Customer research call guide

Customer Interview Guide: Why Are Customers Leaving?

Owner: Staff PM | Calls: 12 × 45 min, over three weeks | Readout: before the exec decision in four weeks

1. Learning goals

1. Timing: When did the customer first consider leaving, and what was happening then (signing, go-live, first 90 days, renewal)? This tells us whether churn is decided early or late.
2. Reasons, in their order: What were the reasons for leaving or staying, ranked in the customer's own words, before we prompt anything?
3. Automation: Are they automating their floor, which systems do they need Crate to connect to, and was that gap a blocker or a workaround?
4. Implementation: Where did time go between signing and daily use, and who was waiting on whom?
5. Alternatives: What did they evaluate instead, and what did that option do better?

2. Changes to the plan (please read before the calls start)

1. Ana should not run calls with accounts she knows. Personal relationships make candid criticism less likely, and Ana is the sponsor of Bet A. She can provide introductions and read the notes afterward. Neutral interviewers run those four calls on accounts she doesn't manage.
2. The plan implies 24 conversations, not 12. Each account has two contacts. I propose 12 × 45-minute calls with the operations manager on every account, plus a 20-minute executive call (VP/COO) on as many accounts as we can reach, aiming for six.
3. Rebalance the sample. Churned accounts are 9 of the 12 calls, and the at-risk sample is weighted toward accounts in renewal talks (see point 4). Within the churned group, make sure we have at least three go-lives over 90 days and three under 90, and at least three accounts running automation and three that aren't. Without this spread, we can't tell robotics from implementation.
4. Renewal talks distort at-risk answers. Five of six at-risk accounts are negotiating renewals with discounts on the table. Customers will say what helps their negotiation, and we can't fully control for that. Treat at-risk answers as evidence of current pain, not reasons for churn. If possible, swap two at-risk accounts for churned accounts from months 9–12 of the exit survey window.
5. Pull data this week, not after the calls. Get churn-notice dates, go-live dates, and integration usage for all 41 churned accounts. This lets us test the timing question quantitatively.
6. Don't treat the exit survey as proof. Missing features was the first option, the "Other" box was almost empty, and the question forced one answer. The 46% doesn't tell us it's robotics. Use these calls to check it.
7. Agree the decision thresholds now (section 5), before we hear anything.

3. Questions and timings

Opening (3 min), verbatim: > "Before we start, may I record this? It's for internal research only, and I'll share unattributed summaries. You can stop at any point. We're not selling anything today, and I can't discuss pricing, offers, or product plans. I want to understand what happened for you."

A. Context (5 min) - Walk me through your warehouse operation and your role in it. - What does Crate do for you day to day, or what did it do before you stopped using it?

B. The timeline (12 min) Most important block. Get dates. - Walk me through the last time you were seriously considering leaving [or: seriously worried about the relationship]. When did that start? - What was happening at that point? Who was involved? - When did it become a real decision? What triggered it? - Probe for dates: "Roughly which month was that? What was going on at go-live?"

C. Reasons, unprompted (8 min) Don't mention robotics yet. - Looking back, what were all the reasons, in order of importance? - What made the difference between staying and leaving? - If we'd fixed one thing, would you have stayed? - What did you look at instead? What did it do that we didn't?

D. Automation (7 min) Only after block C. - What has changed on your floor over the past two years? Any carts, pick-assist robots, or other automation? - Which systems does Crate need to connect with? How did your team work around the gap? - Was that a blocker, or a nice-to-have? - Did anyone raise it in a renewal or evaluation discussion?

E. Implementation (8 min) - How long did it take from signing to your team using Crate daily? - Where did the time go? Who was waiting on whom? - When did your team first feel it was working?

F. Close (5 min) - If you were us, what would you fix first? - Is there anything I should have asked?

Executive variant (20 min): Spend the time on blocks A, B, and C, plus: how the decision was made and who approved it; what they evaluated; how automation fits into their operating plan for the next 12 months; and what they told their team about Crate.

At-risk variant: Replace "what made the difference between staying and leaving?" with "what's working well today and what's getting in the way?" Do not ask about renewal, pricing, or whether they plan to stay.

