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Polictical Escalations

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Thursday 18 August 2011

Escalation - CEO calls CEO

When a customer is not getting the attention it demands it will find it ways to get it. He could call the manager of the Support Center if he knows his name (or number). But often your CEO is called directly. Especially large companies operate this way. Your CEO is not waiting for such frustrating calls. He will delegate immediately.

Having a group installed handling Customer Escalations provides the option to quickly redirect Escalating Customers. The Escalation manager is the contact person for the customer. He should organize calls with the customer to inform the customer about progress. When customers are at the top of their escalation daily calls are no exception. When the escalation goes to an end a call on a weekly basis is often enough.

When the escalation has ended the customer need to return to normal Support and Maintenance mode. The customer and the rest of your organization should be informed about it. Internally an escalation list could help you providing this information but a personal call or email will do a much better job.

Escalation - Inform every layer within your organization

Escalations, especially Political Escalations, need to be know in all layers of the organization. When several customers have been escalated by Management the priority between customers need to be defined. This priority has to be used to determine which reported support issue need to be picked up first. The set priorities can be used by all Management layers as well as by all Support Analysts and Maintenance Engineers to keep focus on what is mostly important for the company.

Have a list available, on the intranet for example, that can be reached easily. Make sure the list is always up to date. Provide next to priority an overview of the issues that need to be solved at the customer site. The better the information that is provided, the easier it becomes for the organization to respond quickly to the reported Support Issues of these customers.

On the escalation list the following data is required to handle escalations better:

  • Customer name
  • Escalation date (How old is the escalation?)
  • Escalation manager (Who is the contact person for the customer?)
  • Priority (Top, High, Medium, Low)
  • Situation at customer site (Short Description)
  • Overview of issues to be solved (Headlines only)
  • Executed Actions (Headlines only)
  • Status of Escalation (New, On Hand, Closed)
  • Last updated date

Such a list should be updated at least on a weekly basis. Escalation Managers are responsible for the content.

Escalation Management for coordination

Some customers are very demanding. They sometimes threaten to stop implementing the product or stop paying the Support and Maintenance contract. Although, from your Support and Maintenance Policy, their reported Support Issues should be closed, you could loose these customers.

A large or well-known company using your product is good advertisement to convince other candidates to buy your product. Doing a bit extra keeps the customer happy and will probably spread the news. More income could come out if it. What are you going to do?

A customer not paying his Support and Maintenance contract (sometimes for good reasons) is very bad advertisement. This customer could ruin your reputation. What are you going to do?

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