Customer Exit Survey: Examples from Canva, Todoist, Youtube and 18 more

A well-designed customer exit survey is a powerful growth loop.

Once you know why users leave, you'll know whether you want to retain them or give them a grand-exit. This blog is a standalone piece to help you set up your exit survey successfully, regardless of your industry or budget. It's dense, actionable, and full of ready-to-go templates.

TL;DR

• Purpose of exit surveys: Understand why customers stop using your product or service to highlight areas needing improvement.
• Benefits of exit surveys: Provide a platform for feedback, influence future product changes, offer instant solutions, reopen communication, and refine customer profiles.
• Example vault: A massive vault of 18 exit surveys from companies like Canva, Youtube, Jasper, Todoist and more.
• Best Practices:
  • Keep it short: Limit to 4-5 essential questions.
  • Open-ended questions: Gain deeper insights with detailed queries.
  • Ensure privacy: Offer anonymity to encourage candid feedback.
  • Timely distribution: Send surveys right after the customer leaves.
  • Use mixed questions: Combine multiple-choice and open-ended questions.
  • Personalize: Tailor surveys based on user details and behaviors.
  • Offer incentives: Provide benefits to boost response rates.
  • Analyze data: Regularly review feedback to spot trends and solutions.
  • Iterate: Continuously improve the survey based on results.
• Actionable insights: Use trends, cohorts, regression analysis, sentiments analysis and lots more!
• Email templates: Emails to send to trialing users vs churned users
• Survey templates: Google Forms, Figma Template, and Google Docs

What is a customer exit survey?

A customer exit survey is a way for companies to find out why people stop using your product or service. It's all about getting to the heart of the problem—why did your customer leave? Customer exit surveys can be targeted at both trialing users and paid users.

Why a customer exit survey is important for growth?

"A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved"
— Charles Kettering, the head of research at General Motors

Exit surveys offer several benefits:

1. Voice Their Concerns: Exit surveys give departing customers a platform to express their dissatisfaction or concerns, making them feel heard and valued even as they leave.
2. Shape Future Products: By pinpointing specific shortcomings, feedback from users helps fine-tune the experience for future customers.
3. Instant Resolution to Feedback: You can personalize your follow-up to recapture users that are about to churn.
4. Reopen Communication Channels: Providing feedback can lead to renewed dialogue, giving companies a second chance to win back customers via reactivation campaigns.
5. Sharpen Ideal Customer Profiles: Maybe churn stems from targeting the wrong customer? Analyzing exit feedback highlights ICP mismatches.

18 customer exit surveys examples from the vault:

Each customer exit survey example comes with a unique idea. Read them here or download them all (linked below) at once.

1. Slack's customer exit survey

Slack is one of the largest messaging apps with a market cap of $26B. They build well-designed apps.

2. Litmus' customer exit survey

Litmus allows users to create, personalize, test, review, and analyze every email you send.

3. Zoom's customer exit survey

Zoom is a meetings conference software with a large volume of users and a strong PLG business model.

4. Paramount's customer exit survey

Paramount is a large, streaming media company. You get to watch shows and other events.

5. Linear's customer exit survey

Linear is a project management tool. They're well-known for their taste in product management.

6. Jasper's customer exit survey

Jasper is an AI platform built for your brand, so your team can create content that's on-brand, everywhere you work.

7. Canva's customer exit survey

Canva is a design tool with over a 150M users. They have a strong PLG motion alongside a newer product-led sales motion.

8. Todoist's customer exit survey

Todoist is a popular task management tool with over 30M users. Originally B2C and are layering on B2B use cases.

9. Adobe's customer exit survey

Adobe has a host of software under a single subscription Creative Cloud.

10. Patreon's customer exit survey

Patreon is has a marketplace business model where people can fund their favorite creators in exchange for exclusive content.

11. Youtube's customer exit survey

Youtube needs no introduction. This is their exit survey flow.

12. Notion's customer exit survey

Notion is a freemium productivity and note-taking app.

13. Hotjar's customer exit survey

Hotjar is a session recording and user feedback software. Hotjar is B2B but with strong freemium model.

14. Substack's customer exit survey

Substack is a popular newsletter for creators.

15. Intercom's customer exit survey

Intercom providing businesses with a way to chat with their customers.

16. CXL's customer exit survey

CXL is a training platform for marketing specialists.

17. ClickFunnels' customer exit survey

It’s a tool for building high-converting websites and sales funnels.

18. Audible's customer exit survey

Audible is Amazon’s answer to audiobooks, infamous for dark patters in their cancel flows.

Build your own customer exit survey with Churnkey

Cancel Flows That Lower Churn Automatically | Churnkey

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Get a Demo

Or, download these exit survey examples in Figma:

Customer Exit Survey: 18 Templates and Questions | Figma

A swipe file of customer exit surveys from companies like Youtube, Veed, Canva, CXL, and more. Each exit survey example comes with a takeaway. You can filter by business model, industry, and company size. Get templates, best practices, and done-for-you exit surveys on our blog.

