What does a Customer Support FTE always escalate?
Refunds, credits, and billing disputes. Account access, identity, and password changes to a different address. Complaints and requests for a manager. Legal, regulatory, or safety language. Any sign of distress, anger, or a customer who has written more than twice. Anything the approved sources do not cover. Fill a receiver for each: the person who can issue credits, the person who handles access, the person trained for distress.
Verify: each receiver has confirmed they expect a four-part summary, not a reassigned ticket.
- Refunds, credits, disputes → ______
- Account access, identity → ______
- Complaints, manager requests → ______
- Legal, regulatory, safety → ______
- Distress, repeated contact → ______
- Not covered by sources → ______
What does a Recruiter FTE always escalate?
Any candidate the scorecard captures poorly. Anything about a candidate's circumstances, support needs, or protected characteristics. Any credential needing verification with an issuing body. Any communication about a candidate's status. Fill receivers: the hiring manager, the people-team owner, the person who performs verification.
Verify: rejections and offers are not on this list because they are on the platform's never-automated list; they are a person's action, not an escalation.
- Scorecard poorly fits → ______ (hiring manager)
- Candidate circumstances → ______ (people team)
- Verification needed → ______
- Status communication → ______
What does a Finance Controller FTE always escalate?
Anything above the amount threshold. Partial matches and overpayments. Write-offs and adjustments. Unfamiliar counterparties. Anything the fee schedule cannot explain. Duplicates that would require reversing a posted entry. Anything with two defensible treatments. Fill receivers: the controller for most, the accountant for treatment and adjustments.
Verify: the threshold is filled with a number, not left as a word.
- Above ______ → ______
- Partial matches, overpayments → ______
- Write-offs, adjustments, treatment → ______ (accountant)
- Unfamiliar counterparties → ______
- Reversal-requiring duplicates → ______
What do an SDR FTE and a Social Growth FTE always escalate?
For the SDR FTE: every reply from a prospect, anything involving a named or protected account, anything from an existing customer, anything about pricing, discounts, or terms. For the Social Growth FTE: replies to complaints, anything controversial, anything about a named individual, legal language, and any comment on a topic the brand does not discuss. Fill receivers: the owning rep, the account owner, the community owner, the person who handles complaints.
Verify: the protected account list and the topics-not-discussed list are attached to the respective remits.
- SDR: replies → owning rep; named accounts → owner; pricing → rep
- Social: complaints, controversy, named individuals, legal → ______
What are the confidence triggers and the summary standard?
Add to every role's list the confidence triggers that escalate a case outside the categories: no source found, two sources that conflict, and intent unclear after reading. Then the summary standard every escalation meets, as a remit rule: what was asked, quoting where wording matters; what the FTE searched and found; why it did not act, naming the category or trigger; and a suggested next step offered as a suggestion.
Verify: in the first two weeks, any escalation missing a part is sent back with the reason.
What are the rules about the list itself?
State that the list is fixed at every level of the autonomy ladder and that promotion applies only to classes outside it. State that anyone may propose an addition, that additions are made after any incident or send-back that touched a category, and that removal is a recorded governance decision by the role's manager with a reason, reviewed at the quarterly audit. State that the list is kept under version control in the remit with the date and reason for each change.
Verify: the quarterly audit samples escalations and confirms each listed category reached a person.
How do you use this template?
Copy the block for your role into the remit, fill every receiver with a name, add the confidence triggers and the summary standard, and confirm with each receiver what they will receive. Test it against a sample of last month's cases: everything on the list should sort as escalated without argument. Then leave it alone except to grow it; the day a category is loosened for convenience is the day the floor under autonomy moves.
The list is the part of the remit that a regulator, an auditor, or a customer would ask to see first.