Best questions for inactive users survey about reasons for inactivity

Here are some of the best questions for an inactive users survey about reasons for inactivity, along with tips for crafting them. If you want to rapidly build a tailored survey, Specific can help you generate one in seconds.

Best open-ended questions for inactive users survey about reasons for inactivity

Open-ended questions are powerful for exploring the full context behind user inactivity—they let respondents voice what's really on their mind, reveal unexpected issues, and surface nuanced feedback that's easy to miss with rigid options. They're especially good early in the journey, or when you want to uncover emotions and motivations.

1. Can you share the main reason you have stopped using our product?

2. What would have encouraged you to continue using our service?

3. Were there any challenges or frustrations that led you to become inactive?

4. Is there a particular feature you found difficult to use or understand?

5. How well did our product fit your needs or expectations?

6. Do you recall any moments when you thought about switching to another product? Why?

7. How satisfied were you with the onboarding process when you first joined?

8. Are there product improvements or updates you wished to see?

9. How was your experience with our support team, if you ever reached out?

10. What could we do differently to win you back as an active user?

Including questions like these is critical, considering that up to 75% of users abandon a SaaS product within the first week if they encounter friction during onboarding [1]. Capturing the “why” behind their inactivity reveals the actual pain points.

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for inactive users survey about reasons for inactivity

Single-select multiple-choice questions shine when you want to quickly quantify common trends, lower the effort for respondents, or use them as a warm-up to more probing follow-ups. They're excellent for identifying dominant themes, helping you filter and segment users for later analysis or targeted outreach.

Question: What was your primary reason for becoming inactive?

• Poor onboarding experience

• Product didn’t fit my needs

• Found a better alternative

• Pricing issues

• Customer support problems

• Other

Question: At what stage did you first start losing interest in our product?

• During onboarding

• After first use

• After a product update

• When pricing changed

• Other

Question: How would you rate the overall user experience (UX) design of our product?

• Excellent

• Good

• Average

• Poor

• Very poor

When to follow up with "why?" Use a follow-up “why?” when a choice signals a pain point or suggests room for deeper understanding. For example, if a user selects “Poor onboarding experience,” a follow-up like, “Can you describe what made the onboarding difficult?” gets you actionable insight, which is critical since onboarding issues cause the majority of early churn [1].

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always add "Other" for inclusivity. Sometimes, users face unique blockers you haven't anticipated. When they select "Other," prompt them for details—often, this follow-up question surfaces insights no one expected, strengthening your understanding of user experiences.

NPS question for inactive users: does it make sense?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple yet revealing question: “How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend or colleague?” On a scale of 0–10, it quickly shows user sentiment. For inactive users, NPS helps you benchmark how disappointed—even ex-users—would feel if you disappeared. If inactive users still score you highly, you might have a communication or targeted outreach issue, rather than a product value gap. Want to generate an NPS survey for inactive users in one click? Try this preset.

The power of follow-up questions

Static forms never ask for clarification in real-time, so vague responses often slip through. That’s where automated follow-up questions, like those discussed at Specific's AI Follow-up Questions feature, become invaluable. Our AI listens carefully to each user’s answers and responds conversationally, asking smart clarification or deep-dive follow-ups. This mimics an expert interviewer: if a user says “The product just didn’t work for me,” the AI might ask, “Could you describe what didn’t work or what you were hoping it would do?”

• Inactive user: “I stopped using it because it felt confusing.”

• AI follow-up: “Which part of the product did you find confusing, and what would have helped clarify it for you?”

How many followups to ask? In practice, 2–3 follow-ups are enough to fully understand a respondent’s reason for inactivity. Specific lets you automate this with settings to move on once you capture the desired context, avoiding fatigue.

This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of a cold, one-way form, you’re having a real conversation, increasing engagement and response quality.

Analyze follow-up data easily: Even if your survey results are filled with rich, unstructured open-text, it's now easy to analyze responses using AI. The platform summarizes, categorizes, and highlights core topics—making analysis simple instead of overwhelming.

These breakthrough features are unique to Specific. If you haven't experienced an automated, conversational survey, try generating a conversational survey and see the difference for yourself.

Prompting ChatGPT to generate your own questions

If you want to ideate outside of Specific, you can ask ChatGPT or any advanced AI tool to help you. Start simple, then add context for better results.

First, try this:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Inactive Users survey about Reasons For Inactivity.

You’ll always get higher-quality results if you add more about your product, user base, or what you need to learn, for example:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Inactive Users survey about Reasons For Inactivity. My SaaS product serves B2B customers in HR tech, and I'm struggling with user churn after major feature updates. I want to understand technical blockers, lack of value, or poor onboarding experiences.

Once you have a good batch of questions, ask the AI to group them:

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

Explore the categories, then drill deeper:

Generate 10 questions for categories "onboarding experience" and "product value".

This iterative process surfaces well-targeted, contextual survey questions for any audience.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey mimics a real conversation, not a static form. Every respondent gets personalized, contextual questions—thanks to live follow-ups—that probe beyond their initial answers. Unlike traditional forms that treat users like numbers, conversational surveys feel human, making people more likely to respond thoughtfully.

Why use AI for inactive users surveys? AI survey builders, like Specific, allow you to move far beyond standard rigid forms. You get richer insights about the actual reasons for inactivity by capturing context-aware replies, benefit from real-time clarifications, and save massive time on response analysis. If you want to see how quickly you can build an AI survey example for inactive users, or generate a conversational survey tailored to Reasons For Inactivity, just try the AI survey generator.

For in-depth guidance, see our guide on creating a survey about reasons for inactivity.

Specific delivers the smoothest experience for both creators and survey takers. AI-powered conversational surveys get responses you’d never see from a static Google Form. You’ll uncover what’s holding your users back and what would bring them back again.

See this reasons for inactivity survey example now

Try an AI-powered conversational survey for inactive users today and uncover deep reasons for inactivity. With Specific, you get follow-up logic, automated analysis, and a best-in-class respondent experience—all in one place.