Here are some of the best questions for a SaaS customer survey about renewal intent, plus tips for crafting them. Need to build this kind of survey fast? You can generate one with Specific in seconds—no manual setup required.
Best open-ended questions for a saas customer survey about renewal intent
If what you want is richer, deeper insights—not just surface-level data—open-ended questions are the way to go. Open responses let customers explain the "why" behind their choices, reveal friction points, and help uncover unknown opportunities. While analysis is more complex, AI tools make this easy. It’s best to use open-ended questions at the beginning or whenever you want to explore user motivations in detail.
Here are 10 of our favorite open-ended questions for a renewal intent survey:
What’s the main reason you’re considering renewing (or not renewing) your subscription?
How does our product support your business goals or daily workflow?
Tell us about a recent experience—positive or negative—that stands out since you started using our product.
What could we do differently to make you more likely to renew?
Was there a moment you thought about cancelling your subscription? What happened?
What features do you rely on most, and is there anything you wish worked differently?
If you had to explain our value to a colleague, how would you describe it?
How satisfied are you with our customer support and onboarding process?
What frustrates you most when using our product?
What’s one thing we could change (or add) to make it easier to stick with us long-term?
Open-ended questions reveal context that simple ratings or yes/no answers can't deliver. When you combine conversational surveys with AI-driven analysis, you get both depth and clarity—without hours of manual review. And considering that 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers, it’s never been more important to ask the right questions and really listen to those answers. [1]
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for saas customer survey about renewal intent
Single-select multiple-choice questions are your friend when you need quantifiable data or want to nudge the conversation forward. They're perfect for benchmarking, easy for respondents, and make analysis a breeze. Use them when you want clear segmentations—like renewal intent—or to gently ease into follow-up questions for deeper insight.
Question: How likely are you to renew your subscription with us?
Very likely
Somewhat likely
Uncertain
Somewhat unlikely
Very unlikely
Question: What is the primary reason influencing your renewal decision?
Product features
Customer support
Pricing
Business needs have changed
Other
Question: How well does our solution meet your current needs?
Extremely well
Very well
Somewhat well
Not so well
Not at all well
When to follow up with "why?" If a respondent selects a negative or uncertain answer (like "Uncertain" or "Not so well"), always follow up with an open-ended "why?" This uncovers pain points—maybe your support didn't meet expectations or they’re facing new business challenges.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Any time you're listing common reasons but know you can't cover every case, include "Other" as an option. Prompting a follow-up where users describe their situation in their own words often reveals trends you never expected (like integration gaps or contract limitations).
These structured questions, paired with smart AI follow-ups, save time and give you clear data to act on—especially crucial since only 18% of companies truly focus on customer retention. [1]
NPS question for saas customer renewal intent
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a time-tested way to measure customer loyalty, and it fits right into renewal intent surveys. You simply ask customers how likely they are to recommend your product to a friend or colleague on a scale of 0-10—and then follow up based on their rating. NPS not only benchmarks sentiment but helps you detect promoters (likely to renew), passives (at risk), and detractors (likely to churn).
Want to see how a tailored NPS survey could look? Jump straight to our NPS survey builder for SaaS renewal intent.
Given research showing that a 5% boost in customer retention can increase profits by up to 95% [1], NPS can anchor your long-term growth strategy.
The power of follow-up questions
Want to know a secret about high-performing surveys? It’s all in the follow-up. Automated follow-up questions (like those Specific generates) take every vague or incomplete answer and turn it into crystal-clear, actionable insight. Learn how AI follow-ups work—and why they’re changing the game.
Smart AI knows when to ask a gentle "Can you tell me more about that?" or probe for details about their hesitation, revealing blockers you won’t find in check-box-only forms. Research shows AI-powered conversational surveys engage participants more and deliver higher quality insights [3], thanks to their informality and adaptability.
Customer: "I’m not sure your product fits our needs anymore."
AI follow-up: "Could you share what needs have changed or which specific areas aren’t a fit anymore?"
Instead of ending up with murky data, you get the clarity that fuels retention strategies—a key reason why companies with median net revenue retention rates over 100% grow so efficiently. [1]
How many followups to ask? In practice, 2-3 follow-up questions strike the right balance—thorough enough for depth, but never overwhelming. With Specific, you can adjust the follow-up depth or tell the AI to wrap up when you’ve got what you need.
This makes it a conversational survey: The survey transforms into a genuine back-and-forth, helping keep customers engaged and less likely to drop off.
AI analysis, unstructured data, and easy insights: Even when you gather long-form, open-ended replies, AI tools like Specific’s AI survey response analysis make sense of it all—summarizing, finding key themes, and letting you chat with the data instead of reading every single response. See how easy it is to analyze AI survey responses.
Follow-ups are a breakthrough feature—try building a conversational survey to experience it yourself. The difference is noticeable, and actionable insights are instantaneous.
Prompting GPTs to generate better renewal intent survey questions
Sometimes you want to fine-tune your survey or add your own flavor. AI models like ChatGPT can help, but the quality of what you get depends on your prompt. Here’s how to craft prompts that generate great questions for SaaS customer renewal intent surveys:
Start simple:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for SaaS customer survey about renewal intent.
To get higher quality results, give more context:
Here’s who I am (product manager at a B2B SaaS platform with 300 SMB customers, 90% renewal rate, most churn happens at contract renewal time). I want to understand why customers renew, which features drive value, and where we’re missing the mark. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a renewal intent survey that will surface both reasons to stay and reasons customers hesitate.
Next, ask for organization:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Finally, if one area (like pricing sensitivity or feature adoption) is key, go deeper:
Generate 10 questions for categories Pricing and Feature adoption.
Prompting like this ensures your survey covers every angle that matters. If you’d rather skip manual tweaking, Specific’s AI survey builder does the heavy lifting for you—no prompt engineering required.
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys turn traditional forms upside down. Instead of a static page of questions, you get a dynamic dialog that unfolds like real conversation. The AI listens, adapts, and asks follow-up questions, just like a real researcher would.
What’s the difference? Here’s a quick comparison:
Manual survey | AI-generated conversational survey |
|---|---|
Rigid questions, no follow-ups | Responsive questions with real-time follow-up |
Low respondent engagement | Feels like a chat—higher completion and richer feedback |
Difficult to analyze long answers | AI automatically summarizes and interprets all responses |
Hours spent reviewing and filtering open-ended replies | Instant insights, with filtering and data chat features |
Why use AI for SaaS customer surveys? AI-driven surveys save you massive amounts of time—creating, launching, following up, and analyzing. They deliver higher engagement (thanks to that chat-like feel) and better data quality for actionable outcomes. In fact, AI-powered feedback tools lead to richer, more specific responses and higher participant engagement, as shown in multiple field studies. [3]
If you’re new to conversational surveys, we break down the process step-by-step in our guide to creating your first renewal intent survey. Want to play with the structure or tone? Try the AI survey editor—make quick changes by chatting with the AI, not battling a spreadsheet.
Specific is recognized as a leader in conversational surveys, making the experience smooth and rewarding both for survey creators and respondents. This is how you turn a survey from a questionnaire into a true feedback conversation.
See this renewal intent survey example now
Unlock better insights and maximize retention—see this renewal intent survey example in action, and start making smarter decisions with Specific’s conversational, AI-powered approach.