An incident received by a service desk staff member was about to exceed the resolution target time set in the SLA. The staff member reported the situation to the service desk manager and asked for a decision on adding staff and on contacting users. Which of the following is this action?

Answer: C. Hierarchical escalation

Escalation means handing an incident that the person in charge cannot handle alone over to another person or team, or asking for a decision. Handing it over to a technical team with the specialist knowledge or authority needed to resolve it is functional escalation, and reporting to higher management to ask for decisions or resources when the target time is about to be exceeded or the impact is large is hierarchical escalation. In this example the staff member reported to the manager and asked for decisions such as adding staff, so it is hierarchical escalation.

• A. This hands the handling over to a technical team with specialist knowledge; it does not ask higher management for a decision.
• B. This registers a problem to investigate the root cause, which is a different activity from reporting when the target time is about to be exceeded.
• C. Correct. It reports to higher management and asks for decisions and resources.