Forum Discussion
Mark Weusten
Nov 09, 2017Copper Contributor
How can I escalate issues in Office 365?
I have had a support case running with 365 for a couple of weeks. They close the ticket over the New Zealand weekend because of time differences, I reopen it and then have to provide the same informa...
RussellRead
Microsoft
May 08, 2019
Hi Brian,
Thanks for sharing your experience and sorry that it's taking a while to get this one fixed.
I reviewed your ticket and can confirm that the ticket was escalated.
When we say "escalated", it can mean a few things. Sometimes it means that the person who owns your ticket is out of knowledge or needs help from another subject matter expert within the support org. This will generally be somebody from the same team, but could also be somebody from another team at Microsoft. In either case, the person who owns your ticket will generally continue to own the communication with you.
In your case, the escalation is to our engineering team. These are the folks who write the code and ensure the Office 365 service is running as it should. Whenever things aren't working correctly, if our support teams determine that there are no changes that you, or they, can make that would resolve the issue, they will engage our engineering team to investigate.
On the upside, your ticket is with the right team. The downside is that your issue is unusual and might require further information to be collected to allow the engineering team to continue investigating.
All communications will continue to flow via the support ambassador.
I've sent your feedback over to the team who owns your ticket.
-thanks, Russell.
AriZoNaiCe
May 08, 2019Copper Contributor
Hey Russell -- thanks for the quick reply on this and for you passing along the info to the team that owns this ticket. As you said, there's both good and bad here. It's the amount of time between communications that concerns me, often going 24 hours or more before we get replies. Is it not possible to have a working session with a member of the engineering team to get this resolved more quickly? We're talking about e-mail for an organization...they literally cannot survive without it working properly.
I am a software engineering manager at a top-200 Fortune 500 company, so I understand this process well. One 15-30 minute working session would ensure that the engineering team has everything they need to resolve this quickly, rather than back and forth for days at a time. As it stands, we're at over two weeks. Considering the importance of e-mail in the workplace, I'd hope for a higher priority when it's not working properly.
Thanks!
- Antonello69Oct 26, 2021Copper Contributor
Hi Russell
Thanks a lot for your help,
support suggested me a solution that works, although I'm not completely satisfied
because of I'm required to change the user passwords on prem to get the last change date property synchronized with Azure AD .. In my mind changing the "pwdLastSet" attribute to "0" and in turn to "-1" actually modify the attribute to the current system date and so this change must be reflected to the Azure AD corresponding attribute , with no need to trigger an on prem password reset.
Regards
Antonello - RussellReadOct 12, 2021
Microsoft
Hi Antonello69,
Sorry to hear that you aren't happy with the response from our support team. I reviewed the case notes earlier today and have asked the team to follow-up with you.
I believe the suggestion from the support team to try changing the password was based on the fact that it wasn't clear you had already attempted this. From your description, I understood that you weren't actually changing the password, but rather just changing the password last change date property.
I agree that the team could have better scoped the issue and helped you understand why the troubleshooting step was being suggested.
Hopefully, the team will be able to help get this question answered for you soon.
-thanks, Russell.
- Antonello69Oct 12, 2021Copper ContributorHello Russell
I opened a support case ( Ticket #27672544 ) but I'm not very happy of how it's been managed 'til now, I explained clearly what's my need but the support is not giving me a real resolution , could you help ?
Thanks a lot
Regards
Antonello - RussellReadSep 15, 2021
Microsoft
despich - I've sent you a private message and will follow-up with the team now.
- despichSep 15, 2021Copper ContributorI am sorry I am desperate I heard you could maybe help. I have two tickets that have been open for over 1 month each that is directly affecting all my 130 users. The techs on the ticket have not escalated them and won't let me deal directly with the real techs they are talking to. So all they do is keep suggesting to check the same settings again and again. Then they don't reply for a few days then it's another suggestion that usually does not even really apply to the issue something that they spent 5 minutes googling then they reply back with something like "have you looked at this " and then they supply a Hyperlink to whatever article they found. Their is no progress..
Case #: 26909889 and Case #:26910254 - TomWCPUJan 14, 2021Copper Contributor
This is very scary. I have been working and depending on Microsoft support for 3 decades, help on SEV1 and 2 incidents, and always got a response within 20 mins, escalation within 30mins. With all said, depending and recieving break-fix solutions and reports from Microsoft helping companies with runbook solutions for technologies. Having an existing case, getting unheard of responses, and first experience of no knowledge base support of the technology offered by MSFT, then reading this post is absolutely scary. I am a Microsoft house, I support big IT/10,000 seat+ that are also Microsoft houses. To know this is the direction of support by Microsoft is not only shameful but also scary that is the direction of Microsoft and can lead or teach other dependent global application companies to go the same direction. My case number is 23650870, I haven't created a ticket in more than year, but for the first time I have doubts about being a Microsoft house now and future-tense.
