# Escalation rate

> How often an agent hands a conversation to a person, why a low one is not automatically good, and what to read beside it.

The share of conversations the agent handed to a human. It is the inverse of containment, and it is usually read as a cost.

## Low is not automatically good

An agent that refuses to escalate has a low escalation rate and a queue of angry customers. One that escalates everything has a high rate and no automation value.

Neither extreme is the goal. The useful question is whether the conversations that escalated were the ones that should have.

## The split worth having

| | |
|---|---|
| Customer asked | The customer requested a person. Usually correct to honour. |
| Agent decided | The agent recognised it was out of depth. Usually a good sign. |
| Rule forced it | Policy required a human. Not a quality signal at all. |
| Too late | Escalated after several failed attempts. The expensive kind. |

That last category is the one worth chasing. A conversation escalated on turn two costs far less than the same conversation escalated on turn nine.

An escalation rate that is flat while late escalations climb is a quality problem that the headline number is hiding.

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Source: https://evidova.com/glossary/escalation-rate