LOW / CODEBlueprints
customer-support

Ticket Escalation Workflow

Automatically escalate unresolved support tickets based on priority and age. High-priority tickets escalate faster with Slack alerts to senior staff and email notifications to management.

Advanced~30 minn8nMake.com 672 downloads 1595 views

Setup Instructions

1. In your ticket Google Sheet, add columns: Escalation Level (0/1/2/3), Last Escalated At (timestamp), and Escalation Notes. 2. Define escalation rules: Level 1 (agent reminder) after 50% of SLA, Level 2 (senior alert) after 75% of SLA, Level 3 (management email) after 100% of SLA. 3. Set up a Schedule trigger that runs every 15 minutes. 4. Add a Google Sheets node to read all open tickets with their Priority, SLA Hours, Created At, and current Escalation Level. 5. Add a Code/Function node that calculates which escalation level each ticket should be at based on elapsed time vs SLA. Only escalate if the new level is higher than the current level. 6. Add a Switch node to branch by escalation level. Level 1 posts a gentle Slack reminder to the assigned agent. Level 2 posts an urgent alert to #support-escalations mentioning the senior on-call. Level 3 sends a Gmail to the support manager. 7. After each notification, update the ticket's Escalation Level and Last Escalated At columns in the sheet. 8. Test by creating a ticket with a short SLA (e.g., 1 hour) and watching it escalate through the levels.
Troubleshooting
**Tickets escalating too aggressively:** Verify the elapsed time calculation uses the correct timezone and accounts for business hours. A ticket created at 5 PM should not breach a 4-hour SLA at 9 PM if your support hours end at 6 PM. **Escalation level not updating in the sheet:** The Google Sheets update operation requires matching on a unique key (Ticket ID). Ensure the key column has no duplicates and the row number is correct. **Slack mentions not working:** To mention a user in Slack, use <@USER_ID> format (not @username). Retrieve the Slack user ID from the team directory or a lookup node. **Management receiving too many emails:** Add a cooldown — only send Level 3 emails once per ticket, or at most once every 4 hours per ticket. Track this with the Last Escalated At column.

Need a custom version?

We can build a tailored automation workflow for your specific needs.

New blueprints weekly

Get notified when we publish new automation workflows.