Escalating Tickets

Best Practices

March 2025

The role of Support

Support teams include Advising, General Support, Application Support, Phone Operators, and Escalations

Support teams are the first line of assistance for students who have questions or encounter issues. Our goal is to provide clear, thorough, and accurate support to ensure students feel confident and informed.

• Answering Questions: When a student has a question, our role is to provide a complete and accurate answer while anticipating any follow-up questions they may have.
• Resolving Issues: When a student encounters an issue, we work to understand the problem, guide them through troubleshooting steps, and collect any necessary information a higher-level team may need for further diagnosis and resolution.
• Communication: As the primary point of contact for students, we are often the only people the students will talk to about their issues. It is important that we help students feel confident their issue will get resolved while also gathering all information that is needed for an escalation.

Three Main Topics

• Asking the Right Questions and Communicating with Students�
• Providing Information�
• Escalating Cases

Asking the Right Questions and Communicating with Students

Understanding Student Issues

To provide the best support, we must first fully understand the issue a student is experiencing.

• Language & Terminology Differences: Our students come from all over the world and may use incorrect terminology or struggle to explain their issue. It’s our job to clarify and figure out what they mean.
• Similar Issues, Different Solutions: Some issues may seem alike but require different solutions. Carefully examining each case ensures we take the correct steps to assist the student effectively.
• Asking the Right Questions: The best way to truly understand a student’s issue is to ask follow-up questions. Gathering key details helps us troubleshoot efficiently and provide the most accurate resolution.

By taking the time to listen, clarify, and ask the right questions, we ensure that students receive the right help the first time.

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Case Study:

A common question we receive from students is:

"I can't see my classes in my portal."

🔴 The Wrong Approach: Immediately escalating this issue to tech support or planning. We don’t yet have enough information to determine the problem and have not consulted the Knowledge Base.

✅ The Right Approach: Asking follow-up questions to understand the root of the issue before taking further action.

Possible underlying issues:

• The student is missing courses in their Class Schedule
• They are reporting an error with their transfer credits
• They are confusing their student portal with Canvas, where their courses may be missing

By gathering the right details first, we ensure the student gets the correct assistance as quickly as possible.

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In this situation, we should reach out to the student as soon as possible to ask follow up questions. A phone call allows for faster and clearer communication. If the student doesn’t answer the phone call, send an email.

Follow-Up Questions to Ask:

• What page on the portal is missing your courses? Can you send me the link? (Helps determine if the issue is with the Class Schedule, portal homepage, or Canvas.)
• Can you walk me through how you got to this page? (Ensures the student is navigating correctly.)
• What are you expecting to see here? (Clarifies if the student is looking in the right place.)
• What semester are these courses for? (Checks if they are looking for future courses that aren’t available yet.)
• Can you send me a screenshot OR can we do a video call so you can walk me through the issue? (Visual confirmation can quickly identify the problem.)

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Use Articles EVERY TIME

The knowledge base should be used for every case you work on.

• This is a rapidly changing program. Information is updated frequently and often without warning—always check the knowledge base before responding to a student.
• Articles provide specific steps and required information. If we don’t follow these steps or gather the necessary details, the case may be sent back to you and your direct leader for correction.

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Once you have consulted the Knowledge Base, you will use that information to determine if a student needs information or an escalation.

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Troubleshooting

Many student issues can be resolved with basic troubleshooting before escalation. Taking these steps first helps ensure a faster resolution and prevents unnecessary escalations.

Basic Troubleshooting Includes:

• Guiding the student through the process to ensure they are following the correct steps or looking in the right place.
• Having the student clear their cache and cookies to resolve potential browser-related issues.
• Following troubleshooting steps outlined in the knowledge base articles.
• Acquiring screenshots and URLs to see exactly where the issue is occurring.

By thoroughly troubleshooting first, we can often resolve the issue immediately or ensure the next team has all the necessary details for a quick fix.

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Troubleshooting article�

We recommend you use the Basic Troubleshooting article whenever there is an issue with systems. Use this article in addition to articles about specific systems and issues. ��KA-02304

Providing Information

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

If the student requires information:

If the student needs information, avoid these mistakes:

🔴 Wrong Approach: Copying the article word-for-word without reading it, especially when an internal article is being used.

✅ Better Practice: Summarize the key points in a clear and student-friendly way. If an external article exists, you may send them the link to the article in the help center.

🔴 Wrong Approach: Providing information from memory.

✅ Better Practice: Always verify details in the knowledge base to ensure accuracy.

🔴 Wrong Approach: Telling the student to “go talk to their mentor” or to contact our partner schools.

✅ Better Practice: Only direct students to other departments when the Knowledge Base specifically says to do so.

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If the student requires information cont.

Once we have clearly communicated the necessary information to the student, we can close their case.

✅ Before closing, make sure:

• All the student’s questions have been answered.
• The response is thorough and aligns with the knowledge base.
• You MUST attach the knowledge base article that was used before resolving the case.

🚫 We do NOT need to wait for the student to acknowledge our response before resolving the case.

However, we can include a closing message like:�"If your issue was not resolved, please reopen the case in the Help Center and include additional details."

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Escalating Cases

If the case needs to be escalated

Sometimes, a student's issue requires a manual process that support cannot perform or needs a higher-tier team to resolve. In these cases, escalation is necessary.

