Template

Escalation call template

A customer's problem has gone beyond the usual support route: get everyone who can fix it on one call, agree what happens and when, and tell the customer clearly.

30 minutesFor The account owner, a senior support or engineering person, and a manager who can make decisionsAgenda room
Change the agenda first

The agenda, with a time for each part

  1. What the customer is experiencing5 min
    • What exactly is broken for them, and since when?
  2. What we know so far7 min
    • What have we tried, and what did we find?
  3. What it is costing them4 min
    • What can they not do, and how urgent is it for them?
  4. The plan9 min
    • Who does what, by when?
  5. What we tell the customer, and when5 min
    • When is their next update, and who sends it?

How the notes read afterwards

A made-up example, so you can see the shape. In a real call each line carries the words that were said and who said them.

Customer. A clinic group cannot export patient invoices since Monday.

Known. Exports over 10,000 rows time out; a fix is in testing.

Cost to them. Their month-end deadline is Friday.

Plan. Run the export manually for them tonight (Sam); fix released Thursday (Ivy). Update to the customer by 17:00 today (Lea).

Running it well

Ways to change it

Executive escalationAdd a senior leader on both sides when the relationship itself is at risk.
OngoingDaily fifteen-minute call until the issue is closed.

When to skip it. For problems the normal support process can solve within its usual time.

Questions

What is an escalation call?

A call that brings together the people needed to resolve a customer problem that has gone beyond normal support, to agree a plan and how the customer will be kept informed.

When should a customer issue be escalated?

When it is urgent for the customer, affects many people, is taking longer than promised, or puts the relationship at risk.

Who owns communication during an escalation?

One named person — usually the account owner or support lead — so the customer gets a single, consistent message.

What happens in the room

Everybody joins from the link, with no account. The agenda sits beside the call and each item fills in with what was said about it, under the name of the person who said it.

More templates

Agency status callThe regular call between an agency and its client: what was delivered, what is next, what the agency needs from the client, and how the work is doing against the goal.Creative brief meetingBefore any creative work starts: agree who it is for, the one thing it must make them think or do, the evidence behind it, and what done looks like.Campaign kickoffLaunch a marketing campaign with everyone on the same page: the goal and the number, who it is for, the channels and dates, who makes what, and how you will know it is working.Campaign retrospectiveAfter a campaign ends: what it achieved against the goal, what worked, what did not, and what to repeat or change next time — with the numbers in front of everyone.Scope change meetingThe client wants something beyond what was agreed: work out exactly what is new, what it costs in time and money, and decide — together, and in writing — whether to add it.Project closeout meetingAt the end of a project: confirm everything was delivered, hand over what the client needs to carry on, settle what is outstanding, and agree what both sides learned.Client offboarding meetingWhen a client leaves: hand back their data and access cleanly, understand honestly why they are leaving, and part on good terms — they may come back, and they will talk.Sales discovery callLearn how they work today, what they have tried, and what a good outcome is — before pitching anything.

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