What is an absorbing state?

Created by Steve Hoover, Modified on Sun, Jan 14 at 11:23 AM by Steve Hoover

An absorbing state is a segment that is associated with a 100% self-transition probability.


In other words, if a customer reaches that segment in his or her lifetime, he or she is predicted to remain in that segment, forever.


An absorbing state is characterized by a transition probability of 100% to itself, and of 0% to all other segments.


It is usually a good idea to have a “lost segment” encoded in the transition matrix as an absorbing state. It will mimic the fact that, eventually, each and every customer will “die”.

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