Lesson 6 of 6
Lesson 6 — Escalation, Handover and Knowledge Base
Escalate with evidence, hand over cleanly, and turn every fix into an article that prevents the next ticket.
Learn it
Escalate when the fix is outside your rights, outside your skill, or when the SLA is at risk — not when the user is annoyed.
Functional escalation moves the ticket sideways to a specialist. Hierarchical escalation moves it up to a manager for a decision or resources.
A good escalation contains what was reported, what you tested, what you ruled out and what you need from them.
Knowledge base articles turn one fix into a permanent solution: symptom, cause, steps, verification.
Key terms
- Functional escalation
- Passing to a team with the right specialist skills.
- Hierarchical escalation
- Raising to management for a decision or resources.
- Handover
- Transferring ticket state cleanly to another agent or shift.
- Knowledge base
- Searchable library of tested solutions.
- CSAT
- Customer satisfaction score collected after closure.
What a specialist needs from you
Escalating a mail sync fault to the server team.
- 1Scope: 3 users in one department since Monday 09:00; webmail works for all three.
- 2Tested: Client rebuilt, cached credentials cleared, tested on a spare laptop — fault follows the account.
- 3Ruled out: Not the device, not the network, not the password.
- 4Ask: Please check mailbox database DB03 replication; users have been told 14:00 update.
A reusable knowledge base article
textKB-041 Projector shows 'No signal' from a Windows laptop
Symptoms : Projector powered, displays 'No signal'; laptop screen works.
Applies to: Rooms A1-A6, HDMI wall plates, Windows 11 laptops.
Cause : Display mode set to 'PC screen only', or wrong projector input.
Steps : 1. Press Win+P, choose Duplicate.
2. Set projector source to HDMI1 with the remote.
3. Reseat the HDMI cable at the wall plate.
4. If still failing, test a known-good cable (store cupboard C2).
Verify : Desktop visible on the projected image.
Escalate : AV team if the wall plate has no output with a known-good cable.Written around the symptom the user reports, with a verification step and a clear escalation boundary.
Try it
Order the steps of a clean escalation.
- 1State what you have ruled out
- 2Summarise the symptom and its impact
- 3Confirm the issue is genuinely outside your scope
- 4Say exactly what you need from the specialist
- 5List every test you have already run
- 6Tell the user it has been escalated and when they will hear back
Challenge
Write a knowledge base article for the fix in Lesson 3 (DNS set manually on a laptop, so websites fail while IPs work). Use the sections: symptoms, applies to, cause, steps, verify, escalate.
Pick whichever way suits you — every mode earns the same bonus XP.
Write at least 40 more characters to submit.
Mark your own work
Guided walkthrough — 0/3 clues revealed
- Clue 1 locked — reveal it only if you get stuck.
- Clue 2 locked — reveal it only if you get stuck.
- Clue 3 locked — reveal it only if you get stuck.
Each clue costs 4 XP (never below 20 XP). You'd earn 40 XP right now.