- optimystery650Aug 12, 2020Copper Contributor
I need to add my case to this list: #21350853
After being promised a callback from a manager this morning, 40+ hours of my billable time and several tickets, I am in damage control mode with 2 of my clients. One of them because following a migration many of their email contents and attachment are missing (and each failed attempt at migration causes further disruption), and the other because I have had to put off starting their migration due to trying to fix this mess.
I never received a call from a manager as promised, but instead the ticket in question was simply closed with no comment.
My view on this is that engineers are just trying to sweep the issue under the carpet and hope it goes away. They are basically out of their depth, and unwilling to take responsibility for that.
I am amazed at how Microsoft can create such a culture.
The level 1 support is usually less than useful, because on frequent occasions I have been given not only advice that would waste my time, or fundamentally failed to grasp the requirement, context and utilise any kind of common sense; but often that advice would lead to disruptive results for my clients.
The fact that there is no proper system for having a manager step in to mediate expert advice is incredible. I can attest that the level of knowledge, expertise, and attitude of engineers varies massively.More often than not I have been pointing out things to engineers that they would have missed, or discovering next steps that actually lead somewhere useful through my own research.
This is simply not good enough.
- Theo_Charles_LimApr 03, 2020Copper Contributor
Russell, I need your help with this case and I wish to escalate:
120022821000966A pingpong case between Intune support and Azure support. Currently speaking with Azure support but they are again asking me to close down the ticket and raise a new one with Intune support.
FYI I also came from Microsoft support background, so I definitely understand how complex issues like this is handled. But the way they handled my cause is soooooooooooooooo disappointing! - santosh1110Feb 06, 2020Copper Contributor
Hi RussellRead ,
We are facing create file/copy file/move file issue with Power-Platform(MS-Flow). I think it is a bug on Microsoft power-platform.
All troubleshooting steps were already performed but the support engineer handling this case and they are also waiting for another backend engineer for respond from last 1 month.
They doesn't seem to understand the urgency of this issue.
Our Support request number: 120012121000227,
we'll appreciate if you could help us push this case to be escalated to backend team.
Thanks,
Santosh Kalange
- RussellReadJan 06, 2020
Microsoft
Thanks for your note. I sent you an e-mail so that we can follow-up on this one.
-thanks, Russell.
- beemanJan 04, 2020Copper Contributor
I appreciate your comments and helps. Many times you have given others a suggestion and it will get their case moving for them. I have had this case open for over 6 months. I am attempting to create a user and it shows that the user already exist. We have created another address so this user can send and receive emails but we would like to resolve the conflict in the system. I'm sure that a lot of notes exist in the ticket notes. It is [Ticket #:14448181] Deleting of Alias for Kyle. Without warning, the MS support closed the case Dec 1. I did leave a 'disappointed' feedback when I received the 'close' notification by email and left a request for a callback in the notes. I've waited 1 month and thought you might give me some suggestions. Thank you very much!
- RussellReadDec 12, 2019
Microsoft
Hi Ron_Rufo,
From reading the case notes, it looks like the case was escalated yesterday. I see a note from the first phone call you had with our team saying that you wanted to escalate.
It looks like the escalation engineer you are speaking with attempted to contact you yesterday and again today.
Now that you've responded with the information they requested, I'm sure that troubleshooting can continue and, if needed, the support team will escalate if it's believed to be a bug or problem that requires our engineering team to get involved.
Just to be clear, no part of my official job is related to looking at or dealing with escalations and nor do I have a special way to get cases escalated. But it's a great time to remind people who I am and why I try to engage in some of these community discussions.
The following text is an edited/updated version of a post I previously posted in this thread and is a good place to start if you found this page because you need help with an active support case.
If you found this thread and are thinking "Oh great, if I contact Russell he'll be able to get my case escalated for me", sadly no, this isn't the preferred way to get support or get a ticket escalated 🙂
We receive thousands of support tickets every day and we have thousands of folks in our support teams across the world who are working hard to resolve those tickets to get customers up-and-running as quickly as possible. Sometimes, it takes longer to resolve some cases than others. At times, it takes our teams longer to respond to customers if we see increased volume of cases.
I participate in the community because I'm genuinely interested to hear feedback - good and bad - from customers who are engaging with our Office 365 support teams. My core role at Microsoft is to ensure our teams are ready to support customers. My work is primarily focussed on partnering with our engineering and marketing teams to stay close to new feature development to ensure we've got a plan to get our teams ready to support those new features when they are deployed. Of course, I don't do this alone - my immediate team and a host of folks in our global virtual teams work together to make this happen.
