Should You Use NPS For Your Exit Survey?

Exit surveys — surveys you send to customers when they cancel their subscription or don’t upgrade after a free trial, ceasing to use your service — have grown massively in popularity over the last few years, as an increasing number of businesses realize the tremendous value of feedback from departing customers.

Done right, they can provide valuable insights into why customers quit using your product, giving you a grasp of the customer experience and the issues they dealt with along the way. Used properly, Net Promoter Score surveys can serve as highly effective tools for learning more about the perception of your product, service, or business as a whole, letting you use the unlocked data to drive improvements.

While it might seem pointless to survey departing customers on their likelihood of talking about your product to friends, doing so can yield some fascinating insights and a surprising amount of actionable data to help your business grow. For example, the help desk software company Groove experimented successfully with exit surveys, generating insightful responses from around 19% of their canceling customers.

Below, we’ll explain why you should consider using NPS® as your exit survey, from the unique benefits a short and simple survey provides to the discoveries you can make about improving retention using the collected data.

Key Takeaways

• The simplicity of NPS surveys leads to higher response rates from departing customers, encouraging direct and honest feedback.
• Open-ended responses in NPS surveys reveal unknown product weaknesses, providing insights beyond standard exit surveys.
• Identifying highly dissatisfied customers through NPS surveys allows proactive issue resolution, mitigating potential negative publicity.
• Tracking NPS scores over time helps identify trends and informs decisions to enhance customer retention efforts.

NPS Surveys Are Short and Perfect for Departing Customers

Response rates for exit surveys tend to be on the low side — actually, very much on the low side. In Groove’s example, the company’s exit survey achieved a 1.3% completion rate, meaning just over one out of every 100 canceling customers bothered to provide feedback.

Even by the already low standards of conventional email surveys, a 1.3% completion rate isn’t good. It’s particularly worrying for small businesses, which may not have enough customers to ever extract meaningful insights from such an insignificant amount of survey data.

For example, if your SaaS business has 1,000 paying clients and loses 10-20 every month, it could take years to generate enough data from your exit surveys to make considerable changes to your product and improve customer retention.

In short, conventional exit surveys aren’t very effective. However, for businesses with tens of thousands of paying customers, they’re acceptable. For smaller SaaS businesses, the low response rate makes them an ineffective source of information.

One of the reasons is the complexity of many online surveys. Customers leaving your business don’t want to spend more time on you, making it highly unlikely they’ll fill in one page after another of text fields, checkboxes and radio buttons.

NPS surveys, on the other hand, are short and simple. They only ask a single question — one that customers can answer in just a few seconds. And the feedback aspect of the survey is an optional extra, reducing the friction involved in completing the survey as a departing customer. This makes NPS valuable for businesses of all sizes and industries.

Instead of wasting 10-15 minutes on filling in a conventional survey, an NPS survey allows your departing customers to speak their minds without a significant time commitment.

NPS Surveys Allow for Direct, Honest Feedback

Have you ever found yourself filling in a survey and constantly choosing “none of the above” from the list of available options?

Many customer satisfaction surveys, including exit surveys, are built around multiple-choice questions. As a departing customer, there’s little room for you to deviate from the path the survey has chosen — a path that might not include the information you’d like to share.

Net Promoter Score is different. Instead of bombarding departing customers with one multiple-choice question after another — each with a drop-down field or series of radio buttons — it gives them a chance to say what they’re actually thinking.

It means that instead of being limited in their ability to provide feedback by the predefined options, departing customers can explain exactly why they left.

There are plenty of scenarios that can lead to customer churn. It might be the case that their trial expired before they were ready to commit, your marketing promises did not match the reality or they lacked proper guidance from your support team.

They might have thought a specific aspect of your product was poorly designed, making it a pain to use on a regular basis. Or, they might have found a better deal elsewhere (if you’re lucky, there’s a chance they might even tell you which competitor they switched to).

