Escalation Process

[PhiNor]

Hi Guys,

OK I have never really gone in to "Escalation process", I always worked this on a "per company" basis. However I was a bit sort of stumped today when asked for an "ITIL best practice for Escalations process's".

So, I looked in my books, in my notes and found nothing, is there a process that ITIL say is "best practice".

Thanks guys,

[jeffendy]

Basically there two types of escalation: functional and hierarchical. The functional escalation is when you escalate an incident to next level of support for resolution (for eample: from Service Desk -> second line support -> third line support and so on). Hierarchical escalation is when you escalate an incident to the higher level of management that needs their action (for example: from Service Desk -> Service Desk Supervisor -> Service Manager or Account Manager -> IT Director or 3rd Party Director). From my experience, the hierarchical escalation will be triggered if the functional escalation cannot solve the incident and the SLA is almost violated.

Best regards,
James Effendy

[PhiNor]

Thanks for that, for some reason I was under the impression that was actually a set ITIL process in place but it looks like the answer to that is no there isn't.

I would imagine it would be impossible to have a set process for "Incident or management escalations" as all companies are going to have different stages of their own for escalations.

Thanks again,

[jeffendy]

You can see the sample of first, second, and third line support in Service Support Book. Most of time the process is the same in many organizations. If you are implementing this to external customers, then you must identify the second to n-line support (assume that you are running the first line) that will handle the incident. If you are using the right tool, it can automatically put the correct workgroup that will handle the incident when you select the customer name.

In our Service Desk, we are selecting the second line support based on location. When the agent selects the city, the application is automatically put the Service Center name that is located in the same city in the assignment field. Before the application can do that, of course you must define the rule first. Once you've defined the correct rule, you don't need to worry about the assignment anymore unless there is a change.

Best regards,
James Effendy

[Fabien]

Thanks James for the insight.

Escalation exists for one single reason: ensure the timely resolution of incidents. And you do that in 2 ways:

1) By forcing a first level support person to stop and wonder: "Am I the best person to fix this? Isn't there a specialist in this organization that could do this much faster than me? Would my time be better used picking up the next call?"

2) By notifying the right levels of management to ensure that the appropriate priority is given.

Two little things I found useful:

1) Set a time limit for the 1st level resolution process at the end of which your support person is foced to stop. IT guys have this tendency of fighting it til the end. It shouldn't be a matter of pride of "good customer service". At some point (to me, around 15 minutes), you should stop and evaluate the need to escalate.

2) Once an incident is escalated, priority can only be dropped with the approval of the Service Desk Manager, or another adequate authority. That ensures that the priority is set and maintained by the people accountable for the incident.

hope this helps...
_________________
BR,
Fabien Papleux

Accenture
Technology Consulting | Service Excellence
Red Badge Certified

Twitter @itilgeek