When I hear that the support experience hasn't met the high bar we set for ourselves, I want to know why. Was it because we didn't equip our teams with the right information? Did one of our processes break? Do we have an issue with our tools? Whatever the problem, I want to know because if there's an opportunity for my team to do something differently to avoid the problem in the future, we can address that.
Then, of course, there are issues that aren't within the immediate control of my team. In these cases, I send the feedback over to the folks who manage the support team. These folks will then take action so that the feedback gets to the right team or individual allowing us to learn and hopefully do better next time.
As I don't work 24x7 and have a day-job and family, I'm not always as present in the community as I'd like to be. When I'm deeply involved in projects or development work, or out on vacation, it might be a while before I see a message. Therefore, if you need "immediate" assistance, contacting me isn't the best plan.
So, what is the right way to get help? For the majority of our customers, they get the help they need very quickly and have no cause to need to "escalate". However, when things don't go to plan, the first avenue should be to work with the support team who's working on your support ticket. Ask them why it's taking longer than expected to resolve your issue. Ask them what their next steps are to assist you. Ask them to help you understand why they are asking you for certain information or why they are asking you to complete certain troubleshooting steps.
I'll often have customers say to me "I don't know why support asked me to do x, y, or z because I knew that it wouldn't make a difference" or "I know that this problem is a bug in the product". In reality, the steps that you are being asked to follow often help customers to resolve issues, or serve to collect valuable information that can be used to inform the next steps or escalation.
If you don't think you are getting the help you need, ask the support ambassador what's needed before they will escalate the ticket. Every person in the support organization wants to resolve your ticket as quickly as possible. If you don't get what you need or things don't improve, you should see the e-mail address for the tech lead and/or manager for the support team listed in the e-mail signature of the person who e-mailed you. You can contact the tech lead/manager to tell them that you aren't getting what you need.
That said, I'm always happy to hear from anybody who's engaged with our support teams and am happy to chat privately or in this forum to respond to feedback.
-thanks, Russell.
- Ron_RufoDec 12, 2019Copper Contributor
Hi Russell,
Our tenant is currently suffering from outlook search issue with delegated mailboxes.
More than 1500 users are affected and I think it is a bug on Microsoft Outlook.
All troubleshooting steps were already performed but the Engineer handling this case doesn't seem to understand the urgency of this issue.
Our ticket number is 17890067, we'll appreciate if you could help us push this case to be escalated to backend team.
Thanks,
Ron
- RussellReadDec 12, 2019
Microsoft
Hi Martin50,
Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm sorry to hear that we haven't been able to resolve your issue yet.
I forwarded your message to our delivery manager and he's going to get somebody to follow-up with you to see how we can move this forward for you.
-thanks, Russell.
- Martin50Dec 11, 2019Copper Contributor
Hi RussellRead,
I have a ticket open with O365 support and while the techs are responding to my ticket I am not getting a resolution fast enough for the severity of the issue.
The ticket number is 17752282, one of my Customers is having lots of troubles receiving emails (Roughly 50% of emails sent to any of their addresses appear to be bouncing from any external domain) Each time the NDR shows the same error message.
Error DetailsReported error:
550 5.4.1 Recipient address rejected: Access denied [SY3AUS01FT013.eop-AUS01.prod.protection.outlook.com]
DSN generated by:
SY2PR01MB2731.ausprd01.prod.outlook.com
Remote server:
SY3AUS01FT013.mail.protection.outlook.com
The issue has been occurring for over a week now and I don't seem to be getting anywhere close to a resolution. Email is very important to this customer so I really need to get this resolved ASAP. Hopefully you can help me light a fire under support to get this issue resolved.
- RussellReadNov 26, 2019
Microsoft
I replied to the e-mail you sent me a few minutes ago with a short update. It looks like the support team escalated your issue to our engineering team who are investigating.
It seems that the support team called you yesterday to provide you with the latest status update. If you need something from them that they aren't delivering, you absolutely should let them know.
For now though, the support team are waiting to hear back on the escalation and will update you as soon as they have news.
-thanks, Russell.
- thegift06Nov 26, 2019Copper Contributor
RussellRead Hi Russell. I have a case open for 2 weeks now and its going around in circles. Can you take a look for me please. Getting little to no communication back on it. Ticket number is 17500746
- RussellReadAug 22, 2019
Microsoft
- RyanBlakeAug 22, 2019Copper Contributor
RussellRead So I was working with someone for a while on this ticket but I don't think they fully understood the issue? I'm not sure because they just closed the ticket and said I needed to put in a UserVoice. As mentioned, I don't think this is a feature request, it's a break-fix as data/information is wrong. Any insight or assistance you could give would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Ryan
- RyanBlakeAug 05, 2019Copper Contributor
RussellRead Thank you! Hope you have a nice and enjoyable vacation.
