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Templates / Churn survey

Customers · Adaptive interview template

Churn survey template

Most churn surveys collect the reason a customer is comfortable giving, not the reason they left. "Too expensive" is the most common answer on every cancellation form ever shipped, and it is also the least actionable: price is the easiest thing to say to a form that cannot ask why.

This template treats cancellation as an interview, not a form. Two anchor questions establish the category of the loss, then the AI interviewer probes the specifics: what changed, what they tried before giving up, where they are going, and what would have kept them. Because the follow-ups react to each answer, a customer who picks "Missing features" gets asked which workflow broke, while one who picks "Switched" gets asked what the alternative does differently.

When to use it

  • In the cancellation flow, immediately after the cancel action is confirmed
  • Emailed within 48 hours of a subscription lapse or non-renewal
  • After a downgrade, with the wording adjusted from "cancelling" to "downgrading"
  • For involuntary churn recovery, once payment has failed for the last time

Running it well

  • Keep it to two anchors. Leaving customers owe you nothing; the follow-ups do the depth work only for people willing to keep typing.
  • Do not gate the cancellation on the survey. Resentment produces noise, and the neutral skip option keeps the data honest.
  • Read the transcripts of the "Something else" group first. It is where the reasons you have not imagined yet live.
  • Tag the share link by source, for example ?ref=cancel-flow versus ?ref=winback-email. The reasons differ by exit door.

The questions, and why they're shaped this way

These are the anchor questions. You can edit, reorder, or add to them; the AI interviewer handles the depth between them.

Multiple choice

What best describes why you're cancelling?

Too expensiveMissing features I needSwitched to another productDidn't use it enoughSomething else

The choice does not decide the analysis; it decides the interview. Each option routes the AI toward a different line of questioning, so the categories only need to be roughly right.

Open text

What could we have done differently to keep you?

Asked second, after the reason is on the table, this becomes concrete. People who just explained a missing feature name the feature; people who just said "price" often reveal it was value, not price.

What the interviewer asks next

Follow-ups aren't scripted. The AI reads each answer and probes what a researcher would. Depending on what a respondent says, it might ask:

"You mentioned the price stopped feeling worth it. Was there a moment when that changed, or did it fade gradually?"

"Which product are you moving to, and what was the first thing it did better?"

"You said the integration kept breaking. What did you try before deciding to leave?"

Live demo

Play the churn survey interview

This is the real interviewer, not a recording. Answer as yourself and watch the follow-ups adapt to what you write.

Prefer a full window? Open the demo.

Common questions

How is this different from a normal cancellation form?
A form records the category of the loss. This template interviews the person: an AI moderator reads each answer and asks the follow-up a researcher would, so you learn the trigger, the workaround they tried, and the competitor they chose, in their own words.
How many questions will a leaving customer actually answer?
The template has two anchor questions and the interviewer asks a bounded number of follow-ups that you control. Respondents can skip anything. In practice the people with strong reasons write the most, which is exactly the depth you want.
Is the survey anonymous?
By default respondents are anonymous: no name, email, or IP is stored with answers. If you need to tie answers to accounts for win-back offers, encode your own reference in the share link and hold the mapping on your side.
What do the results look like?
Themes with supporting quotes and counts, the choice breakdown, full transcripts of every interview, and a plain-language question box for asking things like "what did switchers say the alternative does better?"

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