Find Out Why Customers Cancel With a Short Exit Survey

What does this setup do?

Draft a short exit survey, a matched save offer for each reason, and a follow-up plan for people who leave anyway.

Who is it for?

Subscription and membership businesses that see cancellations but never learn why.

How do you set it up?

Tools

• ChatGPT or Claude (free tier is fine)
• Your cancel flow or a simple form tool (Typeform, Google Forms)
• A list of your current plans and any pause or downgrade options

Steps

1. List the real reasons people cancel: price, not using it, too busy, missing feature, switched to a competitor, support issue.
2. Ask AI to turn that list into 1 to 2 multiple-choice questions plus an "Other" box. FunnelFox advises keeping it that short because a 20-question survey kills responses.
3. Write one matched save offer per reason: price complaint gets a cheaper plan or discount, "too busy" gets an account pause, "not using it" gets a pointer to a hidden feature.
4. Add a short "what you will lose" summary on the cancel screen: their data, history, and any setup they did.
5. Offer a downgrade before the final cancel button. Appcues points to Mailchimp, which kept exiting users with a pause option that preserved their lists and automations.
6. After someone leaves, tag their reason and wait a few weeks, then follow up with something tied to it: a new feature they asked for or a relevant offer.

Help me build a cancellation exit survey for my subscription business. Plain, no hype.

Business: [what you sell, monthly or annual plans]
Plans: [plan names and prices]
Save options I can offer: [e.g. cheaper plan, pause for 2 months, annual discount]

Write:
1. An exit survey: 2 multiple-choice questions max, plus an "Other" free-text box. Give me 6-8 reason options based on my business.
2. A matched save offer for each reason, in one sentence each.
3. A short "what you will lose" summary for the cancel screen.
4. A follow-up email for 3 weeks later, personalized to the stated reason.

Rules:
- Short and plain. No guilt trips.
- Never make canceling hard to find. The survey comes after they choose to cancel.
- Show me the draft first. I will review before using anything.

Which chat tools work with this prompt?

Paste the prompt into any of these assistants (free or paid tiers).

• ChatGPT
• Claude

What tips make it smoother?

• Re-read your reason list every quarter. FunnelFox says stale options miss the real reasons.
• The "Other" box is where the surprises live. Read it monthly.
• A pause beats a cancel. People who pause often come back; people who cancel rarely do.
• Route answers to offers inside the flow, not after. The save has to happen on the cancel screen.

Where do the claims come from?

Summaries use public sources linked below, not independent verification. How setups are picked.

• Read FunnelFox’s write-up (blog.funnelfox.com)

  FunnelFox: Keep the exit survey to 1-2 questions plus "Other"; match each reason to a save offer; re-review the reason list quarterly.

• Read Appcues’s write-up (www.appcues.com)

  Appcues: Cancel-flow components: value summary, downgrade option, account pause; exit data drives win-back segmentation.