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ACCA Applied Knowledge · Business and Technology · Financial systems and technology

A bank's analytics team finds that customers who call the helpline twice in a month are far more likely to close their accounts. Management wants to act on this by deciding which retention offer to make to each such customer, and then automatically sending it. Which type of analytics does this final step represent?

This is prescriptive analytics, because it recommends and triggers a specific action, the retention offer, to achieve a desired outcome. Descriptive and diagnostic analytics only summarise or explain past events and do not decide what action to take.

  1. APrescriptive analyticsCorrect
  2. BDescriptive analytics
  3. CDiagnostic analytics

Explanation

Prescriptive analytics recommends or triggers actions to achieve a desired outcome, here choosing and sending a retention offer. Descriptive analytics summarises past events, and diagnostic analytics explains causes. The pattern finding was predictive or diagnostic, but the recommended action is prescriptive.

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