to their RFM scores by cluster analysis. Finally, the customer profile of segments has been created by using Correspond analysis and Discriminant analysis. Although fuel station managers think that the most valuable customer for their company are automobile drivers, result of the analysis suggests that the most valuable customers are Truck drivers. At the end of the paper, recommendations are made based on customer profiles of two most valuables segments that are named VIP and GOLD.