Escalations
MaidSense, your AI receptionist, handles most customer texts and chats on its own. When a conversation needs a person — a special request, a complaint, or a question MaidSense can't answer — it creates an escalation and hands the conversation to your team. The Escalation Log is where your staff sees that work, claims it, and closes it out so nothing gets forgotten.
Who Can Access This
| Role | Access Level |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Full access |
| Office Manager | View and edit |
| Sales | View and edit |
| HR Admin | View and edit |
| Payroll Admin | View and edit |
Staff with view permission can read the Escalation Log and open any escalation. Only staff with edit permission can claim, take over, mark handled, or dismiss.
This feature may need to be enabled for your company. If you don't see it, contact your administrator to check your feature settings.
Overview
An escalation is a single customer conversation that MaidSense decided a person should handle. Each one carries the customer's information, a short summary of what they need, and a recommended follow-up. The Escalation Log keeps every escalation in one place and tracks its status from the moment it's created until a staff member closes it.
The Active tab refreshes on its own every 15 seconds, so you'll see new escalations appear without reloading the page. To reload everything on the page, including the Resolved and All tabs, click the refresh button at the top of the MaidSense page.
How to Open the Escalation Log
- In the main navigation, open MaidSense.
- Select the Receptionist tab.
- Scroll to the Escalation Log section, below the analytics overview and Conversations.
- Use the tabs to filter the list, and open an escalation from its card to see the detail panel.
Reading the Escalation Log
Each escalation shows up as a card. On every card you'll see:
- Status badge — where the escalation stands (see the statuses below).
- Channel — how the customer reached you, such as SMS, Web Chat, Portal Chat, Website Widget, or Voice.
- Customer — the customer's name if known, otherwise their phone or email. Truly unknown customers show as Anonymous.
- Reason and summary — a short description of what the customer needs.
- Owner — the staff member who claimed it, shown with a Follow-up overdue flag if the response window was missed.
- Recommended — MaidSense's suggested next step.
- Time — when the escalation was created, resolved, or (if overdue) how long it's been overdue.
Each card also has buttons on the right: Claim (when the escalation is open and unclaimed), Follow up (or View if it's closed or you have view-only access) to open the detail panel, and a menu with more actions. The escalation's priority (High, Normal, or Low) is shown in the detail panel.
Tabs
The Escalation Log is split into tabs so you can focus on the right work:
- Active — open escalations that still need attention, whether or not someone has claimed them. This is your main working list.
- Resolved — escalations that were closed out.
- All — every escalation, regardless of status, including dismissed escalations. Older records that timed out under a previous version of the system (badged "Overdue (legacy)") also appear here.
Use Previous and Next at the bottom of a list to move between pages.
Statuses
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pending | New — no one has claimed it yet. |
| Acknowledged | A staff member has claimed it and is responsible for the follow-up. |
| Resolved | Closed out by a staff member. |
| Dismissed | Cleared without contacting the customer (noise, a test, or a duplicate). |
| Overdue (legacy) | An older record that timed out under a previous version. |
The Overdue Indicator
If an escalation's response window is missed while it's still open, its card shows a red Follow-up overdue flag and the status badge switches to Overdue. An overdue escalation is still owed to the customer and stays in your working list until someone closes it. Once an escalation is resolved or dismissed, it's no longer treated as overdue — closed work stops sounding the alarm.
Working an Escalation
Click Follow up or View on any card to see the full detail panel. It shows the customer's contact information, the conversation summary, what the customer is waiting on, the assigned owner, MaidSense's recommended follow-up, any collected details, and a full history of everything that happened. If the conversation is still live and on a supported channel, you can also reply to the customer right from here.
Claim
If an escalation is still open and unclaimed, click Claim to make yourself the owner. This tells the rest of your team you're handling it. If a teammate claimed it first, you'll see a message letting you know.
Take Over
For live conversations on the website widget, portal chat, or text message, you can step in and reply to the customer directly. Choose Take over to open the conversation and send your own messages. See Taking Over an AI Receptionist Conversation for the full walkthrough.
Mark Handled
When the follow-up is done, close the escalation with Mark handled:
- Open the escalation.
- Under How was this handled?, choose an outcome — Reply sent, No response needed, or Handled elsewhere.
- Optionally add a note describing what happened.
- Click Mark handled.
Closing an escalation this way never messages the customer — it only records how your team resolved it.
Dismiss
Use Dismiss for escalations that don't need a customer reply — noise, tests, or duplicates. Do not dismiss a customer who is still waiting to hear back; use Follow up and Mark handled for those instead.
- Open the escalation and choose Dismiss, or select cards in the list (see below).
- Optionally add a reason. You can pick a built-in preset, choose one of your company's saved reasons, or type your own.
- Confirm.
Dismissing removes the escalation from the Active tab without contacting the customer, and the reason is saved to the escalation's history. Dismissed escalations still appear under All.
Dismiss Several at Once
On the Active and All tabs you can clear more than one escalation in a single step:
- Use the checkbox on each card to select the escalations you want, or use Select all on this page.
- A bar appears at the top showing how many are selected. Use Clear to start over.
- Click Dismiss selected, add an optional reason, and confirm.
If some of the selected escalations were already closed by someone else, Pulse dismisses the ones it can and leaves the rest selected so you can try again.
Automatic Follow-ups for Missed Escalations
This behavior is part of a staged rollout and may not be enabled for your company. Contact your administrator if you'd like to know whether it's turned on.
When it's enabled, MaidSense can create a durable follow-up on its own if an escalation goes unanswered past its response window while still unclaimed. Instead of the reminder disappearing, MaidSense files a lasting task so your team catches up with the customer later. Depending on what MaidSense knows about the customer, this can create:
- A customer follow-up ticket or note for a known customer.
- A lead follow-up note for a known lead.
- An identity confirmation step when MaidSense isn't sure who the customer is.
You'll see these follow-up actions listed in the escalation's history when they happen. When this behavior is turned off, escalations still appear in the Escalation Log and can be worked by hand exactly as described above — they just won't generate automatic follow-up tasks.
Tips and Best Practices
- Work the Active tab first, and prioritize cards marked Follow-up overdue. Check the priority in the detail panel for anything marked High.
- Claim an escalation before you start so teammates know it's being handled.
- Always choose an outcome when you mark an escalation handled — it keeps your team's records clear.
- Save dismissals for noise, tests, and duplicates only. If a customer is still waiting, reply and mark it handled instead.
- Leave a short note when you close an escalation so anyone following up later has the full picture.
Troubleshooting
| What you see | Solution |
|---|---|
| I don't see the Escalation Log | The feature may not be enabled for your company. Contact your administrator. |
| The page says "Receptionist access required" | Your role may not include escalation access. Contact your administrator. |
| I can't claim, dismiss, or mark handled | You likely have view-only access. Ask your administrator for edit permission. |
| "Another staff member claimed this first" | A teammate claimed the escalation before you. Check with them before stepping in. |
| Nothing was dismissed | The escalations may already have been closed by someone else. Refresh and try again. |
| The conversation is no longer available | Conversations expire about 48 hours after they end. The summary in the escalation still applies. |