Modeling Customer Behavior for Revenue Management

Download or read book Modeling Customer Behavior for Revenue Management written by Matulya Bansal and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We call such preferences threshold preferences. We solve the firm's product design problem in this setting, and contrast with the traditional model of customer choice behavior. We consider several scenarios where such preferences might arise, and identify the optimal solution in each case. In addition to these product design problems, we study the problem of identifying the optimal putting strategy for a golfer. We develop a model of golfer putting skill, and combine it with a putt trajectory and holeout model to identify a golfer's optimal putting strategy. The problem of identifying the optimal putting strategy is shown to be equivalent to a two-dimensional stochastic shortest path problem, with continuous state and control space, and solved using approximate dynamic programming. We calibrate the golfer model to professional and amateur player data, and use the calibrated model to answer several interesting questions, e.g., how does green reading ability affect golfer performance, how do professional and amateur golfers differ in their strategy, how do uphill and downhill putts compare in difficulty, etc.