Tiered Support

A model that routes issues through escalating levels (T1, T2, T3) by complexity or specialisation.

Tiered support sorts work into levels: front-line generalists handle common issues (T1), harder or specialised cases move up to T2/T3. It is easy to staff and reason about, and it protects senior expertise from routine volume.

It is a structure, not a metric, but escalation rate and transfer counts reveal how well it's tuned.

What it hides: every tier boundary is a handoff, and handoffs add wait, context loss, and customer repetition. Draw the lines wrong and T1 becomes a routing desk that solves little, inflating FCR damage and frustrating everyone. The alternative — swarming — trades structure for collaboration; neither is universally right.