Figma

Best practices for conducting customer exit surveys

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist. These are a handful of best practices that you can pick from as you build out your exit survey.

1. Keep it short and focused

Respect the time of departing customers by keeping surveys concise. No one loves a survey that never ends.

Limit the survey to 4-5 multiple choice questions, such as "What was the primary reason for leaving?" and "How can we improve our service?".

If you want to start with more options, you can calculate the offer acceptance rate and decide which ones to trim out.

2. Ask open-ended questions

Open-ended questions provide deeper insights into the specific reasons behind a customer's decision to leave that simple MCQs might not offer.

If the volume is significantly high, you can use Churnkey's Insights AI to analyze feedback at scale.

3. Ensure anonymity and confidentiality

Assure respondents that their feedback will remain anonymous. This encourages honesty and increases the likelihood of receiving candid responses,

More so in indirect cultures (eg, Japan) or within in a marketplace business model like we saw with Patreon above.

4. Time the survey appropriately

Send the survey soon after the customer's decision to leave, while their experience is still fresh in their mind.

The best way to get feedback is within the product where they cancel or downgrade. However, allow for a brief cooling-off period if the departure was heated.

5. Use a mix of question types

Combine multiple-choice questions, follow-ups, and open-ended questions to gather both quantitative and qualitative data.

6. Personalize the survey

Use subscriber details like first name, subscription amount, plan name, and billing frequency to personalize the survey. You can also personalize with additional product variables.

Create segments to tailor questions based on user behavior, such as different questions for early churners versus long-term subscribers. You can also direct users to different survey flows based on their average order value. The possibilities are endless with Churnkey.

7. Offer an incentive

With Churnkey, you can offer pauses, lifetime or short-term coupons, and additional support, all while managing potential abuse.

There's an option to set the maximum redemptions allowed or have a cool down period before they can reapply a coupon.

8. Analyze and act on the data

Collecting data is only the first step. Analyze the feedback to identify trends and actionable insights.

Example: If feedback consistently points to a lack of certain features, the product team prioritizes these in the development roadmap to address customer needs.

9. Test and iterate

Testing different questions and formats can help you find the best approach for your audience. You can create A/B tests in Churnkey and segment as you wish.

What are some good customer exit survey questions?

These are a few questions and phrases you can copy/paste into your exit survey. Each has either a different angle or a different tone of voice, so pick one that makes most sense to your brand.

1. Why are you cancelling?

"Please be honest about why you’re leaving. " This question can be open-ended or an MCQ.

2. Do you have any feedback?

"We take your feedback seriously and will act on it right away. This message will get emailed to the whole team. We do this because we want to build the best product, and we can’t do that without your feedback."

3. What did you like about the Pro plan?

Select all the reasons that apply

4. Why do you want to downgrade?

We’d love your input to make {{product}} even better.

5. What made you switch plans?

If you have a moment, we would love to know why you decided to switch to the Free plan.

6. What is your reason for cancelling {{product}}?

Select all the reasons that apply

7. Are you switching to an alternative tool?

Can be open-ended or a single choice option like: Yes, No, Don’t Know

8. Which of the following ways did your company use {{product}}?

Select all the reasons that apply

9. What did you like about the Pro plan?

Todoist was the one that used this. It's a good idea if your product has a high natural churn (use case ends naturally). In this case, an exit survey can be morphed into a testimonial collection tool. And if not, it gives you information to re-engage with users.

10. Do you have suggestions for our team?

Select all the reasons that apply

Download a list of 40 exit survey questions

Exit Survey Questions

Google Docs

Analyzing customer exit surveys - sorting methods by ease of use

In a discussion with Dave Burson, Head of Product, Growth & Monetization at Canva, he shared how he drives growth for their paid subscription product, Canva Pro using exit surveys:

"A really great example from this year that we got from our churn feedback was that Canva used to have free content, premium content, and paid content. So, we had two tiers of product but three tiers of content. What that meant was that when you created a Canva Pro, there was still some content that you had to pay for. That was due to some legacy royalty-type model that we initially built Canva into. And we realized that it was a pain in the ass for a lot of people. They create with Canva Pro. They expect the Netflix treatment. And it seemed like a large enough pain point worth solving."

Here’s a structured approach to analyzing such data, ranging from easy to more complex methods:

1. Basic descriptive analysis (Easy)

Start by summarizing the data through basic statistics and visualizations. This is the easiest level of analysis and can provide immediate insights.

• Frequency counts: Calculate how many responses fall into each category of your survey questions. For example, reasons for cancellation, offer acceptance rate, etc.
• Cross-tabulation: Explore relationships between different survey responses (e.g., does a particular plan tier churn faster?).
• Visualizations: Use numbers and charts to represent the distribution of responses, making it easier to form hypothesis.

2. Text analysis (Moderate)

If your survey includes open-ended responses, text analysis can uncover themes that aren't captured in structured data.

