In This Article
- A lost customer skips your 12-question survey and often answers one honest question.
- SurveyMonkey’s analysis of 100,000 surveys found respondents abandon fastest across the first 15 questions.
- You finish this article with a two-question email, four sorting buckets, and the one fix to make first.
To get feedback from lost customers, the best thing you can do is talk to them. Yep. Schedule a call, pick up the phone and hae a conversation with them. Ask two questions; why did you leave and what would have made you stay? It’s basically a debrief.
But what if you can’t get them on the phone – after multiple tries?
Send one plain email from your own address with two questions: what was the main reason you stopped, and what one change would have kept you? Ask for a reply with no link to click. Send it on the same schedule each time, then sort every answer into one of four buckets: price, product or service, experience, or circumstances.
A customer who left owes you nothing. A 12-question survey asks for ten minutes of attention from someone who already moved on, and the research on survey length shows how this ends. SurveyMonkey analyzed about 100,000 of its own surveys and found respondents abandon at the steepest rate across the first 15 questions (SurveyMonkey). Two questions sit well inside this limit.
How do I find out why customers left without surveying them to death?
Ask them directly, either in a conversation or in plain text, and don’t beat around the bush. Most lost customers never announce their exit. A 2016 GatherUp survey found about one-third of unhappy customers volunteer a complaint, and more than 40% never return and never say what went wrong (GatherUp). GatherUp did not publish the sample size, so treat those numbers as a rough guide.
The same survey found something useful for you: when a business asks how the experience went, almost all unhappy customers answer. You already hear from the vocal one-third through complaints, and these tips for turning customer complaints into competitive advantage cover this group. This article covers the silent majority.
Silence follows a pattern. Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer, and Bruce Hardie studied customers who fade away without canceling. In their 2018 Marketing Science study, once a customer went quiet, the company’s usual messages rarely brought them back. More proactive, customized outreach reduced silent departures (INFORMS). A personal note from your own address fits this description.
Which customers should I ask?
Let’s get straight to the point. Don’t ask ALL customers who left, ask the ones who you feel were ideal customers — the ones who should have stayed but didn’t.
Inside that group, focus on customers who bought from you at least twice and then stopped. They know your work, so their answers carry weight. Two groups qualify: customers who ended the relationship, and customers who went quiet for longer than twice your usual buying cycle.
Start with the last 10 to 20. Pull them from your invoices or your CRM, and write the last purchase date next to each name. The date drives your timing and keeps you from emailing someone who ordered last week. Skip anyone in a dispute or with an unpaid balance, because this conversation belongs in a different email. Seasonal customers paused, so keep them off the list. Read why customers stop buying even when the economy looks fine to separate real losses from normal pauses.
What two questions get feedback from lost customers?
Send this email in plain text, with no logo and no link. Or you can use this email as your phone script.
Subject: A quick question from [Your Name]
Hi [First Name],
I noticed we have not worked together since [month]. I would like to know why, and a one-line reply works.
1. What was the main reason you stopped?
2. What one change would have kept you?I read every reply myself. Thank you,
[Your Name]
Don’t go on and on. A two-line reply from a busy owner still gives you the answer. Skip the long apology and the paragraph about how much you value feedback; the customer needs to see two questions and nothing else.
Question one asks for the main reason, which gets you a single answer to sort. Question two asks for a fix, which gives you something to act on. ProsperStack’s guide to exit surveys lands on the same pair: a primary-reason question and an open-ended improvement question (ProsperStack).
Send it from your own address, with your own name, on the same day and time every round. A consistent send window makes the replies comparable. For more ways to ask customers what they want, try this $0 research hack.
The Two-Question Exit Email
One short email from your own address. Question one asks for the main reason they stopped. Question two asks what one change would have kept them.
How do I sort the answers?
Sort every reply into one of four buckets: price, product or service, experience, or circumstances. Keep a spreadsheet with one row per reply and one column for the bucket. Ten replies sort in one sitting. After the tenth, the largest bucket tells you what to fix first.
| If You See This… | It Means… | Your Next Move |
|---|---|---|
| “Too expensive.” “Found it cheaper.” | Price: your value is unclear or your pricing is out of line | Restate the value on your next invoice and test a payment plan |
| “It did not work.” “Something was missing.” | Product or service: delivery fell short | Fix the specific gap the customer named, then tell them |
| “Slow replies.” “Confusing process.” | Experience: friction cost you the sale | Map each touchpoint and remove the slowest step |
| “We closed.” “Budget cut.” “We moved.” | Circumstances: nothing you did | Add them to your win-back list with a reminder date |
I want to say something about this conversation. And this is why I advocate for having a conversation over an email – dig deeper beyond what they say. If your price is too high, they aren’t experiencing the value you promised. So what WOULD provide that value? Do your best to understand what it is, and then double down on that.
