Key Points
- Establish structured escalation tiers that outline responsibilities and roles to reduce confusion among technicians and ensure fast ticket resolution.
- Align escalation maps with client SLA timelines to guarantee timely responses.
- Use ticketing systems and RMM tools, like NinjaOne, to automate the escalation workflow.
- Develop a sustainable 24/7 support model with escalation rotations and flexible scheduling to prevent technician burnout.
- Document escalation workflows using a template to standardize the process across multiple tenant environments.
MSPs that offer 24/7 support are under constant pressure to resolve incidents quickly and consistently. However, achieving this feat without clear escalation paths is challenging.
Your technicians could end up wasting time reassigning tickets. Your clients may experience delays. Worse, you could end up breaching SLAs.
With these risks in mind, building efficient escalation paths that minimize delays and prevent confusion is important.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to create a 24/7 escalation matrix. Keep reading to learn more about escalation management.
How to create escalation paths that minimize delays
A well-structured escalation matrix is the backbone of an efficient IT support team.
📌Prerequisites
- Defined SLAs and escalation timeframes for each client.
- A documented service catalog with priority levels.
- A ticketing or RMM platform that supports automation, such as NinjaOne.
- Well-defined roles and responsibilities within the MSP team.
Step 1: Define escalation tiers and responsibilities
To deliver fast and consistent support to your clients, you must establish clear escalation tiers outlining who’s responsible for each level.
| Tier | Responsibilities | Goal |
| Tier 1 – Front Helpdesk |
| Keep tickets moving and minimize downtime by identifying and resolving low-impact issues. |
| Tier 2 – Specialists |
| Prevent unnecessary escalation. |
| Tier 3 – Senior engineers or external vendors |
| Implement preventative measures and develop long-term solutions to prevent recurrence. |
Ensure that each tier’s roles and responsibilities are documented properly to prevent confusion.
Step 2: Map escalation paths to align with SLAs
Next, you need to align your escalation paths with each client’s SLA timelines. SLAs outline the timeframe for addressing different types of issues.
Map ticket severities to SLA requirements:
- P1 (Critical): Response in 15 minutes, resolution in 2 hours
- P2 (High): Response in 1 hour, resolution in 2 hours.
- P3 (Medium): Response in 4 hours, resolution in 1 business day.
Please note that the above values are examples, not industry standards.
Set escalation time limits for each tier to ensure timely action. For example, if a P2 ticket isn’t resolved in 2 hours, it must be escalated automatically.
Step 3: Automate escalation wherever possible
Automation can help you improve your team’s response times and ensure consistent escalation by reducing the risk of manual errors.
Use your ticketing system or an RMM tool, such as NinjaOne, to automatically escalate tickets to the next tier based on their severity or deadline. This will prevent tickets from getting stuck in queues or missing their SLA targets.
Send alerts via email, SMS, and chat platforms to notify the right people when escalation is triggered.
Additionally, integrate escalation logic into your ticketing platform to reduce manual hand-offs between tiers.
Step 4: Build a sustainable 24/7 support model
Burnout continues to be a major concern for the IT industry. Recent surveys reveal that more than half of IT professionals (58%) feel overwhelmed by their daily responsibilities and tasks.
This highlights just how critical it is for MSPs to build a sustainable round-the-clock service model that doesn’t compromise their teams’ well-being.
One way to achieve this is by establishing shift schedules that distribute the workload across multiple time zones to ensure continuous coverage. Not only will this help keep workloads manageable, but it can also significantly improve incident response times.
Outline on-call responsibilities in your technician agreements. This way, everyone knows what to expect when they’re on duty.
You can also implement escalation rotations for your senior engineers to prevent fatigue and promote fairness.
Step 5: Document and train your team on escalation workflows
Finally, ensure that your team understands and follows the new escalation matrix.
- Create visual flowcharts and diagrams showing escalation paths and decision points. Ensure that they’re readily accessible from your internal knowledge bases.
- Integrate escalation protocols into your onboarding materials. Provide scenario-based examples during new hire training.
- Review the performance of your escalation matrix quarterly and refine your workflows according to technician feedback and incident trends.