Perhaps they have experienced recurring software glitches or issues integrating your product with something they depend on to run their business. Or, maybe they don’t need your product anymore and canceled just because it was a sensible financial decision.

All of these examples of specific feedback create opportunities for you to improve your product and reduce the risk of losing customers for similar reasons in the future. They also give you a chance to reach out to lost customers and win them back.

Any survey that allows direct, honest and comprehensive feedback beats a series of radio buttons and drop-down menus. Since NPS surveys are so simple and open, they allow departing customers to provide a level of detail and insight that traditional exit surveys can’t match.

NPS Surveys Help You Identify New Weaknesses

Your product has weaknesses you probably just don’t know about. This is true no matter how successful your marketing is, how substantial your monthly recurring revenue might be, or how little churn you have.

While products tend to attract customers with similar needs, each of them has certain unique requirements that can make one solution better than a similar one. Often, the small differences between Product A and Product B are enough to make a customer leave one for the other.

We’ve covered the importance of using an NPS survey to quantify and prioritize known causes of customer churn above. But NPS exit surveys can also be useful in helping you identify new, previously unknown reasons for losing customers.

There’s a common belief in technology that people within a company — employees, founders, and others working on a product or service daily — are within a “bubble.” They live and breathe the product, giving them a viewpoint that doesn’t always match the customers’.

This means that consumers are often more aware of your product’s weaknesses than you are, including drawbacks you might have never thought of.

Provide a conventional, restrictive dropdown survey with the typical cancellation reasons, and you’ll understand why you’re losing some customers. Deliver an open-ended NPS survey, and there’s a chance departing customers will teach you new things about your own business.

NPS Surveys Can Help You Anticipate and Avoid Bad Reviews

Beyond helping you improve your product and increase retention, an NPS exit survey can also help your business identify departing customers that are most likely to spread negative reviews about your business.

Since NPS surveys are open-ended, they make it easy for highly frustrated customers to vent their feelings. Often, a long, detailed, and overly negative response to an NPS survey can be a precursor to a string of bad tweets, reviews, or social media coverage of your business.

Data shows that bad customer service experiences are more likely to be shared than good ones, making it essential to have a warning system in place if a departing customer leaves on bad terms.

This creates several opportunities for your business. First, suppose a customer cancels and leaves a detailed, highly negative response to your NPS survey. In this case, you have the chance to prepare for a negative backlash before it happens (if the customer decides to post on social media).

You also have the perfect opportunity to reach out and attempt to resolve the situation, giving the customer a chance to part on friendly rather than hostile terms.

This approach also keeps the door open to a frustrated or disappointed departing customer returning to your business in the future. As we outlined in our guide on converting Detractors into Promoters, winning back an unhappy customer can be surprisingly easy.

NPS Surveys Can Help Track Retention Efforts

Additionally, by using NPS as your exit survey, you can track changes in customer satisfaction and measure the success of your customer retention efforts. Apart from being a quick and simple surveying method, NPS results can be easily analyzed and reported on. 

By comparing NPS scores over time across different customer segments, you can identify any potential challenges or trends. With this information, you can spot the factors that impact retention, make informed decisions about your product and build stronger relationships with your customers.

A decline in NPS scores is a clear red flag signaling roadblocks in the customer experience. By addressing it quickly, you can prevent customers from leaving and tailor retention strategies accordingly.

Crafting Impactful Exit Surveys with NPS

Designing an effective exit survey that incorporates NPS involves striking a balance between simplicity and comprehensiveness. Here are some actionable tips to help you out:

1. Start strong with NPS

Begin your survey with the NPS question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?” This straightforward question sets the tone for the rest of the survey and quickly engages the respondent. Starting with this question primes the respondent to think about their overall experience in a broad sense, which can inform their responses to subsequent questions.

