Escalation Management

Escalation in a call center technically means a supervisor will take over the call as per customer request or agent initiated. Escalation may range from issue that has been recurring for a long period now or a complaint against an agent. Ninety percent of escalation calls pertains to recurring issue or irresolvable concern. That irresolvable concern maybe because that is outside of the scope of support or something extraordinary in nature. Sometimes escalations doesn’t mean an impending problem, customers just want to hear something from a higher authority for them to be convinced.

Escalations in a call center is handled by Subject Matter Expert or SME or whatever they are called in your site.

As an agent, before you escalate something, you need to de–escalate first before you escalate. And before you escalate, make sure you have the following information:

What is the concern?

What is your resolution?

Why is the customer not accepting your resolution?

What is it that the customer wanted to happen?

If you are an SME and you were provided with this information, huwag kang masungit. Ginusto mo yung trabaho na yan kaya panindigan mo. Huwag mong isipin na ayaw lang ni agent kausap yung customer kaya gusto niya ipasa sayo.

If the call was already escalated, your task now as an SME is to log those information based on the sheet below.

Number	Time of Escalation	Escalating Agent	Concern	Resolution	Requires Feedback? Y/N
1	9:15 PM	Tina / 123456	waive all the charges on the bill	irresolvable	N
2	10:20 PM	Eric / 456789	Device Unlock from another carrier	call the carrier	N
3	11:00 PM	John / 234567	What is California Excise Tax?	provided info	Y
4	12:10 PM	Tanya /567891	Don't want to talk to the agent	assisted as requested	N
5	12:50 PM	Sonya / 102456	Refuse to pay DVR Rental	Buy his own DVR	Y
6	1:40 AM	Cliff / 562314	Waive Pay per view charges	Advised valid charges	N
7	2:30 AM	Joan / 813456	Authorization not yet release	Expired the authorization manually	N
8	3:00 AM	Trisha / 852963	Unauthorized changes on the account	Filed a case to fraud	N

The advantage of logging the concern is that it will allow you to prevent future escalation thus easing your job. By providing feedback to the agent as to what further steps they can do in their end would allow them to have better understanding about the account and what they can do further. If in your end you doesn’t have any resolution either, then you need to escalate that concern to your Operation Manager so that the Operations Manager could escalate that concern to the client and see what resolution needs to be executed so that in case that incident happen again, it could be contained right away.

Another form of escalation management is the formation of “SME Calibration.” When all the topics pertaining to a specific issue was already collage, SME’s can now brainstorm as to what are the solutions possible for that concern. SME 1 might have found something that is not known to SME 2 and so on. They could also come up or share “best practices” as to how to de–escalate irate callers. By doing so, everybody’s job would be easier. What is happening nowadays also was that one SME may have different opinion with another SME creating confusion on part of the agent? It is necessary that all SME are calibrated with one another. An in order for them to be calibrated, the Operations Manager should appoint the “SME Captain” who will then be spearheading the calibration of all SME’s.

Another form of managing escalations is the formation of the so called “Customer Service Specialist.” These people are based on the main Headquarter of the Client. If the issue is unresolvable, they will have the final say to the customer that what they are requesting is impossible to happen. If the customer wish to speak with the highest person who can override something just for something to be happen, these Customer Service Specialist will be the one to handle them. In this situation, it is a win–win situation, we are not stealing their job. We are just complementing the success of their company. Need I say more!!!