How to write to a customer about to leave

When a customer is heading for the exit, send a short message that names what you noticed, asks one question you actually want answered, and makes leaving easy. Nothing else. The rescue attempt is the part that turns a quiet departure into a story they tell about you.

I have been the leaving customer many times. The emails that arrive at that moment are almost always about the sender's feelings, and I have never replied to one of them.

What the message is for

This message exists to get information. Keeping the account is a pleasant side effect, and treating it as the goal is why most of these messages read like a hostage note with good typography.

A customer on the way out owes you nothing. No renewal ahead of them, and no working relationship left to keep smooth.

That makes them the most honest reader you will ever have, and you get roughly one message to use it. A single sentence about what broke is worth more to you than a grudging extra month from somebody who already decided in their head weeks ago.

The shape

Four short parts: what you noticed, what you are not going to do, one question, and how to leave cleanly.

• Name what you saw in their own terms, with no accusation attached to it.
• Say plainly that you are not writing to talk them out of anything.
• Ask one question, and make it the smallest useful one you have.
• Tell them how to finish leaving, including anything they should take with them.

Written out, it is this small:

"I saw your team stopped importing files and the account has been quiet since. I am not writing to talk you out of anything. One question if you have a minute: what were you trying to get done the week this stopped being worth the effort? Either way, your export link is below, and closing the account takes one click in settings."

Nobody needs the paragraph about how much you value the partnership. They are leaving. The paragraph is for you.

Ask one question, not a survey

One question gets answered, and five questions get archived.

The useful question asks about a moment rather than an opinion. People are bad at rating you and good at telling you what they were doing when they gave up.

• "What were you trying to do the day you stopped?" gets a story, and the story carries the reason.
• "What would have had to be true for this to stick?" gets the gap in one line.
• "Where did you go instead?" is fair to ask, and people answer it more often than you would expect.
• "Is there anything we could have done better?" gets "not really" from everyone, forever.

Send it from a person, in plain text, with no logo across the top. A feedback form at the exit is a way of asking a question while making clear you would rather not read the answer.

I write these slowly. My first draft is always too warm at the top and slightly wounded at the bottom, so I take the Direct rewrite in Unvent and send the version that asks the question without the flinch around it.

The offer at the door

Money off at the exit almost never works, and it tells the customer their old price was a number you made up.

Think about what the discount says. For a year they paid one thing, and the moment they threatened to walk, a cheaper version appeared out of nowhere. You have just taught them how to negotiate with you, and taught them that the earlier number was soft.

When somebody leaves because the product does not do the job, cheaper is the same problem with less money attached. When somebody leaves because of cost, they have usually already found the cheaper thing and set it up.

One case makes an offer honest: you know a specific fix is coming for their specific problem, and you can name the fix and the timing. Then the offer is a request to wait for something real, which is a different conversation and can be had without shame.

When they answer, do not argue

The fastest way to waste a reply is to explain why they were wrong.

They will say something slightly unfair. Part of it will be a misunderstanding of a feature that exists and works, and you will feel the correction rising up your throat while you read. Type it in a draft and delete it.

Two lines is the right length for your reply. Thanks, plus the one thing you took from what they said. If the fix is real and small, say you are doing it. If it is not, say nothing at all about the roadmap, because a promise made to somebody who is leaving is a promise nobody will check.

Then leave them alone. There is a version of following up that works, and it needs an open question sitting between two people. Once they have gone, there is not one.

Make the leaving clean

Leaving should take one click and no conversation with anybody.

• Tell them where their data lives and how to take a copy of it with them.
• Confirm what happens to the account and when, in a line they can forward without editing it.
• Say the door stays open, once, and then stop saying it.

Every hoop you add gets described later, accurately, to somebody who is deciding whether to sign up. I have gone from indifferent about a product to actively warning people off it, purely because the cancel button turned out to be a chat window with a human in it.

Nobody screenshots a good exit. That is what makes it worth building, because the bad ones travel on their own.

The message you should not send

Skip the whole thing when you already know the answer and are writing to feel better about it.

If they told you the reason twice and you did nothing, a fresh question is an insult with a question mark on the end. Say the true thing instead. You heard them, you did not fix it, and you understand why they are going.

Skip it too when they were never the right customer. Sending an earnest "what went wrong" to somebody who signed up for a job your product does not do wastes their afternoon and teaches you nothing you can act on.

The habit worth keeping is writing the exit message on the day you notice, while it still stings a bit. Calm drafts written later are more polite and much worse. They ask a tidy question that nobody in the world needs to answer, and they read like a form even when a person typed every word.