What questions do you ask during churn interviews to get past polite excuses?

When users cancel their subscriptions their automated exit survey feedback is almost always polite and vague usually citing budget cuts or lack of time. Those generic answers never gave us detail to fix our actual product flaws.

We changed our email template to ask one question: "What specific task were you trying to finish today when you decided to cancel your account?" That shift in wording changed everything because it forced people to talk about a concrete workflow moment.

Of getting vague complaints about pricing we started hearing exact details about confusing button placements and slow load times. Those specific insights gave our design team direction on what to fix each week.

What phrasing works best when you ask departing users for feedback, about your product?