This guide is for team members who need to handle customer escalations that the AI agent could not fully resolve. Registered operators reach the Escalations tab in Operations the normal way and work their own queue. Org admins and owners can also open Escalations without being registered as operators: they arrive as supervisors with visibility into the full org queue, covered in Step 2 below.
Open the Escalations Tab
Open the Workspace panel, go to Agents, then Operations Overview, and select the Escalations tab. You will see three panels: the escalation queue on the left, the conversation in the center, and the assist panel on the right. A metrics strip at the top of the queue shows Pending, Urgent, Active, and Total counts at a glance.
Select an Escalation
Registered operators see two sections in the left panel: My Active (escalations you have already claimed) and Unclaimed (new escalations waiting for an operator). Org admins and owners who open Escalations as supervisors, without being registered operators themselves, see a third section, Claimed by others, alongside those two, since they have visibility into the full org queue rather than just their own. Click on any escalation to load its conversation in the center panel.
Use the search box, and the status, priority, and agent filters above the queue to narrow it down. The status filter can also show resolved and dismissed escalations, not just open ones. Each card carries a status badge so you can tell what state an escalation is in without opening it. Click Clear filters to reset.
Claim the Escalation
Operators claim automatically: opening an unclaimed escalation assigns it to you, and the compose box appears at the bottom of the conversation panel so you can reply. Supervisors (admins and owners viewing the full org queue) do not auto-claim just by opening a conversation. When an escalation in the queue has no owner, a supervisor sees an explicit Claim conversation button and must click it to take ownership before replying.
Use AI Suggest (Optional)
In the right panel under AI Assist, click Suggest response. The AI will analyze the conversation history and generate a draft reply. The draft is automatically inserted into the compose box for you to review and edit before sending.
Send Your Reply
Type or edit your reply in the compose box. Press Enter to send (Shift+Enter for a new line). Your message appears in the conversation thread with an Operator label. A banner at the top of the conversation panel shows when a conversation is live, so you know a customer is actively chatting. If the customer no longer needs a human, click Release to AI to hand the conversation back to the agent instead of resolving it.
Resolve the Escalation
When the customer's issue is resolved, click the Close button at the top of the conversation. The resolve dialog groups resolution types (for example "Answered Question", "Action Taken") to make the right choice easier to find, and can automatically send the customer a response email as part of resolving. Add notes if helpful, then click Resolve to close the escalation.
After you resolve an escalation, it is removed from your active queue and marked as resolved in the Operations dashboard. The customer receives your response, and the conversation metrics (handle time, resolution type) are recorded for team analytics.
If you need to hand the escalation to another operator, you can use the assignment feature in the Operations dashboard.