Escalations

Status: Generally Available Scope: Loop Platform (all flows)

Overview

Escalations drive staff accountability by triggering alerts and involving other users in conversations with overdue tasks.

Escalations are configured by an Administrator at the property-level, and can trigger based on no action (responded item) or no closure (conversation not archived) after a set period of time:

Escalation rules are evaluated on new activity in a conversation and the escalation state for any specific conversation can be in one of three (Clear, Pending or Overdue) as follows:

Notation for the three states is as follows (visible in the Manager Inbox):

 

• No clock icon: No escalation rules apply to this conversation.
• Grey clock icon: An escalation rule applies to this conversation but is awaiting action (the escalation action has not yet fired).

• Orange clock icon: An escalation event occurred and the action remains unresolved.

Escalation Status at a Glance

To gain a better idea of what conversations are requiring your attention, we've added icons for when there are pending escalations present on a conversation, and when an escalation has fired and a guest message remains unresolved.

Staff Experience

Pending Escalation

On a new event in a Guest’s timeline, escalation rules are evaluated and if an escalation any Pending escalation events are displayed in the timeline:

The staff member can either take action (in this case Respond to the guest with a message) or, in the case the issue was resolve in some other way (e.g. face to face or via phone call), the staff member can ‘Mark Resolved’ which has the same effect:

The resolved escalation is shown on the timeline:

Suppressing Escalations

Sometimes guests add many comments in quick succession. To prevent generating an escalation message for each of these comments, only a single escalation will be scheduled for each escalation rule at a given time. I.e., the same escalation rule cannot be actively scheduled at the same time.

After an escalation has been cancelled or has fired, it may be re-scheduled when a new guest message is added to the conversation.

Leave Conversation

If you have been escalated to a conversation and after it has been handled, you may want to remove yourself from the conversation. A new option is presented above the conversation to leave the conversation. After clicking "Leave", you will no longer see the conversation in your inbox, nor will you receive notifications for it.

In cases when escalation conditions are reached again for the same loop (e.g., guest comments go unresponded), the conversation can be re-escalated and grant you visibility of the conversation once again.

If the user chooses to remain on the loop after it has been escalated to them, the notifications that they will receive will depend on their personal notification settings. For example, they can choose to opt-out of comment notifications, but still receive notifications of escalations.

Alternatively for remove oneself from a conversation in their Loop inbox, a new email variable is now available (and can be inserted in the escalation template) to give employees the option to remove themselves from a conversation using a link embedded in the escalation email notice.

The option to remove yourself (in both cases) will only be presented if you have gained visibility of the conversation via an escalation occurring.

Acknowledging Comments

In cases when guest requests are handled offline, or submits a comment not requiring a response, to prevent an employee from having to add a guest-facing comment to cancel the escalation, we've provided a means to mark a comment as resolved.

Similar to "leaving a conversation", marking a comment as resolved can be done from within the email notification or in the inbox.

When there are escalations active for a conversation, a message will be displayed at the bottom of the conversation prompting the user to respond to the last guest comment, or mark it as resolved. The message will also include the duration until the next escalation.

Clicking "Respond" will open and focus the "Reply All" text box for the employee to draft a response. Clicking "Mark Resolved" will add an internal audit message that the guest message was handled, and escalations are not required (cancelling any pending escalations).

Creating and Deleting Escalations

Escalations are a method for notifying particular Users if a message hasn't been replied to in a given time period.  For example, and admin will be able to set up notifications via email after 15 minutes if a new conversation has not been opened. 

Escalations override subscriptions to specific locations. So while Users typically only see Loops related to their location, in the case of an escalation they will be able to see that Loop as well by clicking on the link in the email notification.

To create an escalation, click on More in the top right-hand corner and select Account Admin:

Select Facets and then Escalations:

Select the location you wish to create an escalation for:

Select your Escalation Trigger – No action or Not closed. Type in the number of minutes to escalate at, and select a user to be escalated to from the drop-down menu. Click Save Escalation.

To delete an escalation, click on the red "x".

Considerations

Escalations while "Out of Office"

Escalations that are scheduled prior to a conversation being marked as "out of office" (i.e., when all employees managing the given conversation has stepped "out of office") will continue to run and execute, since the expectation is all conversations should have been handled prior to going "out of office". However, if guest comments arrive while all employees are "out of office", these escalations will not be scheduled until an employee has "returned to office".

Escalations for Loop Messenger

Previously, escalations were available only for the first customer comment. Changes in this release allow escalations to be scheduled and triggered for every customer comment. To help manage this potential increase in escalation events, we've introduced ability to mark guest comments as resolved, and a means to remove yourself from the conversation following an escalation.