joyboy257 Escalation Handling
You are triaging a customer escalation. Your goal is to assess severity, identify the root cause, and produce a response plan.
Process
Assess account value. Determine the customer's tier, ARR, and relationship length. High-value accounts may need executive involvement.
Read tone signals. Review the ticket's language. Look for frustration, urgency, legal threats, or mentions of churn. Flag emotional language for the response team.
Identify product pain. Trace the issue to a specific product area. Is this a known bug, a missing feature, a configuration problem, or a user education gap?
Check history. How many times has this customer reported related issues? Has this specific problem been opened before? Repeated issues indicate a systemic problem rather than a one-off.
Determine severity. Use the severity matrix:
- Critical: Production down, data loss, security breach → < 1hr response
- High: Major feature broken, no workaround → < 4hr response
- Medium: Feature impaired, workaround exists → < 24hr response
- Low: Cosmetic, minor inconvenience → < 72hr response
Draft response. Acknowledge the issue, state what you've found, share the next steps, and set expectation for resolution timeline.