Customers will often make vague statements about why they left. Since they are your ideal customers, your best course of action is to clearly understand what’s missing from your offer that would make them choose you.
What do I do with feedback from lost customers?
Fix the top bucket first. If price leads, adjust your offer. If experience leads, fix the slowest step in your process. Fix one thing per month, because changing five things at once hides which change worked. After the fix, send the same two questions to the next round of lost customers and watch whether the bucket shrinks.
Reply to every answer within a day. Thank the customer in one sentence and keep the reply free of any pitch. Then send a win-back email in the customer’s own words. They already told you what to say. If they named slow replies, tell them what you changed about response time.
Open your invoice list today and pick the last 10 customers who stopped buying. Send the Two-Question Exit Email this week. Feedback from lost customers costs you one email and a few minutes of reading, and the replies show you where your next marketing dollar belongs.
Frequently asked questions about feedback from lost customers
Should I offer an incentive for lost-customer feedback?
No. Skip the gift card. An incentive turns a favor into a transaction, and a customer who answers for a reward writes whatever earns the reward. You want the honest sentence a customer writes for someone they respect. Ask in plain text from your own address, keep the email to two questions, and promise to read every reply. This promise carries more weight with a lost customer than a $10 voucher. Save any offer for the win-back email, after you know what went wrong. A discount sent before you understand the problem teaches customers to leave and wait for a deal. If a customer left over price, the feedback tells you whether a discount even addresses the issue. A payment plan or a clearer package might solve the problem and protect your margin. Collect the answer first, fix the cause second, and make the offer last.
How long after they leave should I ask?
Ask within 30 days of the last purchase or the cancellation, while the reason is still fresh. For customers who went quiet without canceling, use the date you expected their next order, then add two weeks. Older lists still work. Send the email to customers who left six or twelve months ago, and open with the month you last worked together so they place you quickly. Expect shorter, vaguer answers from older customers. Treat those replies as direction on the bucket and skip the finer details. Whatever timing you pick, keep the same send window every round. Tuesday morning, every month, gives you replies you compare month to month. Random timing mixes the effect of your question with the effect of the calendar. Keep a log with the date you sent each email and the date each reply arrived.
Should I call or email a customer who left?
Email first. A reply takes a lost customer a few minutes on their own schedule, while a call asks for a block of time on yours. Email also leaves a written record, which makes sorting answers into buckets quick. Reserve calls for your top customers: the five who paid you the most before they left. For those customers, a call is worth the awkward start. Keep the script to the same two questions, write down the answer in their own words, and send a thank-you email within the hour. Send everyone else a plain email with your name on it. Skip tools with logos and tracking banners for this message. A plain note from a real person reads like a favor request. Match the channel to the history: if the customer always texted you, text the two questions.
What if nobody replies to my lost-customer email?
Plan for a low reply rate. ProsperStack’s exit-survey guide reports about 8% for post-cancellation email surveys, though it names no source for the figure (ProsperStack). At this rate, ten emails produce about one reply. Send to more customers before you judge the method: 50 emails produce four or five replies, enough to spot a pattern. If a full list produces silence, check three items. First, the subject line: use your name and a plain phrase like “A quick question.” Second, the length: cut the email down to the two questions. Third, the sender: use your own address, with no marketing tool footer. Send one reminder a week later with a single line: “Did my note reach you?” After the reminder, stop. Silence tells you something too. If 50 emails return nothing, the relationship ended before the email arrived, and your energy belongs with the customers still buying.
Is a feedback tool like Looplytic worth it?
A tool pays off after the habit exists. Start with the two-question email and a spreadsheet. Once you send these emails monthly and sort replies every time, a tool saves you the manual work. I reviewed Looplytic as a customer feedback tool for small business, and my Looplytic review is the place to start. Judge any tool with three questions. Does it send a plain-text message from your own address? Does it tag each reply with one of your four buckets? Does it cost less than the revenue from one won-back customer? If the answer to any of these is no, keep the spreadsheet. A spreadsheet with 20 rows and four columns holds everything you need for the first six months, and you learn which features you want before you pay for them. Upgrade when the spreadsheet slows you down.
Additional reading
- How to Bounce Back After a Bad Customer Experience: Survey Insights
- Why Customers Leave Big Companies for Small Business
Want Someone to Read Your Replies With You?
Book a Fix-It Session with Ivana for $150. You send your two-question email, your customer list, or your first batch of replies. Within 24 hours you get a recorded video walk-through, a one-page priority plan, and an example revision. You never need to schedule a call.