Interview: business asks 'why is customer X in Cluster 3?' — how do you explain?

medium

Answer

$(1) Show customer X's features + Cluster 3 mean/std for each feature \to highlight top-3 features driving assignment (largest z-score contribution).$
$(2) Show representative medoid / centroid of Cluster 3 alongside X.$
$(3) Decision-tree surrogate: rule-based description of Cluster 3 (e.g. 'high-frequency + high-monetary + monthly recency').$
$(4) SHAP values on the cluster assignment probability.$
$(5) Contrast: how would X have to change to belong to Cluster 2 instead?$
$Standard for stakeholder-friendly cluster interpretability.$

Check yourself — multiple choice

Random
Top-feature contributions (z-score) + medoid comparison + tree-surrogate rule + SHAP on probability + counterfactual to other cluster
Just show ID
Not real

Explain cluster assignment: top features + medoid + tree rule + SHAP + counterfactual.

#interview#applications#clustering

214 interview questions in this topic.