Escalation management — Scope

This is an extract from a text with a total extension of 86 pages.

Definition of processes and actors creating a matrix where the different elements interconnect allowing standardized procedures where the flow from the communication from customer to the solution can be objectively measured for quality purposes.

Different limitations must be in mind when planning, from the natural economical entropy, the limitation in resources, whether it is hardware or support and technical personnel, for that reason the creation of protocols, standards, and processes will ensure the evolutive adaptability of the company and the control of customers expectations.

Objectives

1. Matrix / Workflow: Creation of a life cycle for each element that pursues the resolution of issues or customer requirements.
2. Escalation owner / Lead: Defining roles and creating a communication layer that allows each team member to know who needs to produce a resolution in the shortest time.
3. Incident communication: Protocols that determine what information is required to acquire and how to communicate within the current system, using software integration and as well written detail.
4. Business Impact: Effects on the protocolized of the escalation process and risk management from an economic perspective, resource planning and customer service expectations.
5. KPI / Metrics: Objective mathematization of different protocols, actors, and resolutions divided by types so it can be improved and see deviances.
6. Monitoring & evaluation: Integration and development with different platforms for a real-time status update
7. Constraints & resources: defining limitations and the resources for effective service under budget pressure.
8. Criteria of success: Creating a list of parameters that will define the time, scope of work, and customer satisfaction as a way to measure success.

Escalation process and business impact

The escalation management process is standardized in the IT sector. Planned steps for unresolved issues will speed up addressing them and have objective cost measurement, which is a key for successful business development.

Relating tasks with the tickets and time tracking creating defined criteria, such as deadlines, change of status, actors involved, notification process for different project members are crucial for cross integration between system creating automation regarded into the life cycle of the defined issue, restoring a normal service operation as quickly as possible to minimize the impact on business operations, keeping high-quality service and maintaining customers expectations.

Customer expectations are the effect of a defined escalation process and impact the viability of the business relationship and reduce the natural entropy of products and services in the market.

The key point to analyze the success rate is related to the competence of the management process to restore all normal service operations, from a customer perspective, and an economical and functional is the reduction of reaction times, actors involved and reduced budget, raising the efficiency of internal operations by well-defined protocols.

In conclusion, a precise escalation process will

Steps to success

Reduced reaction time
When the paths are defined and the actors or resources involved protocolized from the assignment of the right elements takes less time to start the process.

Reduced costs
Escalating to the right people and using just the resources required will immediately impact the company investment in each task

Workers motivated — Less risk
A protocolized system will ensure that the decisions for each member will ensure the resolution and the account managers and team involved will get the security of giving value and a positive environment when tasks are escalated, as issues can´t be thrown from one hand to others as they know what to do.

Customer perception
The standardized system will ensure that the decisions for each member will ensure the resolution and the account managers and team involved will get the security of giving value and a positive environment when tasks are escalated, as issues can´t be thrown from one hand to others as they know what to do, this will impact into customer expectations and service quality.

Matrix workflow

The workflow escalation is defined by the set of steps and expiry time for each of those. The alternative steps are run as child workflows processes and interconnect dependent activities with actors and resources. Some actions can be developed in parallel. If no alternative steps are specified or when a step is finished, it will automatically continue to the next one.

For the specifics of the different businesses, it is a must to have a workflow escalation protocol implemented into a dashboard and connect to the software management tool via API or with automation that creates tasks and child tasks with a selector. Custom creation should be optional. Project managers should be able to create templates.

The first step for a matrix workflow is to define the type of incidence and can use different templates already created for the planning and assignment of resources. Depending on the SEV level the suggested resolution time and countdown should appear, calculating the deadline of the master branch. The professionals involved or the project manager will plan the child tasks deadlines.

The advanced system will be connected into calendars and search for the viable member to solve the tasks automatically if not, a project manager must be involved in real-time and contact each resource involved and assign or move the resources and planning.

Escalation movement

Hierarchical
The transition between levels to ensure its notification or take decisions into the processes. The level of difficulty of risks can jump from one level to another, as well depending on the compound tasks and their difficulty.