4. Guidance for interviewers

• Two people per call: one leads, one takes notes. No one from Sales or Customer Success on the call.
• Don't name robotics, the 46% figure, or our hypotheses. Don't ask leading questions ("Isn't it frustrating that…?").
• Ask about specific past events, not hypotheticals ("Would you use…?"). Ask "What else?" until they run out.
• Let silence work. Don't fill it.
• Don't promise anything. If asked about features or fixes: "I'll pass that on, but I can't say what we'll build."
• Pricing or discounts: Don't engage. Say "I can't discuss that today. I'll make sure your account team knows you raised it." Record their words verbatim and tell Customer Success after the call. CS owns the follow-up.
• Debrief within two hours. Fill in one template: go-live and churn dates, reasons in the customer's order, whether robotics came up unprompted or after a prompt, implementation duration, and up to three verbatim quotes.

5. What we'd need to hear

Thresholds are directional. Twelve calls can't prove anything, but they can show whether a theory holds up.

Back Bet A (robotics integrations) if: - At least 5 of 12 name a specific automation system that Crate can't connect to as a primary reason for leaving or evaluating alternatives. This should come up in block C or D, not only after prompting. - At least 3 say the integration would have changed the outcome. - The decision to leave happened late in the contract, not during implementation. - Churned accounts that ran automation churned for reasons that match the exit survey.

Back Bet B (faster implementation) if: - At least 5 of 12 say the decision started during go-live or in the first 90 days. - They name specific bottlenecks: data migration, configuration, waiting on our team, or connecting to their existing systems. - At least 3 say faster go-live would have kept them. - In the pulled data, go-live time separates churned accounts from retained ones more sharply than automation does.

Back neither if: - Reasons are spread across price, service, reporting, or other issues, with no dominant theme. - Robotics comes up, but few customers have automation projects planned in the next 12 months. - Implementation was slow, but the decision to leave was made at renewal for unrelated reasons. - The real driver is weak executive sponsorship or a lack of internal champions, which neither bet addresses.

If neither bet is backed, the readout should say so directly and name the pattern that did emerge. Don't force a choice between A and B if the evidence points elsewhere. If the evidence supports both, the readout should say which has stronger support and what would change that conclusion.

Churn Discovery Calls: Discussion Guide

For: exec team (read before calls start), interviewers, note-takers Timeline: week 0 for data pull and recruiting, weeks 1–3 for calls, week 4 for synthesis and recommendation

Why we're doing this

Both bets rest on a theory we haven't tested. The data we have can't settle it:

• The exit survey doesn't separate the theories. "Missing features or integrations" (46%) was listed first, it was a single choice, and it combines robotics with every other feature gap. The free-text box was almost always left blank.
• The robotics evidence is thin for churn. 3 churned customers moved to a competitor with robotics integrations. That is 3 of roughly 60 churned accounts. The 9 lost new-logo deals are about acquisition, not churn.
• The implementation evidence is a correlation. Customers who went live after 90 days churned at 2.4× the rate. But complex customers may both take longer to go live and churn more for other reasons.
• We don't know when or why the leave decision formed. That is the question the calls exist to answer.

Twelve calls can show us how customers decide to leave. They can't show us how many leave for each reason. The CRM pull below fills that gap, and the calls and the data should be read together.

1. Learning goals

1. When did the leave decision form, and what triggered it? In the first months or later? During implementation, after go-live, or around an automation project?
2. Does implementation delay cause churn, or just come with it? If delay mattered, was the cause on our side (fixable by Bet B) or on theirs (data readiness, their staffing)?
3. Is automation a real driver? Are customers actually automating? Did Crate's lack of robot integration block them, or did it come up afterwards as a reason?
4. Do signers and daily users tell the same story? Executives may cite strategy (automation). Operations managers may cite experience (implementation, usability).
5. Are the reasons something else entirely? For example: price, support, acquisition, consolidation, or a non-robotics feature gap.

2. Changes to the plan

1. Pull CRM data in week 0, before the first call. For every account that churned in the last 12 months, pull: - tenure at churn - days from signing to go-live - whether they run or were deploying automation (ask CS and account managers) - where they went

Also answer one question: did the rise from 11% to 18% churn come from first-year customers? If it did, that supports Bet B. If the increase is among long-tenured accounts, that points toward Bet A. This may be the most decisive single fact we get, and it costs a day.

