Customer research call guide

Aim and guardrails

Understand the sequence leading to cancellation, not ask subscribers to vote on executives’ theories. Test price, repetition, and delivery alongside an alternative: subscribers never established—or lost—a workable cooking routine, making unused food feel expensive.

The cancellation form is weak evidence: price is first and preselected, only one answer is allowed, and comments sometimes conflict with selections. The first-month cooking gap—81% of retained subscribers versus 34% of cancellers cooking at least three recipes weekly—is an important association, not proof of causation. Last-four-week cooking counts cannot identify first-month activation.

Recruit these six

Use purposive contrasts, not a representative sample. Counts below mean weeks subscribed / skips in last six weeks / recipes cooked in last four weeks.

Contact primaries immediately; approach backups if unavailable or declining. Offer the same fixed incentive regardless of feedback. Invite them to discuss “your experience using and stopping Sprig,” without naming hypotheses. Confirm they managed the subscription or cooking; do not screen for agreement with a theory.

Before calls, verify metric definitions, subscription dates, and available delivery history. Skipping reduces opportunities to cook; raw cooking counts are not cooking rates. Schedule three calls Tuesday, three Thursday, with debrief time.

Shared 30-minute interview guide

0–2 minutes: introduction

“We’re learning how Sprig fitted into your life and what led you to stop. This isn’t a sales call; honest criticism is useful. You can skip questions or stop. May we record for research notes?”

2–6: expectations and early use

• “What was happening in your life when you signed up?”
• “What did you hope Sprig would replace or make easier?”
• “Walk me through an early delivery: who cooked, what got cooked, and what happened to the rest?”
• “How typical was that during your first month?”

6–15: reconstruct the change

• “Walk me through your last few weeks with Sprig.”
• “Tell me about the last box you received—from arrival to what happened to each meal.”
• “When did you first consider stopping? What happened just before that?”
• “Was there a time it worked better? What changed?”
• “Tell me about a week you skipped, if any. What drove that decision?”

Anchor memories to deliveries or calendar events; accept “I don’t remember.”

15–20: cancellation and alternatives

• “Tell me about the day you cancelled. Why then?”
• “What had you already tried?”
• “What options did you consider, including skipping?”
• “What have you actually done for meals since?”

20–27: test explanations, only after the unaided story

Ask everyone: - “How did the cost fit your budget and what you got from it?” Probe actual alternatives, prices or discounts used—not hypothetical willingness to pay. - “How did recipe choice change over time?” Request specific examples and timing. - “How did deliveries fit your plans?” If problems arose: promised versus actual arrival, consequences, frequency, and attempted resolution. - Then show their selected reason/comment: “How well does this capture what happened? What’s missing?”

27–30: confirm

Summarize the sequence, separating ongoing frustrations from the final trigger. “What have I misunderstood? What else mattered?”

Support and synthesis

Pair each novice with an experienced observer; rehearse Monday. Use silence and “Tell me about a specific time,” not suggested answers. Never defend Sprig or pitch fixes.

After each call, record timeline, supporting examples, contradictions, and unknowns separately from interpretation. Friday, compare cases across all explanations, explicitly noting disconfirming evidence. Report mechanisms and next validation steps—not churn percentages or causal conclusions from six interviews.

Churn Interviews: Recruit Plan and Guide

What the data already tells us

• The cancel form inflates "Too expensive." It is pre-selected, so we can't tell real price objections from people clicking through. Most cancellers left it on that answer.
• Most cancellers had stopped cooking before they left. Many cooked 0–2 recipes in their last four weeks and skipped several deliveries. Their free text points to fit, not price: "kept piling up in the fridge," "too much food for two," "didn't have time to cook." The comparison stat agrees: 81% of retained subscribers cooked 3+ recipes a week in month one, versus 34% of cancellers. That's a correlation, but it suggests a fourth hypothesis none of the execs named: the kit never became a habit.
• "Delivery problems" cancellers look different. Every one of them cooked 3+ recipes in their last four weeks, and several left within weeks 2–3. These are engaged customers we lost to an ops failure.
• Free text often contradicts the selected reason. For example, "Moving / travelling" sits next to "cheaper at the supermarket."

Six calls can't tell us how many people leave for each reason; the data does that. The calls are for understanding how people decide to leave, so we give each hypothesis a fair, clean case.

Who to recruit

Contact backups only if the primary doesn't respond within 48 hours. Assign the experienced interviewers to calls 1 and 2, where people most easily give a stock answer like "it was the price." New interviewers take 3–6 and shadow one call first if the schedule allows.

Interview guide (30 min)

Rules for interviewers (read before every call)

1. Ask about what happened, not opinions. Prefer "Tell me about the last box you got" to "Do you think the recipes are repetitive?"
2. Don't mention their cancel reason or our hypotheses until section 4. If you say "price" first, you'll hear "price."
3. Don't defend, explain, or offer anything. No discounts, no "actually you can skip weeks." If they ask, note it and say someone can follow up.
4. Allow silence. Count to five before your next question. The best answers come after the pause.
5. Use neutral probes: "Tell me more." "What happened next?" "Can you give me an example?" "Why was that?"
6. Follow their story, not the script. The script makes sure you cover everything; you don't need to ask it in order.
7. Write down exact quotes, especially words they use about money, time, food, and delivery.

1. Intro (2 min)

"Thanks for making time. I'm [name] from Sprig. We're trying to understand what Sprig was like to use, including the bad parts. There are no wrong answers, and I'm not here to win you back. Is it OK if I take notes or record?"

