Best questions for canceled subscribers survey about competitor switching reasons

Here are some of the best questions for a canceled subscribers survey about competitor switching reasons, plus tips for designing them. If you want to build a survey for this use case, you can generate one instantly with Specific—it’s fast, flexible, and helps you get deep insights in minutes.

Best open-ended questions for Canceled Subscribers survey about competitor switching reasons

We always recommend including open-ended questions when running a survey for canceled subscribers about competitor switching reasons. Open questions let people explain their decisions in their own words, revealing subtleties and motivations behind churn that quantitative options might miss. It’s best to use them to gather honest feedback right after cancellation, especially given that the typical annual churn rate for SaaS companies ranges between 5% and 7%. [1] Honest qualitative input from former customers is precious for learning and improving.

Here are 10 of our go-to open-ended questions for this survey:

1. What was the main reason you decided to switch to a competitor?

2. Can you tell us about the first moment you started considering leaving our service?

3. Which competitor did you choose, and what features or benefits attracted you?

4. Was there something missing in our product that you found elsewhere?

5. How did our pricing affect your decision to switch?

6. What’s one thing a competitor does better than we do?

7. Did you experience any challenges or frustrations with our customer support?

8. If you could improve one thing about our product or service, what would it be?

9. Did a specific event or interaction trigger your cancellation?

10. If you could give us advice for winning you back, what would it be?

Asking these questions uncovers actionable context—not just about what’s going wrong, but also what the competition offers that you don’t.

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for canceled subscribers survey about competitor switching reasons

Sometimes people need a nudge to get talking, or you want to quantify the top reasons people cite for leaving. That’s where single-select multiple-choice questions shine. They’re useful when you want to:

• Quantify the most common cancellation reasons

• Lower the barrier to answering (especially at the start)

• Trigger thoughtful follow-ups without overwhelming respondents

Here are a few examples tailored to this use case:

Question: What was the primary reason you canceled your subscription?

• Pricing is too high

• Lack of key features

• Poor customer support

• Found a better alternative

• Other

Question: Which competitor did you switch to?

• Competitor A

• Competitor B

• Competitor C

• Did not switch to any competitor

• Other

Question: How did our product compare to your new provider in terms of features?

• Much better

• Slightly better

• About the same

• Slightly worse

• Much worse

When to follow up with "why?" After someone picks a choice, it’s smart to ask "Why?". For example, if someone picks "Pricing is too high," we’d prompt them to explain what makes the competitor’s price feel fairer or whether an increase in value would have justified your cost. This uncovers specifics you might never expect.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always leave room for "Other." This is your chance to capture unique feedback you hadn’t anticipated. With a follow-up "Please share more about your reason," you’ll discover issues or values totally outside your radar. Surprises like these often inform your product strategy most.

Should you use an NPS question for this survey?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a classic: "How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?" For canceled subscribers, it’s a bit counterintuitive—shouldn’t we only ask NPS from active customers? Actually, asking detractors right at cancellation is gold. It uncovers how deep the pain point runs and what would move the needle for them. If you want to instantly include an NPS question tailored for this audience and topic, use this NPS survey generator.

NPS is especially revealing for measuring whether churned users would still speak positively about your brand or warn others. When paired with a "Why did you give that score?" follow-up, you get context-rich stories that go way beyond numbers.

The power of follow-up questions

If you want actionable feedback, don’t settle for the first answer. Automated follow-up questions are a game-changer for getting beyond surface-level responses. With Specific’s AI follow-up questions feature, the survey adapts in real time to each respondent’s answer, probing deeper to extract the full picture—just like an expert interviewer.

Why does this matter? Well, **acquiring new customers costs between five and twenty-five times more than retaining existing ones**. [4] So, understanding exactly why subscribers churn is crucial for lasting improvement and lowering SaaS churn rates.

• Canceled Subscriber: “I switched because you didn’t have the integrations I needed.”

• AI follow-up: “Which specific integrations were you looking for, and how did the competitor address this need better?”

Without that follow-up, you’d just see “integrations” as a trend in the data and never know which ones drive users away.

How many follow-ups to ask? We’ve found two or three targeted follow-up questions are often enough. It’s also important to let the respondent skip or move on after sharing what’s most relevant. Specific includes a setting to customize this, keeping the conversation respectful and efficient.

This makes it a conversational survey—which is far more engaging than a static form. Respondents stay interested, and you get real, actionable stories.

AI survey response analysis, unstructured text, open-ended feedback—All that rich narrative can be easily analyzed with AI now. Specific offers AI-powered response analysis that makes sense of the full context, without overwhelming your team.

Automated AI probing is a modern approach—if you’re curious, try generating your survey now and see how the dynamic conversation works.

How to write a ChatGPT prompt for canceled subscribers survey about competitor switching reasons

If you want to use ChatGPT or another GPT-4 agent to come up with tailored survey questions, you need to write a clear, focused prompt. Start simple:

Here’s a first example:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a canceled subscribers survey about competitor switching reasons.

But you’ll always get better results if you specify more about your product, your canceled subscribers, and your exact business goal. For example:

We’re a SaaS billing automation tool. Most of our churned subscribers are small business owners. Our main goal is to learn why they left for competitors, especially around integrations, price, or support. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to capture context and actionable feedback.

Once you have your questions, you can use the following to organize them:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Finally, to go deeper into specific categories that matter most, ask:

Generate 10 questions for categories "integrations" and "pricing".

This iterative prompting style always helps you dig into the roots of churn and tailor your survey for maximum insight. Or you can jump straight to the AI survey tool and let it do this step for you.

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys transform the act of answering questions from a chore into an engaging dialogue. Unlike traditional forms (which feel static and impersonal), conversational surveys mimic a real chat. The AI follows your respondent’s lead, asks clarifying questions, and adapts in real time—delivering higher-quality insights and better experience for both sides.

Let’s break it down with a visual:

Why use AI for canceled subscribers surveys? First, online surveys for this audience often have modest response rates—online surveys average just 10–15%. [5] But conversational surveys increase engagement by making the experience personal and quick. Plus, with AI follow-ups and instant analysis, you save days of manual work and never miss a key insight, especially in high-churn environments where details matter.

Specific delivers a best-in-class conversational survey experience—mobile-friendly, customizable, and designed specifically for SaaS teams tackling churn. If you’re curious how to make your first survey with minimum effort, check our guide on how to create a canceled subscribers survey in one sitting.

See this Competitor Switching Reasons survey example now

Ready to uncover why your canceled subscribers really left for a competitor? Use a conversational, AI-powered survey to get real answers—Specific’s platform collects richer, more honest feedback in less time and keeps your SaaS growth on track.