Best questions for canceled subscribers survey about customer support experience

Here are some of the best questions for a canceled subscribers survey about customer support experience, along with practical tips for crafting them. If you want to build such a survey in seconds, you can generate it using Specific and start getting real feedback effortlessly.

Best open-ended questions for canceled subscribers surveys about customer support experience

Open-ended questions allow canceled subscribers to share their unique stories and frustrations in their own words, revealing motivations you might otherwise miss. They’re especially valuable for discovering “why” behind the numbers, venting about friction points, or highlighting missing expectations. You get richer, more contextual answers—which are key when you want to dig below the surface of churn reasons.

Given that 52% of consumers feel exhausted by support interactions, and 55% report increased stress during support exchanges, it’s critical to ask questions that let subscribers explain these pain points in their own terms. [1]

1. What made you decide to cancel your subscription after experiencing our customer support?

2. Can you describe a recent interaction with our support team that influenced your decision to leave?

3. What aspects of our support worked well for you, and what could we improve?

4. Did anything about the way we resolved your issue (or didn’t resolve it) frustrate you? Please explain.

5. If you encountered support through multiple channels (chat, email, phone), were there any differences in your experience?

6. Was there a point during your support interaction where you thought about giving us another chance? What changed your mind?

7. How did our response time and follow-up compare to your expectations?

8. Did you feel you had to repeat yourself or re-explain your issue to different representatives?

9. Is there something you wish our support team understood about your experience as a canceling customer?

10. Anything else you’d like to share about your experience that could help us improve?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for canceled subscribers surveys about customer support experience

Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal when you need to quantify trends or kick off a conversation. Sometimes, it’s much easier for respondents to react to a list of options instead of coming up with detailed thoughts on the spot. Once you spot a pattern, you can follow up for details. Use these when you want quick, comparable data points or need to “thin-slice” responses for deeper follow-up.

For instance, you might want to segment by support channel—especially since the satisfaction rate for support varies by channel: 19% for chat, 5% for email, and 5% for phone. [1] This helps you zero in on where things break.

Question: Which support channel did you use most before canceling?

• Live chat

• Email

• Phone

• Self-service/help center

• Other

Question: How satisfied were you with the resolution you received from our customer support?

• Very satisfied

• Somewhat satisfied

• Neutral

• Somewhat dissatisfied

• Very dissatisfied

Question: Did you have to repeat or re-explain your issue to different representatives?

• No, never

• Yes, once

• Yes, more than once

• I don’t remember

When to follow up with “why?” When someone gives a strong positive or negative answer, ask “why?” to uncover motivations, actionable pain points, or ideas for how to fix or double down on what’s working. For example, if someone says they were very dissatisfied, the follow-up could be, “Can you share more about what made the experience frustrating?” This helps surface the specifics behind a score or choice.

When and why to add the “Other” choice? Add “Other” when your options may not cover every scenario or edge case. Letting respondents specify their unique context is critical—follow-up questions here can uncover patterns you never considered, and sometimes these unexpected insights drive your biggest improvements.

NPS-style question for canceled subscribers: does it make sense?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a powerful measure of overall loyalty and satisfaction. Asking canceled subscribers, “How likely are you to recommend our company based on your customer support experience?” can reveal just how deep their frustrations run—or even spot silent promoters who would have stayed if not for a critical hiccup. It’s a standardized question that’s fast to answer and makes benchmarking easy. You can easily build an NPS survey for canceled subscribers’ customer support experience with our survey generator.

NPS works especially well as a temperature check, flagging not only who’s most disappointed, but also why (when paired with a “please explain” follow-up). Given that 21% of customers expect instant resolution, while 23% expect it within the hour [1], you’ll see whether your speed of service or support style impacts loyalty across the board.

The power of follow-up questions

Open-ended and multiple-choice questions are great, but it’s the follow-up that really unlocks the “why” behind the churn. With Specific’s automated follow-up questions, our AI learns from each response and probes deeper, just like a skilled interviewer—no manual chasing required. This means you can go from shallow data to deep, actionable insights, almost effortlessly. Real-time follow-ups capture context while it’s fresh and let canceling subscribers vent, clarify, or elaborate naturally.

• Canceled Subscriber: “Support took too long to reply.”

• AI follow-up: “How long did you wait for a response, and how did that affect your decision to cancel?”

Imagine if you never followed up: you’d only know there was a delay, but not if it ruined trust, led them to a competitor, or was a one-off glitch. With dynamic follow-ups, you get the real story—not just the headline.

How many followups to ask? In our experience, two or three targeted follow-ups are enough to get robust context, while preventing fatigue. If you already have a clear answer, smart survey design lets you skip to the next question. You can tune this easily within Specific’s settings.

This makes it a conversational survey: Specific’s approach turns surveys into a back-and-forth, making respondents feel heard, not just polled.

AI survey response analysis: Even with lots of unstructured stories, analyzing results is instant using AI tools that summarize, group and spot trends. You can literally chat with your survey data, asking things like “What patterns show up among those who canceled after a slow reply?”—and Specific handles the synthesis.

Automated, AI-powered follow-ups are a game changer. Try generating a conversational survey and experience the difference for yourself.

How to get better questions for canceled subscribers: writing prompts for AI

Want great questions fast? Try prompting ChatGPT or another GPT tool. Here’s a solid start:

Begin with:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for canceled subscribers survey about customer support experience.

But don’t just stop there! If you tell the AI more about your situation—like the platform, your customer profile, your goals—you’ll get sharper, more relevant questions. For example:

Our SaaS product serves SMBs in the US. Many canceled subscribers used phone and chat support before leaving. We want to know what failed, what worked, and what would have convinced them to stay. Suggest 10 open-ended survey questions.

Once you have a list, organize it for clarity:

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

Review the categories, then focus where you care most. Let’s say you want to drill into support speed and clarity:

Generate 10 questions for categories issue resolution speed and communication clarity.

This iterative prompting, especially when paired with tools like Specific’s survey editor, hones in on the questions that reveal the real churn drivers.

What is a conversational survey? Why AI survey generation is a game changer

A conversational survey isn’t just a list of rigid questions—it’s a back-and-forth, adapting to answers in real time. When we use AI survey generators, especially the kind Specific offers, you skip the clunky setup and reproduce the best parts of expert interviews at scale: follow-ups, clarifications, and genuine rapport. The whole experience is more natural for the respondent and much less painful for you to create and analyze.

Why use AI for canceled subscribers surveys? AI-generated conversational surveys adapt on the fly and dive deeper where it matters most. This means you get richer stories about why people cancel, which makes fixing issues—and reducing churn—a lot easier. You also save huge amounts of time crafting, tweaking, sending, and analyzing the survey. If you want to see how straightforward it is to build this kind of survey, check out our guide on how to create a survey for canceled subscribers around customer support experience.

Specific is designed to make conversational, AI-powered surveys effortless for both you and your respondents. Our best-in-class user experience ups response rates and lets you hear the full story, every time.

See this customer support experience survey example now

Don’t wait to uncover why canceled subscribers leave—see a survey example and start getting actionable feedback that helps you win back loyalty with every response.