A multigene genetic programming-based fuzzy regression approach for modelling customer satisfaction based on online reviews

Abstract

In previous studies, customer survey data were commonly adopted to perform the modelling of customer satisfaction (CS). However, it could be time-consuming to conduct surveys and obtain their data. On the other hand, respondents’ responses are quite often confined by preset questions. Nowadays, a huge number of customer online reviews on products can be found on various websites. The reviews can be extracted easily in a very short time. Customers can freely express their concerns and views of products in their online reviews. Those reviews provide a valuable source of information for manufacturers to improve their existing products and develop their new products. Previous studies have attempted to develop CS models based on survey data by using various computational intelligence techniques. However, no attempt at developing explicit CS models based on online reviews was reported in the literature. In this paper, a methodology for the modelling of CS based on customer online reviews and a multigene genetic programming-based fuzzy regression (MGGP-FR) approach is proposed. In the proposed methodology, relevant textual reviews of products are extracted from e-commerce websites. Then, opinion mining is conducted on the reviews and sentiments scores of customer concerns are derived. A MGGP-FR approach is then introduced to develop CS models based on the derived sentiment scores. A case study on developing CS models for electronic hairdryers is conducted to illustrate the proposed methodology and validate the effectiveness of MGGP-FR in the modelling of CS. The validation results show MGGP-FR outperforms the other three modelling approaches, fuzzy regression, genetic programming, and genetic programming-based fuzzy regression, in the CS modelling in terms of prediction accuracy.