Form questions
Subscription pause survey questions
Ask six to ten, once the member has asked for the pause and been told it goes ahead whatever they answer, never as a condition of it. Three are never cut: the reason, how long the pause should run, and what would bring them back sooner. A fourth is worth adding: whether they would rather cancel outright, because a pause used as a soft cancel ruins your reporting.
Subscription pause survey questions ask why a member is pausing, for how long, and what would bring them back sooner, at the one moment a subscription business gets a straight answer. Most businesses waste it by building a retention screen instead of a survey. Promise the pause first, ask afterwards, and the answers are worth reading.
The questions
Why they are pausing
Why are you pausing?Single choiceRequired
One reason. Include the circumstance answers, such as travelling or moving house, or every pause looks like a complaint about the product.
Is this about the product or about your circumstances?Single choice
Has anything changed recently that made you decide?Long text
Have you paused before?Single choice
Did anything specific happen in the last delivery?Single choice
How long
How long do you want to pause for?DropdownRequired
Include an until I say otherwise option. Forcing a date on somebody who does not have one produces a cancellation instead.
When should the reminder arrive?Date
One email on that date and nothing between now and then, which is worth stating in the question.
Would you rather skip a single delivery than pause?Single choice
Do you want to keep your account and history?Single choice
What would bring them back
What would bring you back sooner?Multiple choice
A smaller box, a cheaper box, skipping single months, choosing the items, less frequent delivery, better packing.
How often would you actually want a delivery?Single choice
Most pauses in a subscription business are a frequency problem wearing a cost problem's clothes.
What would you pay for the version you actually want?Single choice
Which part of the subscription do you value most?Single choice
Which part would you drop?Single choice
Closing
How have the deliveries arrived recently?Single choice
Did you contact support about any of that?Single choice
Would you rather cancel outright?Single choiceRequired
Ask it plainly. A pause that is really a cancellation distorts every retention number you report.
How likely are you to recommend the subscription while paused?Single choice
Anything you want to tell us before you go quiet?Long text
May we email you once when something you asked for changes?Single choice
Which questions to make required
Three are required, the same three the built form requires. The reason and the pause length are needed before the team can apply the pause at all. The cancel question is required because letting somebody drift into an indefinite pause when they meant to leave is bad for them and worse for your numbers. The frequency question is optional but worth reading first: a large share of pauses are people who want the product less often rather than not at all, and the answers show it without forcing anyone to pick a rhythm they have not thought about.
- Why are you pausing?
- How long do you want to pause for?
- Would you rather cancel outright?
The form built from these questions
A static copy of a form built from part of the bank, exactly as it renders.
Three ways to change this bank
For a gym or a class membership, replace the delivery questions with attendance: how often they came in the last two months, what stopped them, and whether an injury or a schedule change is behind it. Memberships pause for life events far more often than for dissatisfaction. For a shorter version, ask three: why, how long, and would you rather cancel. Three questions after a confirmed pause is enough to run the retention report and short enough that people finish it. For a follow up wave, send one email on the reminder date the member chose, not a sequence, and include one question asking whether they still want the pause. That single question converts better than any winback campaign, because it arrives on a date they set themselves.
Questions people ask
Should the survey block the pause?
Never. Confirm the pause in plain words, say it goes ahead whatever the answers are, then ask the questions. A survey standing between a member and the pause button is answered strategically or skipped entirely, and it teaches people to cancel instead next time because cancelling turned out to be the faster option.
How long should a pause survey be?
Six to ten questions, most of them taps. The member has already decided and is not in the mood for a study. Put the reason first and keep it one tap, because nothing is saved until the member presses send, and a long form is the one that gets closed halfway. Three required answers and seven optional ones is about the limit.
Is a pause better than a cancellation?
For the member, only if it is genuinely what they want, which is why the cancel question belongs in the survey. For the business, a pause with a member chosen reminder date returns more people than a cancellation does, but a pause used to hide churn makes every retention figure you publish wrong.
How do you report pauses separately from cancellations?
Keep three groups in the export: members who paused and said pause is right, members who paused but answered that they would rather cancel, and members who cancelled outright. The middle group is the one that hides churn. Report it on its own line every month, and cancel those accounts when the member confirms, rather than counting them as retained subscribers.
Should a discount be offered here?
Keep offers out of the survey. If you want to run save offers, put them elsewhere in the flow. An offer inside the questions turns every answer into a negotiating position, and the frequency and reason data, which is the part worth having, becomes unusable.
What do you do with the reminder date?
Send exactly one email on it, and make that the only contact until then. The date is the member's own answer, so a message arriving on it reads as service rather than marketing. Adding a nurture sequence in the gap is the fastest way to turn a pause into a cancellation.
How should a pause survey handle members who pause twice?
Read the second pause as a stronger signal than the first. A member pausing again within a year is usually telling you the frequency or the box size is wrong, not that life got busy twice. Add the have you paused before question from this bank, filter the export on it, and offer those members a smaller or less frequent box rather than another reminder.
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