Escalation rate is an important metric to understand when running a business. It can help you determine whether or not you are making the right decisions and offer insights into areas where you may need to improve. In this blog post, we will discuss what escalation rate is, how it is calculated, and some tips on how to use it to your advantage. We hope you find this information helpful!
What is Escalation Rate?
The Escalation Rate is the proportion of customer service requests that have been sent to higher levels of support. This could be an escalation in personnel, such as a transfer to a more experienced teammate or an elevation in the scope of support sought with additional personnel called on for assistance or consultation – possibly even to a person with expert understanding in a separate team.
This indicates how efficiently an organization is able to deal with customer inquiries and how well customer issues are being addressed. By tracking the number of escalated tickets, organizations can identify potential areas where assistance or training is required to improve overall customer service.
Why Is It Important For Startups To Track Escalation Rate?
Tracking the escalation rate of customer complaints is important for startups, as it can provide valuable insight into customer experience and satisfaction. By monitoring this metric, startups can identify when customer issues are increasing and take action to prevent future complaints. Regularly tracking the escalation rate of customer complaints will help startups to identify patterns in customer experiences that can be addressed and improved upon.
Escalation rate is also important for startups to measure their performance over time. By monitoring customer complaints and the rate at which they are escalating, startups can determine if their service levels have improved or deteriorated. This data can be used to inform decision-making in order to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Understanding the escalation rate of customer complaints is also important for startups as it can indicate areas of improvement. If a particular issue is escalating quickly, it may be a sign that the startup needs to invest resources into addressing this issue and improving customer experience. Additionally, a higher escalation rate can be used by startups to identify areas of high customer dissatisfaction. By tracking the escalation rate, startups can identify and target these areas quickly, allowing them to rectify customer issues before they become larger problems.
Different types of escalations
Customer service agents are the first point of contact when dealing with customer complaints and queries. If the issue is beyond their scope of knowledge or expertise, or the customer requests an experienced agent, then the complaint is escalated to a manager, supervisor, another experienced agent, or someone from the appropriate department.
Generally, there are four types of escalations that can occur when a customer service agent fails to provide the necessary assistance.
- Hierarchical escalation is the most common, where a ticket is escalated to a team or an agent depending on seniority and experience.
- Alternatively, functional escalations occur when a ticket is sent to a professional or team with the necessary skillset to solve the issue, regardless of their position in the organizational hierarchy.
- Priority escalations occur when urgency is identified, and the ticket must be routed faster to higher levels of authority.
- Finally, automatic escalation occurs when contact center software automatically escalates the ticket to upper levels of customer support if it remains unresolved for an extended period.
How do you calculate Escalation Rate?
Here’s how to calculate escalation rates:
No. Support Tickets Escalated From First Tier / Total No. Of Support Tickets = Escalation Rate
To determine your Escalation Rate, divide the number of escalated support tickets by the total number of support tickets. This metric can be monitored on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. It can also be further broken down to assess the number of tickets escalated through various support tiers in your organization and by different members of the support team. By keeping track of this data over time, it will become easier to identify areas for improvement as well as the effectiveness of certain members or departments. Understanding this information can help you refine processes and optimize your customer support system.
What factors affect Escalation Rate?
There are several factors that can affect the escalation rate in customer support. These include the complexity of the inquiry, the availability of information and resources, the expertise level of primary customer service agents, how long it takes to respond to inquiries, and how well customer service agents understand the customer’s needs.
The complexity of inquiries.
The complexity of inquiries can have a significant impact on the escalation rate. If an inquiry is complex or requires specialized knowledge or resources, it is likely to be escalated to a higher tier of support. Additionally, if the primary customer service agents do not have access to the necessary information or resources, they may not be able to satisfactorily resolve the customer’s issue and the inquiry will likely be escalated.
The expertise level of primary customer service agents.
The expertise level of primary customer service agents and how long it takes to respond to inquiries also play a role in the escalation rate. If customer service agents do not have the proper skills or knowledge to address customer inquiries, those inquiries are likely to be escalated. Additionally, if customer service queries are not addressed in a timely manner, customers may become frustrated and seek assistance from higher tiers of support.
Customer needs
Finally, how well customer service agents understand the customer’s needs can also affect the escalation rate. If agents do not take the time to fully understand customers’ inquiries, they may not be able to provide appropriate solutions and the inquiries may need to be escalated.