2. Keep It Short and Sweet

The length of the survey is particularly impactful for customers who are already on their way out. Long surveys can feel burdensome, reducing the quality and completion rates of your feedback. Focus on asking only the most essential questions that can provide actionable insights.

Follow the NPS question with an open-ended question inquiring about the specific reasons behind their rating to capture nuances that a numerical score alone cannot convey.

Additionally, consider including questions related to key areas like overall satisfaction, specific experiences, or reasons for departure, but ensure these complement the NPS focus without overwhelming the respondent. While multiple-choice questions can speed up the process, it’s the open-ended questions that allow for more detailed feedback if the respondent wants to share more.

3. Enhance Relevance with Conditional Logic

Incorporate conditional logic into your exit surveys to make them more relevant to each respondent. This means adjusting questions based on previous answers to enhance feedback quality.

For example, if a customer cites pricing as a reason for leaving, follow up with, “What aspect of our pricing model did you find unsatisfactory?” In case service issues are cited, the next question might be, “Can you describe your recent interaction with our support team?” This targeted approach ensures feedback is specific to the customer’s experience.

4. Optimize with A/B Testing

Optimization shouldn’t stop once your survey is live. Regularly review and refine your questions based on the feedback received. Create different versions of your survey and test them with various customer segments.

For example, you can compare a version with open-ended questions to one that starts with multiple-choice questions. Analyzing the response rates and the quality of feedback will help you find the best format. Use these insights to refine your survey by removing redundant questions and adding new ones to fill any gaps.

How to Harness Customer Exit Survey Data

Collecting exit survey data is only the first step; knowing how to leverage this information effectively can make a significant difference in your business. Here’s how to put your exit survey insights into action.

Enhance Predictive Analysis for Churn Prevention

Predictive analysis can be a game-changer in spotting and reducing potential customer churn. By combining NPS with other metrics like engagement levels and customer lifetime value, you can develop a robust model to flag at-risk customers.

For instance, you might create a CLV-NPS matrix to identify customers who are both valuable and dissatisfied. If a high-value customer gives a low NPS score, it means they are unhappy and at risk of leaving. This should trigger an immediate follow-up from your team to address their concerns and improve their satisfaction.

To further refine your predictive model, cross-reference exit survey responses with your broader customer experience data. This approach can help you identify recurring issues that contribute to churn. Focusing on the feedback from high-value customers will provide insights into why these important users are leaving, allowing you to adjust your strategies to keep them around.

Implementing a Proactive Feedback Loop

Creating a proactive feedback loop based on exit survey data ensures that customer issues are addressed swiftly and effectively. This system starts with the immediate routing of survey data to your CRM, followed by a tagging and prioritization process. Your retention team then analyzes this feedback to craft personalized retention offers or solutions.

For example, if a customer cites poor customer service as their reason for leaving, your team can reach out with a special offer and a promise of improved support. If pricing is the issue, you might offer a discount or a more suitable pricing plan.

Promptly reaching out to the customer to discuss their feedback shows that you value their input and are dedicated to resolving their issues. By addressing the specific reasons for departure, you can significantly increase the chances of retaining the customer.

Building Long-Term Improvements

Using exit survey data isn’t just about short-term fixes; it’s also about long-term improvements. The insights gained from these surveys should feed into your broader business strategy, informing product development, customer service enhancements, and overall user experience improvements.

Regularly reviewing and acting on exit survey feedback helps create a culture of continuous improvement within your company. It ensures that you are always evolving to meet customer needs and expectations.

Start Sending NPS Surveys With Retently

The benefits of Net Promoter Score extend far beyond surveying departing customers as they leave your business. From quantifying the demand for new features to discovering how likely your paying customers are to recommend your company, NPS has a variety of advantages. It is a powerful tool for gaining a competitive advantage and driving success in a fast-paced business environment.

Ready to get started? Create your Retently account and start surveying your customers right away to learn more about how you can improve retention and fuel growth. Check our 7-day free trial, with no credit card or long-term contract obligation required.