Proper documentation and training are the keys to consistency. By providing your team with a clear guide to follow and training them on how to properly escalate tickets, you’re empowering them to act with confidence and knowledge.
Verification: Putting your escalation matrix to the test
To ensure that your escalation matrix works, monitor these three key indicators:
- Tickets escalate within SLA timelines: If tickets are escalating within your client’s defined SLA timeframes, it means that your escalation paths are working.
- Reduced number of stalled tickets: A significant drop in misrouted or stalled tickets is a good indication that your escalation matrix is accurate and is reducing friction between tiers.
- Technician feedback confirms escalation processes are clear: Your team’s input is one of the most valuable validation tools you can get. Positive feedback from your technicians suggests that your matrix is well-designed and is enhancing their confidence in decision-making.
⚠️ Things to look out for
Even an efficient escalation matrix can run into challenges. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most common issues you may encounter when implementing escalation paths and how to solve them:
| Risks | Potential Consequences | Reversals |
| Escalation bottlenecks | Delays in ticket resolution, SLA breaches, and frustrated clients | Review staff availability regularly and adjust on-call rotations accordingly |
| Missed escalations | Tickets remain unresolved or stuck in lower tiers | Automate escalation alerts and enforce SLA timers in your ticketing system |
| Inconsistent outcomes | Uneven service quality and confusion in escalation criteria | Standardize escalation documentation and retrain staff on escalation protocols and decision-making |
Best practices for implementing escalation paths
Maintain client communication during escalation
Notify clients when their ticket is escalated, especially if it’s a high-priority issue. Share estimated resolution times and the name or role of the tech that’s handling their ticket. Doing so will help you build transparency and trust.
Filter out low-priority events to prevent alert fatigue
Avoid overwhelming your team with alerts by filtering out low-priority tickets that don’t require escalation and using threshold-based notifications. Consider grouping related alerts to reduce noise.
Standardize escalation tiers to ensure consistency across multiple client environments
Use a consistent tier structure across all tenant environments, but customize SLA targets and escalation timeframes according to your client’s specific contract terms.
Adopting a hybrid approach will make scaling your escalation matrix easier.
A quick overview of what escalation management is
Escalation management refers to the process of identifying, prioritizing, and resolving concerns that frontline helpdesks can’t handle. It ensures that complex or high-priority issues are routed to the right individuals with the necessary expertise and authority to resolve them efficiently.
This process helps prevent delays, reduces technician burnout, and improves customer satisfaction. By establishing an escalation framework, you can offer your clients consistent and cohesive IT support 24/7.
Using NinjaOne to streamline escalation management and response
NinjaOne offers a range of features that can help MSPs streamline escalation management and response. These include:
| NinjaOne Service | What it is | How it helps |
| Ticketing Automation | Automatically categorizes, prioritizes, and routes tickets based on pre-defined rules, such as severity, affected systems, or SLAs | Makes ticket escalation easier by automatically routing issues when they meet specific criteria |
| Alert Routing | Sends multi-channel alerts to tiers | Ensures that technicians are notified as escalations occur |
| Documentation | Stores escalation flowcharts and SOPs directly in NinjaOne | Provides technicians with immediate access to escalation documentation |
| Reporting | Tracks SLA adherence through ticketing summary reports and monitors escalation outcomes | Provides insights on escalation delays and allows you to refine your team’s support processes |
Enhance response times and improve client satisfaction with well-defined escalation paths
Clear escalation paths are essential for delivering 24/7 support. It serves as your technicians’ guidebook, allowing them to act quickly and with confidence.
By standardizing tiers, aligning escalation tiers with SLAs, and leveraging automation, MSPs can minimize delay, prevent technician burnout, and maintain cohesive customer support.
Related topics:
- Ticket Management: How to Reduce Helpdesk Ticket Response Times
- Essential NinjaOne Ticketing Automations to Get You Started
- How to Standardize Device Notes and Documentation for Faster Ticket Resolution
- How to Standardize Technician Escalation Paths With Scripted Workflows
- Escalation Readiness Checklist for L1 MSP Technicians