• Sentiment analysis: Use natural language processing tools to determine the sentiment (positive, negative, neutral) of customer comments.
• Keyword extraction: Identify common words and phrases used by departing customers to pinpoint specific issues or features that are mentioned frequently.
• Thematic analysis: Group responses into themes manually or using software to understand common narratives in customer feedback.

3. Trend analysis (Moderate)

Look at how responses change over time to identify if certain issues are improving or worsening.

• Time series analysis: Examine trends over time in customer satisfaction or specific issues raised in exit surveys.
• Cohort analysis: Analyze behavior by cohort (e.g., customers who signed up during a specific period) to see if certain business changes affected churn.

4. Predictive analytics (Hard)

Leverage more advanced statistical or machine learning models to predict future trends or identify underlying patterns.

• Regression analysis: Understand which factors most strongly predict churn. This could involve logistic regression to see the likelihood of churn based on survey responses.
• Cluster analysis: Segment customers into clusters based on their survey responses to tailor retention strategies more effectively.
• Churn prediction models: Develop predictive models using machine learning to forecast which customers are at risk of churning based on their survey responses and other behavioral data.

5. Integration with operational data (Hard)

Combine exit survey data with other business metrics (usage data, support interactions, billing history) for a holistic view.

• Data integration: Merge exit survey data with user behavior analytics to draw correlations between product usage patterns and customer satisfaction.
• Advanced dashboarding: Create interactive dashboards that combine multiple data sources to provide real-time insights into customer behavior and satisfaction.
• Automated feedback loops: Set up systems that automatically alert you to critical issues raised in exit surveys, triggering immediate operational reviews or customer outreach. Churnkey has a Slack app you can use to trigger alerts.

Analyzing customer exit surveys with Churnkey

1. Insights AI: Get endless product ideas without having to hire a team of data scientists. Make our Insights AI and years of customer data analysis work for your team, saving you time and informing your product decisions.
2. Customer Health: Be more strategic with your team's time: know when to engage your best customers, predict at-risk revenue, and track trends in feedback. Done for you automatically.

Customer exit survey email template

Email surveys are great if you have a low volume of users that cancel. Below you'll find some templates that have worked well!

For trialing users

You can send this exit survey email to users who have stopped using your product after starting a trial. These can be zombie users or cancelled their trial.

Subject: Brutal feedback for {company name}

Body: Hi {first name},

I noticed that you signed up for {company name} but never did {core action}. Any chances you'd share why?—even a single sentence would go a long way in helping us improve the platform.

Thanks!
{founder's name}
Founder at {company name}

For churned customers

This is an example for a for product with a natural churn. But you can add or remove sentences tailored to your use case.

Subject: Your {plan name} is cancelled

Body: Hi {first name},

Your {product} subscription is cancelled.

If you have a minute, I'd be curious to learn what made you leave so we can improve {product}. I personally read every feedback and so does our entire team.

Or if you have already built something with {product}, please share it with us on so we can celebrate you in front of millions of people who come to {product} every year.

If you change your mind about your subscription, you can always resubscribe <link> from your app settings. If you canceled by mistake, just reply to this email, and someone from our team will be in touch.

{founder's name}
Founder at {company name}

Email surveys have their thorns:

Every rose has its thorns. Exit surveys sent via emails are definitely quicker to set up but comes with some cons:

1. Email is harder to get a response from users. At its best, emails have an open rate of 40% and a click rate of 3%. Assume a response rate of 1-2%. To get at least 100 responses, you'll need to wait until 10,000 people cancel. Would you like to wait that long?
2. Too late in the user journey: Email is sent when users cancel. That user has left the product. A customer exit survey helps you in front of users before they cancel and are actively thinking about your product.
3. Analyzing is painful: If you want feedback from a few people, emails are perfect! However, it will become difficult to manage as you grow since feedback will be scattered in multiple different threads. Having context about the user and their feedback will get more challenging as you grow.
4. Not representative of your audience: You will get responses from users that are most encouraged to give feedback, not those that will be your best ICP. It might be biased and skewed.

Churnkey can be implemented in a few hours and scale with you as you grow. If you have the bandwidth to put together a tool in place, it'd be a much better start.

Download customer exit survey templates

We've got you covered whether you want to start drafting the questions, work on the design, or build your own exit survey.

1. Google docs

This is a Google doc with 40 questions for your exit surveys. Save the ones you want to keep.

Exit Survey Questions

Google Docs

2. Figma file

This is a massive swipe file with exit surveys from both big and small companies. It's a great place to start brainstorming. Every exit survey is labelled and analyzed for you.

Customer Exit Survey: 18 Templates and Questions | Figma

A swipe file of customer exit surveys from companies like Youtube, Veed, Canva, CXL, and more. Each exit survey example comes with a takeaway. You can filter by business model, industry, and company size.

Figma

3. Google forms

If you'd like to build your own exit survey using something simpler, Google Forms might be a good idea. There are other options like Typeform, Qualtrics, and Tally. All will offer pre-filled fields and conditional logic. Watch a tutorial on how to create one or try out a demo.

Thanks for reading!