2. Replace at-risk accounts that are in renewal talks. Five of the six are negotiating discounts. They have a reason to exaggerate complaints, and a call with them could easily drift into pricing. Use red-health accounts that are not in active renewal. If there aren't enough of those, add churned accounts instead.

3. Fix the call count. The plan says 12 calls, but two people on each of 12 accounts is 24 calls. Within the 12, I propose 8 accounts:

• Split the churned accounts so that 3 left in their first year and 3 left later.
• Include at least one account that moved to a competitor with robotics integrations.
• Signers get priority because they made the decision.
• The paired accounts let us compare what the signer says with what the daily user saw.
• If we can fund 24 calls, pair every account.

4. Ana should not interview her own contacts. Anyone will soften or reshape their story when the CEO asks, especially a CEO they know and whose view they may already have heard. Her contacts also aren't a random sample of the people who left.

My suggestion: - Her contacts can enter the pool if they fit the sampling groups, but a neutral interviewer runs those calls. - Ana and Marcus both listen to the recordings. - If Ana wants to speak with former customers personally, those calls are valuable for the relationship. We run them in addition to the 12 and don't count them as research.

The same rule applies to Marcus: neither exec interviews.

5. Offer a thank-you gift to former customers, such as a gift card. It must not be a credit or discount on Crate.

3. Discussion guide: VP Ops / COO (signer), 45 minutes

0–3 min · Opening - Ask permission to record. If they say no, don't record and take notes only. - Say: "This isn't a sales call. I can't discuss pricing or our product plans. I'm here to understand your experience, good and bad."

3–8 min · Context - "Tell me about your business and how it's changed over the last two years." - "What were your biggest operational priorities this past year?"

8–22 min · The decision story (the core of the call) - Churned: "Take me back to the first moment you started to wonder whether Crate was right for you. What was going on?" - At-risk: "Tell me about the last time you seriously questioned renewing." - Build a timeline with follow-ups: - "When was that, relative to signing?" - "What happened next?" - "Who else was involved?" - "What alternatives did you look at?" - "When was the decision final?" - "What finally tipped it?"

22–30 min · Expectations and early months - "When you signed, what did you expect Crate to do for you, and by when?" - "How did going live compare to what you expected?" - "When, if ever, did you first see the value you signed up for?"

30–37 min · Operational direction - "What investments in the warehouse have you made or planned: equipment, systems, staffing?" - "What did you need your WMS to do as part of those?" - If they mention automation: "How did Crate fit, or not? What did you do about it?"

37–42 min · Prompted check - Hand over a card of possible reasons: implementation time, robotics/automation integration, other missing features, ease of use, support, price, business change. - Rotate the order on every call. The survey showed the first option gets picked more. - Ask: "Pick the top three for you." Then: "Which one, if it had been different, would have changed the outcome?"

42–45 min · Close - "What should I have asked?" - "Who else should we talk to?" - Thank them.

4. Discussion guide: Warehouse operations manager, 45 minutes

0–3 min · Opening - Same as the signer call: recording permission and ground rules.

3–10 min · Daily work - "Walk me through a typical day using Crate." - "What other tools or spreadsheets did you use alongside it?"

10–22 min · Implementation story - "Tell me what happened from signing to go-live." - "What took longest?" - "What were you waiting on, and who was it waiting on?" - "When did it start working the way you needed?" - Get specific episodes, not a verdict. Always ask whether a delay came from us, from them, or from a third party.

22–32 min · Gaps and workarounds - "Tell me about the last time Crate got in your way." - "What equipment or automation runs on your floor? How does information move between it and Crate?" - "What manual steps did that create?"

32–37 min · The decision - "Were you part of the decision to leave or renew? What would you have told leadership?"

37–42 min · Prompted check - Same card as the signer call, with a new random order.

42–45 min · Close - Same as the signer call.

