The Problem
Dozens of messages come in every day - client emails, helpdesk tickets, live chats, phone calls. All it takes is someone being busy or missing a notification, and a request sits unanswered. The client waits, the issue stalls.
Manual monitoring doesn’t work. Nobody can watch all channels and check who responded to whom and who didn’t.
How Intum Monitors Response Times
The system automatically monitors requests across all communication channels and reacts when nobody responds within the designated time. It runs in the background, checks every 5 minutes, and requires no manual oversight.
The mechanism is based on escalation policies - sets of rules that define who should be notified and when. E.g., after 10 minutes a notification for the agent, after 30 minutes an email to the team lead, after an hour an email to the director.
What Is Monitored?
- Tickets (Helpdesk) - a client submitted a request and nobody is responding. The main and most common case. Configuration details in a separate article: Ticket Escalation
- Emails (Mail) - messages waiting for a reply in mailboxes. You can also enable an autoresponder during absences
- Live chats (Webchat) - conversations with clients on the website. Response time here is critical - the client is waiting in the chat window
- Phone calls (VoIP) - missed calls and unreturned calls
- Clients and deals (CRM) - client activity requiring a response from the account manager (new email, approaching deal deadline)
- Tasks (Organize) - tasks past their deadline or waiting for a response
In every case the mechanism is the same - if the responsible person doesn’t react, the system escalates the issue.
What Happens When Nobody Responds?
The system executes the steps defined in the escalation policy, one after another:
- In-system notification for the responsible person (“you have an unanswered request”)
- Email to the supervisor (“there’s a request in the team without a response for 30 minutes”)
- Email to the director (“nobody has responded to the client for an hour”)
Each step has a configured delay time. If someone responds in the meantime - the escalation ends automatically.
Someone can also click “I’m on it” - this stops the escalation because it’s known that someone is already working on it.
Connection with Absences
If someone is on vacation, there’s no point waiting for the SLA timer to expire - it’s known they won’t respond. The system recognizes absences and reacts faster:
- A person marked themselves as unavailable - the escalation skips them and immediately notifies the next person
- The system detected a lack of activity - it shortens the wait time because it knows this person probably isn’t working
Escalation Dashboard
You can find an overview of active ticket escalations in Automation -> Dashboard. It shows how many requests are waiting for a response, how many someone is already handling, and how many were resolved today.
Company Pulse
Pulse is a dashboard that aggregates all communication channels in one place. Instead of jumping between Helpdesk, Mail, CRM, and Tasks, you see a single list: what in the company is waiting for a response, how urgent it is, and who should react.
Find it in Automation -> Pulse.
What You See
A single list sorted by urgency - the most overdue items at the top. Each row is a single request, regardless of which channel it came from:
- Channel icon (ticket, email, chat, phone, CRM, task)
- Title or excerpt of the request
- Who is responsible
- How long it’s been waiting for a response
- Time bar - how long until the next escalation step
Color coding of time bars gives a quick overview:
- Green - within limits, there’s still time
- Yellow - deadline approaching, worth reacting
- Red - overdue, nobody has responded
Each request has an “I’m on it” button - one click and the escalation stops.
Filters
- By channel - e.g., show only tickets and emails
- By person - requests assigned to a specific user
- By team - everything belonging to people from a given team
- By status - only overdue, only within limits, only confirmed
A manager filters by their team and sees the workload. A director sees the entire company. An agent sees their requests from all channels in one place.
Statistics
At the top of the dashboard, a summary:
- How many requests are currently waiting for a response
- How many are overdue
- Average response time today
- How many were resolved today
Tips
- Start with tickets - it’s the most common case and easiest to configure. Add other channels later
- Set realistic times - if the average response is 10 minutes, escalation after 20 minutes gives a buffer without false alarms
- Important clients can have faster escalation - set a separate policy for them in CRM
- Combine with absences and substitutes so the system reacts immediately when someone is away
- Pulse is a great place for a morning review - one glance and you know what needs attention