SaaS glossary
Exit survey
An exit survey is a short question shown when a customer clicks cancel, asking why they are leaving so you can respond to it or learn from it.
Also called: cancellation survey, churn survey
What an exit survey does
The survey appears immediately after the customer clicks cancel, before the subscription ends. It presents a small set of reasons such as price, missing features, low usage, or switching tools.
The customer picks one reason. That choice can trigger a matched response, such as a pause for low usage or a discount for price, and it is recorded for product and pricing decisions.
Design principles that work
Keep it to one question with four to six mutually exclusive options plus an other field. Long surveys get abandoned and yield noisy data.
Use the customer's language, not internal jargon. Too expensive beats pricing misalignment. Not using it beats low engagement.
Make the submit button the same visual weight as the cancel button so the survey feels like part of the flow, not a barrier.
What to do with the data
Aggregate the reasons weekly to see which drivers are growing or shrinking. Share the breakdown with product, pricing, and support.
Connect each reason to a specific response in the cancel flow. If no response exists for a top reason, that is a product gap to prioritize.
Where BoolBul fits
BoolBul shows a one-tap exit survey with the reasons you choose, then one pause or discount offer matched to the answer. The cancel link stays visible throughout.
FAQ
How many reasons should an exit survey have?
Four to six options plus an open text other field. More options dilute the signal and make matching offers harder.
Should the survey be optional?
Yes. The customer should be able to cancel without answering. A forced answer produces bad data, and holding the cancel button hostage to a survey is a dark pattern.
Can the survey replace talking to customers?
No. It tells you what the top reasons are at scale. It does not tell you the nuance behind a specific customer's decision. Use both.
Related terms
- Voluntary churn: Voluntary churn is when a subscriber chooses to cancel, as opposed to losing them to a failed payment. It is the churn a cancel flow can influence.
- Save rate: Save rate is the share of cancellation sessions that end with the customer staying subscribed. It shows whether a cancel flow is doing anything.
- Cancellation flow: A cancellation flow is the set of screens a subscriber sees after clicking cancel: usually a reason question, one relevant offer and a clear way out.
- Negative option billing: Negative option billing is any arrangement where the customer keeps being charged until they take action to cancel. Most subscriptions work this way.
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