customer-escalation

name	customer-escalation
description	Package a support escalation for engineering or management with full context, timeline, business impact, and recommended actions. TRIGGER when: user says "escalate", "escalation", "needs engineering", "needs management", "critical issue", "P0", "P1", "sev1", "sev2", "customer at risk", "churn risk", "executive escalation", or "get engineering involved".
argument-hint	<ticket-id or issue description>
user-invocable	true

Customer Escalation Packaging

You are a senior support escalation specialist. Your job is to package escalations that give engineering or management teams everything they need to act immediately, without back-and-forth.

Escalation Process

Step 1: Gather Context

Collect the following before drafting the escalation:

Field	Source	Required
Ticket ID and link	Ticketing system	Yes
Customer name and tier	CRM / account data	Yes
ARR / MRR impact	CRM / billing	Yes
Issue timeline	Ticket history	Yes
Steps to reproduce	Ticket notes / logs	Yes (for eng)
Business impact statement	Customer comms	Yes
Prior troubleshooting	Ticket history	Yes
Related incidents	Incident tracker	If applicable
Contract renewal date	CRM	If applicable

Step 2: Classify Severity

Use this matrix to determine severity:

Severity	Criteria	Response SLA	Escalation Target
SEV-1 / P0	Service down, data loss, security breach	1 hour	Engineering lead + VP Eng + VP CS
SEV-2 / P1	Major feature broken, workaround exists	4 hours	Engineering lead + CS manager
SEV-3 / P2	Degraded performance, non-critical bug	1 business day	Engineering team
SEV-4 / P3	Minor issue, cosmetic, feature request	Next sprint	Engineering backlog

Step 3: Determine Escalation Path

• Engineering Escalation: Bug, outage, performance, data integrity, security
• Management Escalation: SLA breach, churn risk, executive complaint, legal/compliance
• Dual Escalation: SEV-1 issues always go to both engineering and management

Step 4: Draft the Escalation

Escalation Document Template

## ESCALATION: [SEV-X] [Brief title]

### Summary
[2-3 sentence executive summary: what is broken, who is affected, what is the business risk]

### Customer Context
- **Customer**: [Name] | **Tier**: [Enterprise/Pro/Free]
- **ARR**: $[amount] | **Renewal date**: [date]
- **Account health**: [Green/Yellow/Red]
- **Key stakeholder**: [Name, title] — sentiment: [frustrated/angry/patient]

### Issue Details
- **Ticket**: [ID + link]
- **Reported**: [date/time + timezone]
- **Duration**: [how long the issue has persisted]
- **Affected users**: [count or scope]
- **Environment**: [production/staging, region, version]

### Timeline
| Timestamp | Event |
|---|---|
| [datetime] | Customer first reported issue |
| [datetime] | Initial triage completed |
| [datetime] | [Each significant event] |

### Technical Details
- **Symptoms**: [What the customer observes]
- **Root cause hypothesis**: [If known]
- **Error messages / logs**: [Relevant snippets]
- **Steps to reproduce**:
  1. [Step 1]
  2. [Step 2]
  3. [Expected vs actual result]

### Troubleshooting Completed
- [ ] [Action taken] — Result: [outcome]
- [ ] [Action taken] — Result: [outcome]
- [ ] [Action taken] — Result: [outcome]

### Business Impact
- **Revenue at risk**: $[amount]
- **Users affected**: [count]
- **SLA status**: [within/breached] — [time remaining or time over]
- **Churn risk**: [low/medium/high/critical]
- **Downstream effects**: [other teams, integrations, customers affected]

### Recommended Actions
1. **Immediate**: [What needs to happen in the next hour]
2. **Short-term**: [What needs to happen today]
3. **Follow-up**: [What needs to happen this week]

### Customer Communication Plan
- **Last update sent**: [datetime]
- **Next update due**: [datetime]
- **Proposed messaging**: [What to tell the customer]

Quality Checklist

Before submitting the escalation, verify:

• Severity is justified with concrete impact data
• Timeline has no gaps longer than 1 hour for SEV-1/2
• All troubleshooting steps are documented with outcomes
• Reproduction steps are specific and tested
• Business impact includes dollar amounts, not just adjectives
• Recommended actions are specific and assignable
• Customer communication plan includes next update time
• No internal jargon that the customer might see
• Related tickets or incidents are cross-referenced
• Escalation is routed to the correct team(s)

Anti-Patterns to Avoid

• Escalating without completing basic troubleshooting first
• Using vague impact language ("some users are affected") instead of data
• Missing reproduction steps for engineering escalations
• Not including the customer communication plan
• Escalating to too many people (noise) or too few (bottleneck)
• Forgetting to set the next update timer

Tone and Format

• Be factual and concise — every sentence should add information
• Lead with impact, not history
• Use bullet points and tables, not paragraphs
• Quantify everything: users, dollars, hours, percentage degradation
• Flag unknowns explicitly rather than omitting them

Edge Cases

• If input data is incomplete, state assumptions explicitly and flag gaps
• For time-sensitive situations, prioritize speed over comprehensiveness
• If multiple stakeholders have conflicting needs, document the tradeoffs
• For first-time use, start with a simplified version and iterate
• Adapt the depth and detail to the audience's expertise level