# Exit Interview Question Bank Twenty questions for SaaS churn exit interviews, grouped by what they diagnose, with the follow-up that makes each one work. From saasfeedback.ai — https://saasfeedback.ai/blog/exit-interview-vs-survey-saas --- ## How to use this You will not ask twenty questions. You will ask six to eight, chosen from these groups based on what your data already suggests. The bank exists so you can swap a question that is not landing rather than improvising one mid-call. **The six-question core, if you want a default:** T1, E1, R1, V1, C1, O1. That sequence is written up in full at https://saasfeedback.ai/blog/questions-to-ask-churned-customers --- ## Group T — Timeline Establish *when* the decision happened. It is almost never the cancellation date, and the gap is your intervention window. | # | Question | Follow-up | |---|---|---| | T1 | "When did you first think about cancelling?" | "What was happening that week?" | | T2 | "How long had it been on your mind before you did it?" | "What kept you from doing it sooner?" | | T3 | "Was there a moment you decided, or did it just drift?" | "What made it real?" | --- ## Group E — The triggering event Get from a reason to an event. If the answer is a category, you have not finished. | # | Question | Follow-up | |---|---|---| | E1 | "What was the last thing that happened before you decided?" | "Was that the first time, or had it been building?" | | E2 | "Take me to the last time you opened it. What were you trying to do?" | "And what happened?" | | E3 | "Was there anything that nearly made you cancel earlier and didn't?" | "What stopped you that time?" | --- ## Group R — The replacement The answer is rarely a competitor. Each possible answer means something completely different. | # | Question | Follow-up | |---|---|---| | R1 | "What are you using instead?" | Competitor → "What does it do that we didn't?" | | | | Spreadsheet → "What made that good enough?" | | | | Nothing → "What changed so you didn't need this?" | | R2 | "How did you find the alternative?" | "Who suggested it?" | | R3 | "What was the switching cost like?" | "What made it worth it?" | --- ## Group V — The value gap Most churn is the distance between the promise they heard and the product they got. These questions measure that distance. | # | Question | Follow-up | |---|---|---| | V1 | "When you signed up, what did you expect this to do for you?" | "Did that ever happen? When?" | | V2 | "What was the best week you had with it?" | "What was different about that week?" | | V3 | "If you had to describe what we do to a colleague, what would you say?" | Listen for whether it matches your positioning | | V4 | "Was there a feature you expected to exist that didn't?" | "How did you find out?" | --- ## Group C — The counterfactual The roadmap questions. Phrased as conditions, not feature requests. | # | Question | Follow-up | |---|---|---| | C1 | "What would have had to be true for you to still be a customer today?" | "If we'd shipped that six months ago, would you have stayed — or was something else already in motion?" | | C2 | "If you were running this product, what's the first thing you'd change?" | "Why that one first?" | | C3 | "Was there anything we could have done at the point you cancelled?" | "Would you have taken it?" | --- ## Group P — Price, only when price has already come up Never lead with price. When it does come up, disbelieve it gently — "too expensive" is the most over-reported churn reason in SaaS and the least often true as stated. | # | Question | Follow-up | |---|---|---| | P1 | "If it had been half the price, would you still be using it today?" | If no → "So what was it really?" | | P2 | "What else were you weighing this budget against?" | Reveals your real competitive set | | P3 | "Who had to approve the spend?" | Often the real blocker is authority, not price | --- ## Group O — The open door Ask this one last, always, and never skip it for time. | # | Question | Follow-up | |---|---|---| | O1 | "Anything else you'd want the person who builds this to hear?" | Silence. Count to five. | | O2 | "Is there anything I should have asked and didn't?" | Useful for improving the script itself | --- ## Scoring rubric Score each completed interview on four axes. Anything under 6/12 means the call did not work and the script needs adjusting — not that the customer was unhelpful. | Axis | 0 | 1 | 2 | |---|---|---|---| | **Specificity** | Categories only | One concrete detail | A dated, located event | | **Timeline** | No sense of when | Approximate | Decision date established | | **Counterfactual** | Refused or vague | A feature request | A condition you can act on | | **Surprise** | Confirmed what you assumed | Minor new detail | Something you had not considered | Track the **surprise** column across interviews. When it drops to zero for three consecutive calls in the same segment, you have saturated that segment. Stop and go talk to a different one. --- ## Questions to never ask - **"Would you use X if we built it?"** — a prediction, and people are poor forecasters of their own behaviour. Ask what they do today instead. - **"On a scale of 1–10, how satisfied were you?"** — compresses everything you needed into one digit. - **"Was it the price, the features, or the support?"** — you have just written their answer for them. - **"Is there anything we could do to change your mind?"** — this converts an exit interview into a retention pitch, and the honest answers stop instantly. - **"Why did you cancel?"** as the opening question — you get the rehearsed answer and the rest of the call defends it.