Purpose
Turn a raw escalation — an angry ticket, a churn threat, a manager-requested review — into a classified case with a clear response path, a defensible decision rationale, a customer-ready reply draft, and internal routing instructions. Removes hesitation and inconsistency from the moment a support interaction goes sideways.
When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Triage or classify an incoming escalation, angry ticket, or complaint
- Decide who should own an escalation and how urgent it is
- Draft a response to a frustrated, threatening, or at-risk customer
- Determine whether to offer a refund, credit, or concession
- Standardize how the team handles a specific type of escalation
- Get a second opinion on how to respond before replying to a customer
Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- Escalation text: The customer's message, ticket, or a summary of the interaction
- Channel: Email / chat / phone / social / review site
- Account context: Plan tier, tenure, ARR/MRR, and any relationship history if known
- Issue history: Whether this is a first contact, a repeat of a prior issue, or an ongoing thread
- Prior resolution attempts: What's already been offered or done
- Concession authority: What the responder can offer without approval (refund limits, credits, etc.)
- Desired outcome: Retain the account / resolve and close / de-escalate then investigate
If account context or concession authority is missing, assume a mid-tier account with no unusual authority and flag both assumptions in the output.
Instructions
Step 1: Classify Severity
Assign one severity level based on business risk and customer emotional state:
- P1 — Critical: Explicit churn/cancellation threat, legal or compliance language, public review/social threat, or a high-value account (top 10% by revenue) that is visibly angry. Response target: within 1 hour.
- P2 — High: Repeat unresolved issue, strong frustration without a churn threat, or a manager/exec was specifically requested. Response target: within 4 hours.
- P3 — Moderate: Single frustrated but reasonable customer, first-time issue, no threat. Response target: same business day.
- P4 — Low: Complaint framed as feedback, no urgency, no anger. Response target: within 1 business day.
State the level and cite the specific signals from the input that justify it — do not assign severity without evidence from the text.
Step 2: Classify Escalation Type
Identify the primary type (and secondary if present):
- Product/Service failure: Something broke, was late, or didn't work as promised
- Billing/Money dispute: Overcharge, refund request, pricing disagreement
- Expectation gap: Product works, but doesn't match what the customer believed they'd get
- Repeat/Unresolved: The same problem returning after a supposed fix
- Relationship/Trust breach: Feels ignored, mishandled, or disrespected by prior support
- Retention risk: Considering leaving, comparing to a competitor, or asking to cancel
The type determines the response strategy — a Trust breach needs acknowledgment before solution; a Money dispute needs facts before empathy.
Step 3: Determine Ownership and Routing
Recommend who owns this based on severity and type:
- P1 or Relationship/Trust breach or Retention risk → Escalate to CX Lead / Manager, loop in Account Manager if one exists
- Billing/Money disputes above concession authority → Route to Billing/Finance with a recommended resolution
- Product/Service failure requiring engineering → File internal ticket, keep support as customer-facing owner
- P3/P4 standard cases → Frontline agent retains ownership
Name the owner, the loop-in parties, and whether a warm handoff or async note is appropriate.
Step 4: Build the Response Path
Produce the decision, structured as:
- Acknowledge: The specific empathy line calibrated to the emotional state (not generic "sorry for the inconvenience")
- Own or clarify: Take responsibility where warranted, or ask the one clarifying question needed before committing
- Resolve: The concrete action — with a specific concession recommendation (refund / credit / expedite / escalate) that respects the stated concession authority
- Prevent recurrence: What to tell the customer about how this won't repeat, if applicable
- Follow-up cadence: When to check back and who does it
If a concession above the responder's authority is recommended, flag it explicitly as requires approval and name the approver.
Step 5: Draft the Customer Reply
Write a ready-to-send reply calibrated to the channel and severity. It must:
- Match the customer's emotional register without matching their tone (calm, not defensive)
- Lead with acknowledgment, not policy
- Contain a specific commitment with a timeframe — never "we'll look into it"
- Close a loop, not open one
Step 6: Write Internal Next-Step Guidance
A short internal note the responder can act on: owner, SLA clock, concession status, systems to update (CRM, billing, engineering ticket), and the follow-up date.
Output Format
- Structure: Classification block → Response Path → Customer Reply Draft → Internal Next-Step note
- Length: 500–800 words total
- Format: Labeled sections; the customer reply set apart as a clean quotable block; internal note as a short checklist
- Sections: Severity & Rationale → Type → Ownership & Routing → Response Path (5 elements) → Customer Reply Draft → Internal Next-Step Guidance
- Tone: Decisive and calm — the analysis is direct and operational; the customer reply is warm, accountable, and free of defensiveness or corporate hedging
Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] Severity level is assigned with specific signals cited from the input — not assumed
- [ ] Escalation type is named, and the response strategy matches that type
- [ ] Ownership names a specific owner and any loop-in parties
- [ ] The customer reply contains a specific commitment with a timeframe — no "we'll look into it"
- [ ] Any concession above stated authority is flagged as requiring approval, with an approver named
- [ ] The internal note includes an SLA target and a concrete follow-up date
Notes
- The most common failure in escalation handling is leading with policy instead of acknowledgment — the customer must feel heard before any solution lands
- When severity and account value conflict (a low-value account making a P1-style threat), default to the higher severity for the first response, then right-size ownership
- Never recommend a concession purely to make anger stop — tie every concession to a legitimate cause, or the team trains customers to escalate for freebies
- If the input is a summary rather than the customer's own words, the reply draft should be treated as a starting template and lightly re-personalized before sending
How to use this skill
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Installing in Claude Code:
~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)<your-project>/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills)
Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.
Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:
- Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
- Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits
For Claude Code skill details: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills