How should I escalate this customer issue?

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    "name": "How should I escalate this customer issue?",
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    "description": "Determine the appropriate escalation path when a customer issue exceeds normal CSM handling. This tree helps you move quickly and confidently when a situation is deteriorating, ensuring the right people are engaged at the right time. Use it the moment you sense an issue may outgrow your ability to resolve it alone.",
    "mode": "decision",
    "entry": "Q1",
    "tags": [
      "customer success",
      "escalation",
      "account management",
      "support"
    ],
    "image": "https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521791136064-7986c2920216?w=1200&q=80"
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  "questions": [
    {
      "id": "Q1",
      "text": "What best describes the primary nature of the issue?"
    },
    {
      "id": "Q2",
      "text": "Is the customer classified as Enterprise or Mid-Market with an ARR above $50,000?"
    },
    {
      "id": "Q3",
      "text": "Has the issue been open and unresolved for more than 48 hours, or has it been flagged as critical or urgent by the customer?"
    },
    {
      "id": "Q4",
      "text": "Has the customer explicitly threatened to churn, cancel, or pursue legal action?"
    },
    {
      "id": "Q5",
      "text": "What best describes the engineering involvement this issue requires?"
    }
  ],
  "outcomes": [
    {
      "id": "HANDLE_CSM",
      "label": "Handle as CSM"
    },
    {
      "id": "SUPPORT_ENGINEER",
      "label": "Bring in Support Engineer"
    },
    {
      "id": "CSM_MANAGER",
      "label": "Escalate to CSM Manager"
    },
    {
      "id": "EXEC_ESCALATION",
      "label": "Executive Escalation"
    },
    {
      "id": "INCIDENT_BRIDGE",
      "label": "Incident Bridge"
    }
  ],
  "dsl": "dag: How should I escalate this customer issue?\nversion: 1.0.0\nimage: https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1521791136064-7986c2920216?w=1200&q=80\ndescription: Determine the appropriate escalation path when a customer issue exceeds normal CSM handling. This tree helps you move quickly and confidently when a situation is deteriorating, ensuring the right people are engaged at the right time. Use it the moment you sense an issue may outgrow your ability to resolve it alone.\ntags: customer success, escalation, account management, support\nentry: Q1\n\nQ1: What best describes the primary nature of the issue?\n  hint: Correctly categorizing the issue at the outset prevents mis-routing and delays. A product bug or outage requires engineering involvement; a relationship or trust issue requires executive and management empathy; a contract or commercial dispute requires legal and finance coordination from the start. If the issue spans multiple categories, choose the one with the highest urgency and risk to the customer relationship. When in doubt, err toward over-escalating—it is easier to de-escalate than to recover from under-responding.\n  A: Product bug, outage, or data issue -> Q2\n  B: Relationship breakdown or trust issue -> Q3\n  C: Contract, billing, or legal dispute -> [EXEC_ESCALATION]\n\nQ2: Is the customer classified as Enterprise or Mid-Market with an ARR above $50,000?\n  hint: Customer tier and ARR determine the organizational resources warranted for a given issue. Enterprise and high-ARR Mid-Market customers typically have SLA commitments that require faster escalation and more senior technical involvement. Check your CRM for the account tier, ARR, and any contractual SLA obligations before answering. If the customer is Strategic or Named, default to a higher escalation level regardless of issue severity.\n  yes -> Q3\n  no  -> Q4\n\nQ3: Has the issue been open and unresolved for more than 48 hours, or has it been flagged as critical or urgent by the customer?\n  hint: Time is the most reliable signal of escalation readiness—the longer an issue festers without resolution, the more trust erodes and the harder recovery becomes. A customer who has explicitly labeled an issue \"critical\" or who has sent multiple follow-up messages is already in an elevated emotional state. Check your ticketing system for the original creation timestamp and any escalation language in the customer's messages. Even 24 hours without meaningful progress on a critical issue can justify moving to the next escalation level.\n  yes -> Q4\n  no  -> [HANDLE_CSM]\n\nQ4: Has the customer explicitly threatened to churn, cancel, or pursue legal action?\n  hint: An explicit churn threat or legal statement changes the nature of the engagement from a service issue to a retention and risk-management situation. Words like \"we are evaluating alternatives,\" \"this is unacceptable and we need to talk about our contract,\" or \"our legal team will be in touch\" are unambiguous escalation triggers. If the threat was verbal rather than written, document it immediately in your CRM with a timestamp and the customer's exact words. Even implied threats warrant proactive escalation—do not wait for a written confirmation before acting.