By understanding the factors that can affect the escalation rate in customer support, businesses can better equip their customer service teams to provide a higher quality of service and reduce the likelihood of escalation. This can lead to improved customer satisfaction and more efficient operations.
VC quotes on escalation rate
Customers typically remain patient when escalated tickets are delayed as long as they are kept up-to-date with the latest happenings. Joe the IT Guy, a popular blogger, explains that the majority of angry complaints come from end users who logged their tickets and had no insight into the status of their requests.
As such, it is the responsibility of the service desk to remain on top of all tickets until resolution, while communicating with customers along the way and providing them with updates on progress and expected resolution time. Tracking the number of interactions needed to resolve tickets can also be beneficial, allowing senior teammates to proactively jump into conversations and avoid escalations in certain scenarios.
What is a good Escalation Rate?
Your goal should be to maintain an Escalation Rate as close to 0 as possible. If you notice that your Escalation Rate is increasing, investigate those escalated tickets more closely using metrics such as Internal Quality Score. This can help you to identify if the quality of your customer service is deteriorating or if there are problems with the product that needs to be addressed. Let’s look into the escalation rate within the product area.
Strategies To Manage Escalation Rates
Here are the strategies to manage escalation rates:
Have a precise service-level agreement:
Make sure that you have a clear and detailed service-level agreement (SLA) in place for issues that need to be escalated. This will help to ensure that the customer is aware of how long it will take to resolve the issue, and what the next steps are.
SLAs are typically divided into tiers, which determine which customer service representatives will handle each request submitted. Clearly defining service tiers is essential for ensuring that tickets are routed to the correct representatives and that urgent matters are given priority. Keeping track of customer service metrics, such as how many tickets fall into each tier, can also help you determine the right mix of support tiers when outsourcing customer support services or hiring new representatives.
Tier 1 support.
Tier 1 support involves simple issues that can be handled by entry-level service reps. These issues might include resetting a password, changing a subscription level, or directing the customer to the right resource. Such problems are usually easy to diagnose and can often be resolved using pre-prepared responses.
Tier 2 support.
Tier 2 support handles requests that require a higher level of expertise or involve issues specific to an individual. Representatives in this tier must have more advanced technical knowledge and training related to the product they are supporting. They must also be able to determine why the Tier 1 team was unable to address the issue and be prepared to come up with creative solutions.
Tier 3 support.
Tier 3 support is responsible for handling highly technical issues, high-priority requests, and emergency situations such as a customer encountering a previously unreported bug. Those in this tier should have expertise in a particular technical area and must work closely with the product team to identify recurring product issues.
Companies with highly technical products may opt to define additional tiers above these three. For example, they may have support engineers who ship code to fix bugs, develop custom solutions for customer edge cases, and so on. In any case, it is important that the boundaries between tiers are clearly defined. This will help ensure that tickets are routed to the right representatives and that urgent matters get prioritized.
Improve the self-service support options
Self-service customer support can be an invaluable resource for customers looking to quickly solve their own problems. By creating and maintaining a FAQ page, knowledge base, or chatbot that provides self-service solutions and escalates requests to the appropriate support staff automatically, customers can address their issues without requiring the help of a Tier 1 support agent.
This not only reduces the amount of manual work needed to complete customer service requests but also allows customers to quickly and easily solve their own issues before requiring more in-depth help. Self-service support can be a great addition to any customer service strategy.
Don’t escalate frequently
When dealing with customer tickets, it is important to ensure they reach the right associate. However, care should be taken not to escalate tickets too quickly. It is important to challenge associates in order for them to build the skills necessary to resolve more complex issues.
It also takes time for higher-tier associates to review a ticket and understand its history. Reducing the number of times a ticket is passed around reduces the need for customers to reintroduce themselves or explain their issue again, thereby expediting the resolution process.
In some cases, escalation can make a customer’s issue worse. For example, if a complex solution is applied to something that could have been resolved at a lower level, customers may become confused or frustrated. Therefore, it is essential to be sure your team is trained to exhaust all options before escalating.
Conclusion
In order to decrease the escalation rate in your call centre, first, you need to understand what it is and how it’s calculated. The escalation rate is the percentage of calls that are escalated to a supervisor or manager. It’s important to track this number because it can be an indicator of customer satisfaction. If you’re seeing a high escalation rate, it may be time to re-evaluate your training program or procedures. By understanding the escalation rate and taking steps to improve it, you can ensure that your customers are happy and your call center is running smoothly.