Important Measures Derived from Survival
Survival and hazard curves provide nice pictures of customers over time. Pretty pictures are great for conveying information and qualitatively comparing different groups, but survival analysis can also provide quantitative metrics. This section discusses three particular measures: the point estimate of survival, the median customer lifetime, and the average remaining customer lifetime. It ends with a discussion of confidence in the hazard values.
Point Estimate of Survival
The point estimate of survival is the survival value at a particular tenure. It answers the simple question: How many customers do we expect to survive up to a given point in time? This calculation is easy—looking up the survival value at a particular tenure.
The point estimate is sometimes the best measure to use. For instance, many companies invest in customer acquisition, so customers must stay around long enough to recoup this investment. This is true when telephone...