In-product exit survey setup: how to capture every churn insight with a practical exit survey churn example

This guide walks you through the complete in-product exit survey setup process for capturing user feedback at the moment of churn—including a practical exit survey churn example you can customize.

Understanding why users leave is crucial for product teams, and exit surveys deployed at the exact decision point capture this insight when it’s most actionable.

We’ll cover JS SDK targeting, survey frequency controls, and how to leverage AI-powered analysis for deeper churn insights.

Planning your exit survey triggers

The timing of your exit survey is everything—catching users at the decision moment is key to understanding the why behind their churn. You want to trigger the survey just as a user is about to delete their account, cancel a subscription, downgrade, or after a period of prolonged inactivity.

• Account deletion

• Subscription cancellation

• Downgrade actions

• Prolonged inactivity

With Specific, you can set up event-based survey triggers for each of these moments, ensuring you never miss valuable feedback.

Survey length matters: Your exit survey should be short, friendly, and conversational. Research shows keeping it under 10 questions yields an 89% completion rate, but stretching to 40 drops it to 79% [1]. With AI-powered follow-ups, you can ask targeted, relevant questions without overwhelming someone on their way out. These follow-ups guide users into providing detail, but only when it’s contextually appropriate.

Building your exit survey with AI

You can build a robust exit survey in minutes using Specific’s AI survey builder. Just describe your goal, and the tool crafts questions and dynamic follow-up paths automatically.

Here are example prompts you might use to generate your own exit survey:

Basic Churn Survey
Prompt to quickly capture general churn reasons:

Create a short exit survey to understand why users are leaving our product. Start with an open-ended question, then follow up based on their answer. Include a Net Promoter Score at the end.

SaaS Churn Survey Focused on Pricing
Tailors questions to uncover pricing and value concerns:

Design a churn survey for cancelled SaaS subscribers focusing on pricing concerns. Include specific follow-ups if users mention cost or competitor comparisons.

Feature-Focused Exit Survey for Product Teams
Digs into feature gaps or missing capabilities:

Build an exit survey for users who downgrade their plan, asking which features they needed but couldn’t find, and probing for gaps compared to alternatives.

With Specific’s AI, the follow-up logic is built in—it listens for signals like “too expensive” or “missing feature” and asks clarifying questions automatically, so you get richer context in every conversation.

Customization tip: You control how formal or casual the survey feels, and set how persistent the follow-up AI should be—perfect for tailoring depth without annoying your departing users.

Installing Specific's JS SDK for exit surveys

Getting started is simple. Install the Specific JS SDK with a single snippet—deployment usually takes just a few minutes.

<script src="https://cdn.specific.app/widget.js" data-key="YOUR_SPECIFIC_KEY"></script>

The SDK loads asynchronously, ensuring it won’t impact your product’s page performance.

To target exit surveys, you’ll want to identify users as soon as they log in, so survey logic stays accurate:

window.specificWidget.identify({ userId: '1234', planType: 'Pro', email: 'user@email.com' });

Tracking churn events:

Setting up custom event tracking lets you fire surveys at the perfect moment. For example, when a user clicks “Cancel subscription,” send a trigger:

window.specificWidget.track('cancel_subscription_initiated');

You can also set up no-code triggers for common events directly from the Specific dashboard, with no engineering required—great for quick deployment or testing new trigger logic.

Configuring targeting and frequency controls

Smart targeting ensures your exit surveys are shown only to the right segment, at the right time—never spamming active users or recent respondents. Frequency controls guard against survey fatigue, letting you:

• Set a global recontact window for all in-app surveys

• Limit exit surveys to once per user

• Allow retakes after a defined period (e.g., 3 months)

User segmentation: Targeting by user property or behavior makes exit feedback far more valuable. For example, you might only show the survey to:

• Paying subscribers (not free users)

• Users active for more than 30 days

• Members on a specific plan or with high support ticket volume

Learn more about in-product survey targeting in our in-product conversational survey guide.

Exit survey template example

Here’s a ready-to-use churn survey template, with conversational logic and AI follow-ups built in:

• Question 1: What's the main reason you're leaving?
  

  (Open-ended with AI follow-up for keywords like “price”, “complexity”, “missing feature”)

• Question 2: What could we have done differently?
  

  (Open-ended, giving users space for constructive input)

• Question 3: How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?
  

  (NPS scale with custom follow-ups: "What influenced your score?" for detractors, "What did we do well?" for promoters)

• Ending message: Thanks for sharing your thoughts. If there’s anything else you want to mention, I’m listening!

The AI automatically adapts its probing: for example, if a user mentions “price,” it follows up with, “Was it the subscription cost, unexpected charges, or comparison to alternatives that made price a problem?” This means even busy, frustrated users still yield actionable feedback—and the final message leaves the door open for further conversation.

Analyzing churn insights with AI

Raw exit survey data becomes actionable when you apply AI-powered analysis. With Specific’s AI survey response analysis tools, you can chat with GPT about your churn responses, almost like working with a real research analyst.

Here are example prompts to reveal churn insights from your data:

Discover most common churn reasons:

What are the top 3 reasons users are churning, based on recent exit survey responses?

Segmented pricing concerns:

How do pricing-related complaints differ between monthly and annual subscribers?

Feature requests at churn:

What features do users most frequently mention as missing or insufficient when leaving?

You can create multiple analysis threads—for pricing, UX, onboarding—or even skip to churn research by plan type, so that every department gets tailored insights.

Sharing insights: Export AI highlights for reporting, share quotes with your team, and trigger alerts if critical feedback patterns (like “unexpected billing”) emerge.

Best practices for exit survey success

For the highest response quality, time your survey to deploy instantly when churn intent is detected. Immediate, contextual prompts result in completion rates up to 3.4x higher than surveys sent the next day [2].

Start with an open-ended question to capture the user’s real reason for leaving, and allow the AI to follow up—probing gently, never interrogating. Keep depth limits reasonable so users don’t get survey fatigue. If you want to fine-tune your survey’s tone or probing logic, use the AI survey editor for rapid refinements.

Maximizing responses: A/B test different opening questions and adjust tones. Users appreciate action: close the loop by acting on their feedback, and set up alerts for repeat issues—such as multiple users citing “missing integrations.”

Start capturing churn insights today

Exit surveys transform churn from a mystery into an opportunity—every departing user carries an insight that could prevent future loss.

With Specific’s conversational approach, you capture 3x more context than with traditional form-based surveys, and AI-driven follow-ups go deeper without extra setup.

Ready to pinpoint why users churn? Start now and create your own survey.