escalation-handoff

name	Escalation Handoff
description	Hand a problem support cannot fix to somebody who can, without the customer paying for the handoff.
category	Support

Escalation Handoff

An escalation is a customer being disappointed once and trusting you anyway. The failure they remember is not that it took time; it is the silence afterwards.

When to use

• Support has tried what it can and the customer still has the problem.
• A ticket needs authority support does not hold.

Steps

1. Check escalations and known-issues first. The same problem escalated twice is usually one nobody closed the loop on, and the second escalation will land on somebody who already answered it.
2. Write what was tried. An escalation with no attempt behind it is a queue transfer, and it will be sent back.
3. State the customer's actual problem, not the internal diagnosis. The person picking it up needs to be able to check whether the diagnosis is even right.
4. Name who holds it now — a person or a desk, not "engineering".
5. Tell the customer, in the same session: that it has moved, who has it, and when they will next hear something. Only give a date you actually hold; if you give one, it goes on commitments.
6. Set a check-back. A stalled escalation is the one place customers are actively being let down, and nothing surfaces it except somebody looking.

Output

An escalations row with what was tried, who holds it, and what the customer was told — plus the message that actually went to the customer.