Escalation

It knows when to get a human.

The mark of a well-run front office isn't that it handles everything, it's that it knows exactly what it shouldn't. The escalation agent listens for the calls a machine shouldn't finish and executes your escalation tree without hesitation, at any location, at any hour.

The tree, executed cold

Your judgment, encoded and executed without adrenaline.

You define what escalates: emergency language, VIP accounts, legal deadlines, callers in distress, dollar amounts above a threshold, or simply "caller asked for a human." Each trigger maps to an action, and the agent executes the same at 2pm and 2am.

  • Trigger phrases, account flags, and situation patterns you define
  • Named VIP accounts get their own routing and urgency floor
  • Callers in genuine distress routed to humans fast
Warm transfer + whisper

Warm transfer with whispered context.

When it hands a call to your on-call phone, you hear a private briefing first, "Sarah at 214 Elm, water heater we installed in March, no hot water, she's frustrated," before the caller is connected. You answer already knowing the situation. No cold handoffs, no "can you repeat all that?"

  • A private context briefing in your ear before you connect
  • On-call trees: first on-call, backup, group page, callback promise
  • Each branch fires automatically if the last one fails
Full audit logs

Every escalation is logged.

What triggered it, who was paged, who confirmed, how long it took. If the on-call doesn't pick up, the tree keeps executing to the next branch instead of dumping the caller to voicemail. When you review the week, you see the tree working, or where it needs a new branch.

  • Guaranteed callback windows the agent actually communicates
  • Every trigger, page, confirmation, and time-to-human recorded
  • Reviewable across every location
See it work

An emergency, caught and routed.

A commercial client's walk-in freezer is failing on a Saturday. Escalation criteria: commercial account + equipment failure + perishables.

emergency line · SAT 6:20 AM
Caller
"This is Tony from Riverside Grocery, our walk-in freezer is reading 25 degrees and climbing. We've got forty thousand dollars of product in there."
ScheduleIX
"Tony, I've got you. Riverside is a priority account and this is exactly what our emergency line is for. I'm connecting you to Dave, our on-call lead, right now. Stay on the line."
ScheduleIX → Dave (whisper)
"Dave. Riverside Grocery, walk-in at 25 and rising, ~$40k product at risk, Tony on the line, compressor serviced by us in April."
Dave (connected)
"Tony! Dave. April's compressor job. I know the unit. Here's what I need you to check while I drive..."
✓ VIP + emergency detected · warm transfer with whispered brief · on-call connected in 40 seconds · full chain logged

Humans under pressure skip steps. This doesn't.

See how ScheduleIX runs your escalation tree the same way at every location, around the clock.