\n  yes -> [EXEC_ESCALATION]\n  no  -> Q5\n\nQ5: What best describes the engineering involvement this issue requires?\n  hint: Some technical issues exceed the scope of what a CSM can drive to resolution alone. Signs you need engineering include: the customer's production environment is affected, data integrity is in question, a fix requires a code deployment outside the normal release cycle. Distinguish between a single-customer issue (support engineer) and a multi-customer production outage (incident bridge): a live incident affecting multiple accounts is an operational emergency requiring cross-functional real-time coordination beyond what a support engineer handoff can provide. If you are unsure whether multiple customers are affected, check your monitoring dashboards and status page before answering.\n  A: Live production incident affecting multiple customers simultaneously -> [INCIDENT_BRIDGE]\n  B: Single-customer technical issue requiring engineering or a hotfix -> [SUPPORT_ENGINEER]\n  C: No engineering involvement needed — process or relationship resolution -> [CSM_MANAGER]\n\n[HANDLE_CSM]: Handle as CSM\n  color: #22c55e\n  description: This issue is within your scope and capabilities as a CSM—own it, drive it to resolution, and keep the customer informed with regular status updates at a cadence you have both agreed on. Set a clear internal deadline for resolution and communicate a specific next step and follow-up time to the customer before ending any call or email thread. Use this as an opportunity to demonstrate responsiveness and build trust, even if the underlying fix takes time. Log all actions and communications in your CRM so there is a clear record if the situation changes and escalation becomes necessary later.\n  code: CS_ESC_CSM\n\n[SUPPORT_ENGINEER]: Bring in Support Engineer\n  color: #3b82f6\n  description: This issue requires dedicated technical resources beyond what a CSM can coordinate—engage a senior support engineer immediately and facilitate a warm handoff with complete context. Prepare a concise issue brief including the customer's tier, ARR, timeline of the issue, reproduction steps, and any relevant error logs or screenshots before making the introduction. Stay involved as the customer's advocate and primary communication lead while the engineer works the technical track in parallel. Set a daily status update cadence with both the customer and the support engineer until the issue is fully resolved and confirmed closed by the customer in writing.\n  code: CS_ESC_SUPPORT_ENG\n\n[CSM_MANAGER]: Escalate to CSM Manager\n  color: #f59e0b\n  description: The issue or relationship dynamic has reached a point where your manager's authority, experience, or organizational relationships can meaningfully accelerate resolution. Schedule a sync with your CSM manager within four business hours to brief them on the situation, the customer's emotional state, what you have already tried, and what you believe the best next step is. Your manager may choose to join the next customer call, send a direct outreach note, or engage cross-functional leadership on your behalf to unblock the resolution. Continue to own day-to-day communication with the customer unless your manager explicitly takes over the relationship lead.\n  code: CS_ESC_MANAGER\n\n[EXEC_ESCALATION]: Executive Escalation\n  color: #f97316\n  description: The severity, ARR impact, or explicit threat from the customer requires your company's executive team to be directly involved in the response immediately. Brief your CSM manager and VP of Customer Success within the hour, including a one-page situation summary covering the issue, the customer's ARR and strategic value, the specific threat or concern raised, and your recommended next steps. An executive should reach out to their counterpart at the customer within 24 hours with a direct phone call or personal email—not a generic templated response. Prepare a concise remediation proposal that your executive can present, and ensure legal and finance are looped in if contract or payment issues are part of the dispute.\n  code: CS_ESC_EXEC\n\n[INCIDENT_BRIDGE]: Incident Bridge\n  color: #ef4444\n  description: This is a live incident affecting production systems or multiple customers simultaneously and requires an immediate cross-functional incident bridge with engineering, support, and CS leadership in the same room. Notify your on-call engineering team and support leadership right now, open a dedicated incident channel in your communications platform, and do not attempt to manage this through normal ticket or email channels—real-time coordination is essential. Assign a dedicated incident commander, a customer communication lead (typically the CSM), and an engineering lead with clear ownership of the technical track. Send the customer a status update every 30 minutes until the incident is resolved, and schedule a post-mortem and customer-facing RCA delivery within five business days.\n  code: CS_ESC_INCIDENT\n"
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