5. Guidance for interviewers

Stay neutral - Don't say "robotics," "automation," or "implementation" before the prompted check, unless the interviewee says it first. What people raise unprompted is our strongest evidence. - Ask about specific past events ("the last time…", "walk me through…"), not opinions or hypotheticals. Treat "we'd have stayed if you'd had X" as weak evidence. - Use their words, not ours. Don't correct them or defend Crate. - In paired accounts, use different interviewers where possible. Never tell the second person what the first one said.

Stay within the rules from Legal and CS - Pricing or discounts: "That's outside what I can cover today. I'll let your account team know you'd like to discuss it." Then tell CS. - Roadmap: "I can't speak to product plans, but I'll make sure what you've said reaches the people who make them." Never promise a feature. - If there's no recording consent, don't record. The note-taker writes verbatim quotes where possible.

Process - A note-taker joins every call. - Within 24 hours, fill in the debrief template: - primary reason, in their words - the decision timeline, with the month the doubt started - robotics raised unprompted? (Y/N) - implementation raised unprompted? (Y/N) - was the delay caused by us, them, or both? - top three from the card - the best quote - Hold a 30-minute team review of the debriefs every Friday.

6. What would back each bet

Each account gets classified by its primary cause, meaning the thing that started or tipped the decision. When signer and ops manager disagree, record both views; don't average them.

Back Bet A (robotics) if: - In at least 3 of the 6 churned accounts, automation was raised unprompted and came before the leave decision. - The customer had a live or funded automation project that Crate blocked or made harder. - Ops managers describe concrete workarounds between robots and Crate. - The CRM pull shows churn concentrated in longer-tenured accounts, with meaningfully more automating churners than the 3 we already know about. - Warning sign: robotics only comes up at the card, or appears in the timeline after the decision was already made. That suggests it's a justification, not a cause.

Back Bet B (implementation) if: - In at least 3 of the 6 churned accounts, doubt formed during or soon after a slow implementation, often phrased as "never saw the value" or "lost confidence." - Ops managers put the main delays on our side: our process, staffing, data migration, or configuration. Those are what a rebuild would fix. - The CRM pull shows the rise in churn comes mostly from first-year customers. - Warning sign: delays were mostly on the customer's side (their data wasn't ready, they didn't have staff). A faster process on our end would then help less than the 2.4× figure suggests.

Back neither if: - Primary causes are spread across several reasons with no clear lead, such as price, support, consolidation or acquisition, or a feature gap unrelated to robotics. - Or signers and ops managers consistently tell different stories that neither bet addresses.

In that case, I'd recommend a smaller fix aimed at whichever cause leads, plus a better-designed exit survey, rather than committing two squads on a weak signal.

If both show up: check whether automating customers are also the ones with the slowest implementations. If they are, those customers' problem is really integration work during setup, and the recommendation should address that directly instead of forcing a choice between A and B.

In week 4, I'll bring the exec team a one-page summary that combines the call findings with the CRM figures, a recommendation, and our confidence in it.

Crate churn calls: interview guide

Purpose: Decide between Bet A (robotics integrations) and Bet B (faster implementation) by learning why customers actually leave. Neither theory is proven yet.

Why we're not already sure

• Exit survey: "Missing features or integrations" bundles two things, isn't robotics-specific, was listed first, and has only 41 responses. People also tend to name the most recent or most socially easy reason rather than the first cause.
• Robotics: 3 of roughly 60 churned accounts went to a robotics competitor. The 9 lost deals are real but are new-logo losses, not churn.
• Implementation: The 2.4× churn gap after 90+ days is a correlation. Complex sites may be both slow to launch and likely to leave. We also don't know when customers decided to leave.
• Ana's and Marcus's evidence: Each is anecdotal and selected. Ana hears from customers who will talk to the CEO.
• The two theories may be linked. Robotics-heavy sites may be the slow implementations.

Learning goals

1. When and why each account first considered leaving, relative to go-live.
2. Whether automation was a cause, a rationalization, or irrelevant. The test is whether they took action (bought robots, evaluated replacements), not whether they mention it.
3. Whether slow go-live caused the exit, and whether the delay was Crate's doing or the customer's (their data, staffing, customizations).
4. What else drives exits: price, support, core product gaps, or events outside our control, such as a 3PL losing a shipper contract or being acquired.
5. Whether the two causes overlap.