Key Responsibilities When Escalating a Case:

• Follow the knowledge base. Check the KB as soon as possible to know what information needs to be gathered before escalating.
• Gather all relevant details. Our role is to collect necessary information from the student to ensure the higher-tier team has what they need to resolve the issue efficiently.
• Provide a clear and complete case summary. A well-documented case helps the next team quickly understand the problem and take the right action.

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Before You Escalate the Case:

Before escalating a ticket, ask yourself these key questions:

✅ Have you looked up the student in our systems?� Ensure you have checked the student’s information to verify their account details and status.

✅ Do you fully understand the issue the student is having?� If not, ask follow-up questions to clarify the problem.

✅ Have you followed all steps in the knowledge base?� Always check the KB to ensure you’ve completed all required troubleshooting steps.

✅ Have you communicated with the student?� Make sure you have gathered all necessary details and explained next steps to them.

✅ Do you know for sure what queue to escalate the ticket to?� Incorrectly escalated cases cause delays—double-check that you’re sending the ticket to the right team.

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While Escalating the Case

To escalate the case appropriately, use the Escalation Description Template

✅Case

• Describe the situation and/or the student’s concern

✅Action

• What have been done by you and students to get it resolved
• What went wrong while trying to solve this issue by your/their own

✅Expected Results

• Specific actions expected by the new team to resolve this student’s issue

✅Proofs (screenshots, errors, written authorizations, etc)

• Insert proofs that support what you inserted in the previous 3 steps

✅KB Reference

• Always insert a KB. If you don’t find one, choose the closest one and inform to the team it’s not the specific KB, but you found this as the closest one

✅Advisor’s Name & Date

• Insert your name and the date you’re escalating the case

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Notes

• Good notes:
• Are Concise but complete—include all relevant and required information.
• Are Well-organized—clearly structured for easy readability.
• Are More than a repetition of what the student stated—provide context, troubleshooting steps, and any gathered details.
• Contain Steps Already Taken – describe what has already been done by the student and the agent, including troubleshooting.

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Bad Example 1

• “Student can’t apply”
• Note is too vague.
• Does not explain what issue the student is having with applying
• Does not show what troubleshooting steps were taken

Bad Example 2

• “Student says they can’t see their courses in the portal. They are missing classes and don’t know why. They said they looked but couldn’t find them. I asked what page they were on, and they said the portal. They don’t know what’s wrong. They need help finding their courses because they should be there but aren’t.”
• Agent did not find out what courses are missing
• Agent did not find out what page in the portal the courses are missing from
• Agent did not troubleshoot with the student or walk them through the portal
• Note does not indicate what the advisor did to help

Bad Example 3

• “The student says that they can’t log into Adobe programs they need for their course. I tried to call them to see what issue they were having, but they didn’t answer. Please help them.”
• Not enough effort was made to contact the student
• Case was escalated up before we had the required information
• Asks Tech Support to do information gathering that should have been done by Support

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Bad Example 4

• Technical Issue: broken plan
• Troubleshooting Done: yes
• Verification of Issue: they verified the issue
• Screenshots:��

• Not enough detail
• Does not show what troubleshooting steps were done or includes how to verify the issue
• Screenshot is incomplete and doesn’t relate to the issue

Tech Support Template

The Technical Support team has provided a template to ensure our notes include all necessary details. Use this template when escalating to Tech Support:

Template for Escalation Notes:

• Technical Issue:�A one-sentence description of the issue the student is experiencing.
• Troubleshooting Done:�Detail the steps the student has already taken and the troubleshooting we have performed.
• Verification of Issue:�How can Tech Support replicate the issue? Include URLs, buttons clicked, and any additional details needed for reproduction.
• Screenshots:�Include the URL of the page shown in the screenshot and a short note explaining what the screenshot is meant to highlight.

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Good Example 1

Good Example 2

Technical Issue: Student gets a message saying Needs Admin Approval when trying to access their courses

Troubleshooting Done: Student cleared cache and cookies, we double checked that they were using the correct email address to log in,

Verification of Issue: Student logged into their portal at portal.byupathway.edu and then clicked on the link to canvas in the left hand side. Student is directed to byupw.instructure.edu and then gets this message before they can log in.

Notes for other teams

Other teams require different information in the notes, depending on the issue. Follow the articles every time you escalate a case.

For example, if you were helping a student who couldn’t change their certificate, you would follow these instructions, found in the Certificate Changes article.

Where to Add Notes

• Notes should be added in the Notes Section of the case.
• 🚫 Do NOT put notes in the Description Section—this is visible to students in the Help Center. The Notes Section is internal and only visible to employees.

Best Practices for Notes:

• Enter notes directly into Reach. 🚫 Do not type them in a Word document and attach them to the case.

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✅

Attach the KB that you used

We ask that you attach a knowledge base article to every case you work on, even if you are escalating it to another team.

Why This Matters:

• The receiving team knows where you got the information for escalating to their team.
• If the information in the article is incorrect, it allows us to identify and correct it quickly. This also protects you from getting docked in QA, as we can see that you followed the documented process.
• If the case is revisited later or reopened, attaching an article helps the next agent understand what steps were previously taken and whether a different approach is needed.

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