What Are Customer Retention Surveys & How to Design One

There are all sorts of reasons why a SaaS company would lose its customers. Perhaps a complex UX, misaligned pricing, poor support, or even a lack of product-market fit.

The real issue here? Not being able to discover these problems soon enough.

This is what customer retention surveys solve. Customer retention surveys give you a direct window into how your customers feel about your product, pricing, and support before they walk away.

In this guide, we'll break down what a retention survey should be like, what questions to ask, and how to conduct it in a way that actually gets responses. Let's dive right in.

What are customer retention surveys?

Customer retention surveys are structured questionnaires designed to help SaaS businesses gather insights into why customers stay, leave, or might churn and what can be done to increase their loyalty.

When should you send a customer retention survey?

Even if you create a well-written survey, sending it at a random time can result in low engagement or irrelevant feedback. Instead, anchor your survey to meaningful moments in the customer journey. Here are a few best points in the customer journey to check-in:

• After customer support interactions: This one is obvious. If someone has reached out to your business for help and you assisted them, follow up with a survey post-completion. A quick survey helps you see whether the issue was properly resolved and if the experience was a good one.
  Example question: How satisfied are you with the support you received? (Rating scale 1–5)
• Before contract renewal: Renewals are make-or-break moments in subscription products. Asking a few questions before judgment day gives you a chance to fix anything that feels off.
  Example question: Are there any aspects of our service or product you feel could better support your business goals?
• After a major feature release or pricing change: Big changes can significantly affect customer sentiment. Surveying customers shortly after you roll out a feature update or make pricing changes helps you see initial reactions or any possible friction.
  Example question: Which of the new features released this year have you found most valuable?
• After key milestones or usage dips: Whether celebrating a success or addressing declining engagement, surveys during these moments help you understand what's driving momentum or what's causing customers to pull back.
  Example question:
  • Milestone: How has the product supported your business goals since the last milestone?
  • Usage dips: Have you experienced any challenges that caused a drop in usage?
• After onboarding: Early impressions matter. Checking in a few weeks post-onboarding helps you evaluate how well your team and product helped customers get started and identify any early-stage friction.
  Example question: Did our onboarding process help you start using the product easily?

Different methods of conducting customer retention surveys

There's no single "best" way to run a customer retention survey; what matters most is using a channel your customers actually engage with. That said, some channels offer better depth, scale, or timing depending on your goals. Here are some of the most commonly used methods in B2B SaaS:

1. Email surveys

The most popular method, email surveys, allows you to reach decision-makers and users directly. You can personalize the survey based on customer information and automate triggers at key moments like renewals or churn events.

2. Face-to-face interviews

Though resource-intensive, face-to-face interviews can result in deep qualitative feedback. These are especially useful with high-value accounts where you want to connect with the stakeholder on a personal level and observe their behavior in real-time.

3. Telephone

Phone-based surveys are more personal than email but easier to scale than in-person meetings. These surveys let you speak with customers in real-time, which makes it easier to ask follow-up questions and clarify responses.

4. In-app surveys

In-app surveys show up while users are actively working on your product, which means their feedback is based on what they're experiencing at the moment. This makes the insights more accurate. They're ideal for short, targeted questions like whether a new feature is easy to use or harms their workflow.

How to create a customer retention survey

As you read above, there are several methods to deliver customer retention surveys. But for this guide, we'll focus on email surveys since they strike the right balance between reach, personalization, and ease of analysis.

It's also incredibly easy to build and send one using Mailmodo. In just a few steps, you can create, design, and automate a survey email. Let's walk through it.

Step 1: Get clear on why you're sending the survey

Before jumping into writing questions or choosing who to send the survey to, take a moment to zoom out and ask: What exactly are we trying to learn?

Without a clear goal, it's easy to end up with a bunch of random questions that don't lead to anything useful.

Here are a few common goals you can use as a starting point:

• Understand churn: What's pushing people to leave? Are there repeat complaints or unmet needs?
• Check satisfaction after a change: Whether it's a new feature or a pricing update, quick feedback can show if the change landed well or caused friction.
• Measure loyalty and engagement: Are your long-term customers still happy? Would they recommend you to others?

Pick one clear goal, and make everyone on the team aligned with it before you start building your survey.

Step 2: Choose the right segment to email

Once you know what you're trying to learn, the next step is figuring out who to ask the questions to. Not every customer will be able to give you the kind of answers you're looking for.

That's why it's important to choose the right group of people based on the specific goal you're after. Here's how to match your audience with your goal:

• Understand churn: Send the survey to customers who recently canceled, downgraded, or haven't engaged in a while.
• Get feedback on a new feature or change: Target users who've had time to interact with the update.
• Measure loyalty: Focus on long-time users, high-value accounts, or customers who renew consistently.

Step 3: Design your survey

Now that you've locked in your goal and identified your audience, it's time to build the actual survey.

Start by jotting down 5–7 key questions that align with your objective. Keep them short, clear, and varied in format—mix multiple choice, rating scales, and one or two open-ended questions to capture both data and nuance.

Once your questions are ready, here's how to bring them to life in Mailmodo:

1. Open the Mailmodo editor and create a new email campaign.

2. Select the blank form/survey widget from the widget panel.

3. Add your questions one by one. For each, define the appropriate response format—dropdowns, star ratings, text fields, etc.

4. Design the rest of the email :

   • Add a warm intro that explains why you're reaching out
   • Insert your company logo for brand consistency
   • Use a single, clear CTA (like "Take the Survey")

5. Preview and test the email across devices to make sure it looks good and functions smoothly on both desktop and mobile.

Step 4: Send out your survey

With your survey ready to go, head back to your Mailmodo dashboard to prepare for launch.

• Refer back to the audience you identified in Step 2 and select your segments. This ensures your survey reaches the exact audience it was designed for, whether that's recently churned users, customers after onboarding, or those impacted by a new feature or pricing change.

• Make sure the timing makes sense. The closer your survey lands to the relevant moment (e.g., right after a support ticket is closed or a feature is released), the more accurate and useful the feedback will be.

• Automate the send. Use Mailmodo's automation features to trigger surveys based on lifecycle events, making sure you reach customers when it matters most.

Lastly, send to the full segment not just a handful. A broader, well-targeted send helps you uncover patterns, reduce bias, and draw more reliable conclusions from your data.

Step 5: Monitor your survey responses

Once your survey is sent, your job is to pay close attention to how people are engaging with it.

Start by checking basic email metrics like open rate, click-through rate, and completion rate. This gives you an early signal of how well your survey is being received.

For example :

• If open rates are low, your subject line or timing might need work.
• If people are opening but not clicking, maybe the message isn't clear, or the call-to-action is getting lost.
• If they're clicking but not completing the survey, the survey itself might feel too long or confusing.

Go back and review all these points to make sure your survey process is more approachable to the audience.

Also, you don't have to wait until all the responses are in to start learning. You can check individual responses in Mailmodo to look for emerging trends early.

Final thoughts

There you have it: a complete, practical guide to sending customer retention surveys that actually get opened, clicked, and answered. From setting one clear goal to selecting the right segment and designing an intuitive email survey, every step helps you unlock more meaningful, actionable feedback from your customers.

If there's one takeaway to keep in mind, it's this: the most effective surveys are personal, respectful of time, and aligned with where your customer is in their journey. Keep it clear, keep it thoughtful, and your customers will tell you what you need to hear.