• Level 1: Support related to software use or configuration, as well as business-related questions. Those do not need a technician solving any issue and are a user error.
• Level 2: Support related to software or hardware that can be assisted remotely or by remote access. This is related to planned updates that are required, account configuration, and hardware guidance for reset or clean reset.
• Level 3: When the hardware needs to be replaced or some bugs or issues make the normal business to be restricted or blocked. This involves not only the technicians but several steps and a project manager must be assigned to control the progress with caution. This type of issue must be solved in 48h.

Functional
When a task or list of tasks is not possible to be solved or solved on time it should contact the next layer of management to take decisions and plan the task properly with resources and timing.

• Escalation Manager: This person will assign resources and have meetings to define the scope of work. The escalation manager assigned will control the life cycle of the task or tasks and will use this to create templates, if possible for future actions.

Escalation owner and team lead

The different tasks have specific life cycles and each of them should have an escalation owner or team lead, as well as called project manager, that will ensure that the process and life of the task accomplish the defined protocols.

This person is responsible for communication between the different actors, from contacting directly the company to the internal processes and resources and the creation of standardized protocols based on experience must be approved by the department leader so they are unified. The project managers if they have questions about protocols must contact their supervisor or department leader to keep a unified process in all the company.

Incident communication

The incidents can be internal or external, both of them will have the same communication protocols, except by the direct contract with the customer or customers. When an incident implies the communication with a series of customers for updates or fixes the success managers and project managers will define a communication campaign.

The internal protocol starts with an open ticket from the QA/testing department or the customer that creates an issue in the system and it assigns the support team that can select one of the options from the different models for fixing and start a process automatically. If the issue is not defined or is on the list of high risk then an escalation manager will be assigned and define the scope of work or use one of the templates, monitoring all the process. Each team member will be updated and informed about the task or tasks and its life cycle. If the issue is not defined the escalation manager team lead can create a new model or suggest the assigned manager to create an individual task or groups of tasks, they can be made a template or just as one use issue. After the task life cycle is finished and a solution is reached the issue/ticket is closed.

Business Impact and KPI

The protocolized of the processes and the time tracking from each task and resource will provide the exact idea of the costs of each issue cycle and invest into the elaboration of planning and investment, budgeting, and human resources.

Having a dashboard with macro details of the accounts, workers and resources will give the whole picture of the business and understatement of the real costs projected during the time and their companies.

Customers will understand and can be informed of the services and control their expectations as depending on the value of each account the priority and resources can be assigned for more generous economical viability.

With the right metrics, the company entropy can be calculated and adjusted as the market flows, understanding the risk of acquisition of new customers and the costs of maintaining the current ones. This type of data can help with adjustments of protocols and reactions related to costs and resources, making a perfect way to understand the synergy between elements, factors, and resources.

Monitoring and evaluation in a constrained environment with limited resources

The different issues/tickets created can be monitored in real-time by the account managers or project manager, depending on the company structure, understanding the progress and issue, and adapting to the changes on resources and information.

The evaluation of tasks can be divided by technicians and support productivity and deviance from the originally planned deadlines. The number of closed tickets by category and estimated time vs invested time is markers that can show the different risks that each issue involve and the worker’s productivity for evaluating not only their performance but the company planning, for instance, if there is deviance always in a specific template we will understand that the definition of tasks and child tasks and their resources and deadlines are incorrect.

The mathematization of the tasks, their costs, and timeline will provide a clear vision of the different environments and their risks with the limited resources, permitting the human resources to understand the required workforce by department using big data, and the economical effect on the general costs.

Conclusion: criteria for success

The different steps of automation, integrations, measurements, and planning will allow us to define what is considered a benefit, from one perspective success, can be analyzed from an economical point of view for each account:

• Cost of adquisición
• Cost of maintenance by size
• Cost of renovation

With the different factors, the economical costs of running processes with each customer by location, sector, type of contract can be assessed.

Effectiveness from the different departments, related to planning, execution, and closure can be analyzed and improved during the time and maintaining a historical database of that evolution and changes.