# What is Escalation Rate?

> The percentage of tickets support can't resolve without another team.

Canonical: https://www.decimal.app/glossary/escalation-rate · Last reviewed: 2026-09-23

Escalation rate is the number of tickets escalated to a higher tier or another team divided by total tickets. Technical companies usually track the engineering escalation rate on its own.

## Why it matters

It's the best single measure of how much support depends on engineering. A rising rate after a launch can also flag a quality problem before it shows up anywhere else.

## Best practices

1. Track by product area. A spike in one area points to a bug or a docs gap.
2. Audit escalations monthly. Count how many needed an engineer versus better tooling or access.
3. Set a target. Lower escalation rate is a shared goal for support and engineering.

## How Decimal helps

Decimal lowers escalation rate by giving support the investigation an engineer would have done, so more tickets close without leaving the support queue.

## Related terms

- [Engineering Escalation](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/engineering-escalation): A ticket support hands to engineering because it needs code-level investigation.
- [Deflection Rate](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/deflection-rate): The share of customer questions resolved without a human support agent.
- [Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR)](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/mttr): The average time from when an issue is reported to when it's fixed.
- [Tiered Support (L1, L2, L3)](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/tiered-support): A support structure where harder issues move up through levels of expertise.

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