2. Their life with Sprig (8 min)

• "Take me back to when you signed up. What was going on? What were you hoping it would do for you?"
• "Walk me through a typical week with a box. When did it arrive? Who cooked? What happened to the food?"
• "How did that change over time?"
• Probe: "When did that start?" "What was different then?"

3. The decision to leave (10 min)

• "Tell me about the last few boxes before you cancelled."
• "When did you first think about stopping? What happened that day or week?"
• "Before cancelling, did you skip any weeks? What was going on then?"
• Probe for leftovers and waste: "What happened to meals you didn't cook?"
• "What did you do instead for meals? What does that cost and take?"
• "Was there one moment that tipped it, or did it build up?"

4. Checking the reasons (6 min)

Ask these only now. - "On the cancel form you chose [reason]. Is that how you'd describe it to a friend?" - If the reason was pre-selected, say: "That option was already ticked by default. Was it your actual reason?" - Ask about each of the following, one at a time, unless they've already covered it. Get a specific example for each. - "How did the price feel by the end? Compared to what?" - "How did you feel about the recipe choices?" - "Any issues with deliveries? What happened?" - "If you could change one thing, would you have stayed? What would it be?"

5. Wrap (4 min)

• "Is there anything I should have asked but didn't?"
• Thank them and explain any incentive.

After each call (15 min, same day)

Fill in the shared sheet with: - Their main reason, in their words. - When cooking dropped off: week, and the trigger. - Supporting quotes. - Whether the form reason matched their story.

After all six calls, I'll write up how each person's decision unfolded, mapped against the four hypotheses. I'll be clear that six interviews show how people decide, not how many decide each way. The write-up will also recommend changing the cancel form so no option is pre-selected; that one change will make the form data usable.

Churn interviews: recruiting plan and guide

What the data says (and doesn't)

Across 300 cancellations last quarter:

• The price number is inflated. "Too expensive" is pre-selected, so we can't tell deliberate choices from people who clicked Next. Treat it as a hypothesis to test, not a finding.
• Free text points away from all three exec theories. Where people wrote something, the recurring themes were over-supply ("too much food for two," "kept piling up in the fridge") and time ("didn't have time to cook"). Neither is in the exec hypotheses.
• Delivery cancellers were engaged. All 29 cooked at least 3 recipes in the last 4 weeks, and many cooked 8 or more. Late deliveries may be hurting people who want to cook.
• The retention benchmark isn't testable here. The 34% figure is first-month cooking. The export only has the last 4 weeks, so we can't compare the two. Early-tenure cancellers are the closest we can get, so we'll include one.

Who to recruit (6 calls)

Recruit from the list by reason, tenure, and cooking level so each call tests a different explanation. Keep 2 backups for each slot.

Backups: for slot 5, S-8153 (2 wks tenure, 8 recipes, delivery). For slot 6, S-8055 (Other, 5 skips, "too much food for two").

Interview guide (30 minutes)

Rules for all interviewers - Don't mention the cancel form's default or any exec theory. - Don't ask leading questions ("Was it the price?"). Ask what happened, then probe. - Let silences run. Don't fill them with suggestions. - Ask for specific examples: "Tell me about the last time…" - Don't defend Sprig or argue with the subscriber.

1. Opening (2 min) "Thanks for making time. We're trying to understand what happened with your subscription so we can improve it. There are no right or wrong answers, and nothing you say will affect your account. Is it okay if I take notes and record for accuracy?"

2. Their Sprig story (8 min) - "Take me back to when you first signed up. What did you hope Sprig would be for you?" - "How did a typical week go once the boxes started arriving?" - "What was happening in your life when you decided to cancel?" - "Walk me through the moment you decided. What happened first?"

3. The cancel form (4 min) - "On the cancel screen, you chose a reason. Can you walk me through how you picked it?" - If they say "too expensive": "What made that the best fit? Was there anything else you considered?" - If they chose something else: "What made that the closest match?" - "Was there a reason you wanted to share that the options didn't capture?"

4. Cooking and the box (6 min) - "In your first month, how many of the recipes did you actually cook?" - "What got in the way of cooking the others?" - "What happened to ingredients you didn't use? Walk me through a recent week." - "How did the portion sizes work for you?" - "How did the recipes feel after a few weeks?"

5. Price, delivery, and alternatives (5 min) - "How did the cost compare to what you'd spend otherwise?" - "You mentioned [free text, if any]. Tell me more about that." - "Have you had any issues with deliveries? What happened, and how did it affect your week?" - "Did you pause or skip boxes before cancelling? What was going on then?"

6. Counterfactual (3 min) - "If Sprig had changed one thing, would you have stayed? What would it have been?" - "What would have had to be different for you to skip only for a month instead of cancelling?"

7. Close (2 min) "Is there anything I didn't ask that you think we should know?" Thank them and confirm how the findings will be used.

Notes for the two new interviewers

• Pair each new interviewer with an experienced one for the first call, with the experienced person leading.
• Practise the "walk me through" and silence-holding moves beforehand. Most of the signal comes from follow-up probes.
• If a subscriber gets upset, acknowledge it briefly, offer to end early, and move to the close.
• Write down direct quotes, not summaries, especially about the cancel form and the portions.

After the calls

Code each interview against the three exec theories and two emerging themes (over-supply, time to cook). Report what each subscriber did and said, not just their stated reason. Flag any case where the stated reason and the story don't match, since that's the pre-selection problem showing up.