Improve escalation workflows using macros

Hi everyone!

During my time working with our customers I have seen pain points come up regarding internal escalation processes and how this can lead to a poor experience between both agents and end-users within a ticket. 

Support agents frequently work on complicated tickets which require additional assistance from other teams. When transitioning the ticket from one team to another information can get miscommunicated and sometimes lost all together. Trying to recover missing information can involve in many unnecessary or redundant steps leading to a poor experience as mentioned above. 

To help make this escalation process easier - and hopefully decrease ticket handle time (or full resolution time) on tickets - you can use Macros to provide internal reminders to agents before escalating. This is how we manage ticket escalations at Zendesk: each time the ticket needs to be transferred from one team to another, the agent applies an escalation macro which reminds them of the information that needs to be included and ensures that it's organized in a uniform way every time. This will make easier for the next agent to find the most important or relevant details within the ticket to further assist the requester. Here's one way to optimize your escalation workflow:

Create escalation macro

Actions:

Comment Mode: Private

Comment: Description

• Summary of issue:
• Troubleshooting steps taken:
• Steps taken to reproduce:
• Specific examples/Screenshots
• Additional notes: 

Status: Open

Group: [Escalation Team]

Add tags: escalate_to_[team]

Optional > Add CC: (Current User)

Apply macro - agent applies macro to ticket when escalation is necessary, filling out the appropriate information and submitting as open. Macro serves as a friendly reminder of the information needed to escalate.

Optional: Macro can also CC the agent applying the macro if they'd like to follow the ticket to resolution.

The escalation team can jump right into the ticket and assist the requester without duplicating troubleshooting steps previously taken. This should help reduce the full resolution time of a ticket.

You're newly created macro is also configured to tag the ticket for tracking purposes allowing agents to report on which tickets are being escalated. This can help determine if additional training is necessary for agents escalating these tickets or pinpoint underlying issues with the product/service provided.

If you have any questions regarding the above workflow or have other suggestions you would like to provide feel free to comment below!