Changes to the plan

• Call math. Two roles per account means 12 calls covers only 6 accounts. I'd use 8 accounts: 4 churned accounts with both roles (8 calls), and 4 at-risk accounts with the operations manager only (4 calls). At-risk executives are the people in renewal negotiations, which is where contamination risk is highest. Comparing what the signer and the daily user each say is itself valuable.
• Recruit on criteria, not convenience. Among churned accounts, aim for 2 that left within 12 months of signing and 2 that left later. Include go-lives both over and under 90 days, at least 2 sites with robots or carts, and at least 1 that chose "price" in the survey. Pull this from CRM and Customer Success notes this week.
• Ana doesn't run calls. Customers who know the CEO will be polite, and she has a stated hypothesis. Her relationships are valuable for introductions, and at most 1–2 of her contacts should be in the churned set. Someone with no stake in either bet runs the calls, with a second person taking notes. Ana and Marcus get recordings and summaries afterward.
• At-risk accounts need Customer Success coordination. CS confirms no discount conversation is happening that week. The invitation states that this is research, separate from renewal. If a customer tries to negotiate, redirect and tell CS afterward. Weight at-risk answers less, since they describe intentions, not decisions.
• Pre-register. Before call one, Ana and Marcus each read the last section and write what would change their mind.
• Run a parallel data pull. Get tenure at churn, go-live days, and robotics on site for all roughly 60 churned accounts. If the calls and the data disagree, the data wins.

Guidance for whoever runs the calls

• Consent first. The first thing you say after your name is a request to record. If they decline, take notes only and continue.
• Off-limits: pricing, discounts, and roadmap. If they raise price, listen and ask what they compared us with and what they got, but no numbers or offers. If asked "will you build X?", say: "I can't speak to plans. I'm here to understand your experience." If they ask for a commercial conversation, point them to their account manager.
• Do not say "robotics" or "implementation" until the prompted section. Record whether each topic came up unprompted or only when asked. These carry very different weight.
• Alternate the order of the two prompted topics from call to call.
• Ask for stories and dates, not opinions: "Tell me about the last time," "What happened next?" Favor actions ("Who did you call? What did you buy?") over stated reasons.
• Don't defend Crate or fix problems. Answer criticism with "Say more about that."
• Use silence. Wait a few seconds after an answer; the real reason often comes next.
• Debrief within 24 hours on a one-page sheet: decision date, tenure, go-live days, robots on site, trigger event, unprompted causes, prompted causes, strongest quote, and anything that contradicts our hypotheses.

Guide: Operations manager (daily user), 45 min

Guide: VP Operations / COO (signer), 45 min

What we'd need to hear

Eight accounts can't produce percentages. We're looking for a pattern strong enough to act on.

Back Bet A (robotics) if, in at least 3 of the 4 churned accounts: - Automation comes up unprompted, or with only light prompting, as a reason. - They acted on it: robots bought, piloted, or contracted before they decided to leave. - They were live and broadly content with Crate beforehand. - They evaluated or moved to something that connects to their robots, and say they'd likely have stayed if we had. - The same story appears in at least 2 of the 4 at-risk accounts.

Back Bet B (implementation) if, in at least 3 of the 4 churned accounts: - Their first serious doubt came during or shortly after a late go-live, typically within the first year. - They describe never reaching value, or losing their internal champion during the delay. - The delay was mainly Crate's doing (process, handoffs, configuration), not their own data or staffing. - They would say faster go-live would probably have kept them.

Neither bet if: - Exits are mainly driven by events such as a lost shipper contract, site closure, acquisition, or price. - Robotics is mentioned but no one acted on it. - Go-live was slow but they were happy afterward. - Reasons scatter with no pattern. - Core product gaps, such as reporting or inventory accuracy, show up repeatedly. That would point to a third bet we haven't framed.

Both: If the same accounts show robotics-heavy sites with long go-lives because integrations took months, that is a third reading. It favors Bet A if the cause is missing integrations, and Bet B if it's our process. Decide by asking what the customer says was the blocker.

Split results: If churned accounts split evenly, or contradict the data pull, say so. Recommend a targeted follow-up, such as segmenting churn by tenure, rather than forcing a choice.