Customer Escalations as a Sign of Poor CX

“Why is this coming to me?”

If escalations around your post-sale team are landing on your desk, or bouncing among execs, it’s not just a fire to put out.

It’s a sign. 🔍

A signal that your Customer Success strategy is unclear or misaligned.

I was talking with a CEO recently who was fielding daily questions like:

• “Should we comp this renewal?”

• “Do we re-onboard this customer?”

• “Whose job is it to fix this issue?”

• None of these questions were new.

But the team had no framework to make the call, so these items escalated. 🧨

When your CS strategy is muddled, a few things happen:

• 🚧 Teams default to reactive, ticket-driven work

• 🤷‍♂️ Ownership of key moments gets fuzzy

• 📞 Leaders get pulled into customer decisions that shouldn’t need escalation

And over time:

• 🕳️ Gaps widen

• 💬 Messaging gets inconsistent

• 📉 Customers lose confidence

Here’s the fix: not more headcount, but more clarity.

You need:

• 🧭 A shared definition of customer health

• 🎯 A way to prioritize customer work based on risk and opportunity

• 📚 Playbooks that give your team the tools and confidence to act

When your team knows who is healthy, what needs attention, and how to engage:

They don’t escalate.

They execute.

Escalations aren’t the enemy.

But if they’re constant, they’re a mirror. 🪞

And they’re reflecting a gap you can fix.