- RussellReadAug 05, 2019
Microsoft
I've asked one of my colleagues to take a look. I'm just heading out on vacation and haven't had a chance to review the ticket. I'd agree in principle with your message, although I'm not an expert in this area.
-thanks, Russell.
- RyanBlakeJul 26, 2019Copper Contributor
Hi Russell,
I appreciate the thorough and thoughtful response. For the most part, the support I receive from Microsoft is sufficient. However, there are times when I seemingly ask about more complex or different requests, I get push back.
I admit that I am writing you again because I am facing an issue with an open ticket where tech support is saying that the issue is not a problem and trying to close the ticket. They also effectively hung up on me at the end of our call, likely from frustration (which I can somewhat understand from his perspective, but from the customer experience perspective, below ideal). They also just pointed me to UserVoice, which I believe is not for break/fix issues, but more for enhancements and overall experience with the product. If I'm incorrect on this, please let me know.
So, here's the quick synopsis (I can send you the ticket number via direct message):
When I go to Mail Flow -> Dashboard, I see an Outbound and Inbound Mail Flow tile. For outbound, it shows 100% uses TLS and inbound it shows less than 100% uses TLS. However, I know this to not be true because not all e-mails going out from us have TLS enabled. When I drill down and click on View Details, Connector Report, select Show data for To the internet without a connector, and then click on View data by TLS usage, I get below 100%. I would expect both the overview to show the same data as the more detailed report, but it doesn't. Isn't this a bug that needs to be escalated to Microsoft engineers instead of closing my ticket and saying "good riddance"?
While I completely understand that this is more of a cosmetic bug than something that is actually causing an outage, I would still expect to see my ticket created into a problem report that gets submitted to the developers and linked to that problem report on your backend development system (e.g. Github) so that I can check on the progress of the issue and see it's eventual resolution.
Below are screenshots of what I am reporting (with some personal details redacted):
Dashboard Overview Image:
Connector Report:
I sincerely appreciate your involvement in the community and any assistance or insight that you can provide.
Thank you.
Ryan
- RussellReadMay 23, 2019
Microsoft
Hi Ryan,
Having a ticket "escalated" or to get "escalated support" is an interesting topic, and one that I'll frequently hear from people. When people are asking for escalation, really what they are asking for is for their problem to be resolved faster.
As you mention, Microsoft has a mix of in-house and outsourced support teams delivering support across all of our products and services. In Office 365 support, we have thousands of people across the globe providing support to customers. Regardless of which country these folks are in or which team they are a member of, the end goal is always the same - to resolve problems quickly to enable our customers like you to get back to realizing value from the service.
While we do have teams who are responsible for Premier support, this doesn't necessarily equate to problems being resolved faster. All of our Office 365 support teams have access to the same training and readiness resources, they can collaborate with subject matter experts, and they can escalate to the same engineering teams. Our goal is to deliver a great service to everybody - regardless of where you enter the support experience.
I have to admit, I'm not familiar with the details of the costs and full benefits of our current Premier support offering, but I can certainly find somebody who can provide those details if you are interested. It's generally a support offer that makes sense if you have a complex hybrid/on-prem environment or if you need additional engagement with Microsoft via a Technical Account Manager (for example). For most Office 365 customers, the no-charge support that we provide as part of the service is usually the right choice.
Whenever you are working with our support teams, make sure you tell them if you aren't happy with the progress that's being made. While this doesn't magically deliver a solution, it helps the folks in support to realize when they might need to ask for help.
A side note on what happens when we "escalate" tickets. This simply means that the frontline support person is asking for help from somebody else. Maybe somebody more experienced, maybe somebody with a different skillset, and sometimes, assistance from our engineering teams - the folks who write the code and keep the service running. We always try to keep ownership of the ticket with the frontline person. This avoids tickets from "bouncing" from person to person and maintains a single point of contact for the customer, but it also helps the frontline support folks to learn and upskill so that they can better assist customers in the future.
I hope this helps to provide a little insight into what happens when a ticket lands with our support teams.
-thanks, Russell.
- RyanBlakeMay 16, 2019Copper Contributor
RussellRead Hi Russell, I, too, would like to say thank you for being available to us.
One of the things that I am currently struggling with is getting escalations on tickets. There was a case where I opened a ticket and since it wasn't resolved in several days time, I went on scheduled vacation/holiday for a week, and then when I returned, the ticket was already closed. I wanted to reopen the ticket but there wasn't a way from within the portal so I called in, which created yet another ticket. I then waited weeks for them to finally open a new ticket with the same ticket owner where I was able to continue troubleshooting. When I have asked to speak to a manager after calling in, they get a manager but they inform me that the manager of the other ticket is in "another area." I translate that to meaning that I spoke with one contractor/company the first time and then the second time I spoke with another contractor/company the second time. Neither has any control over the other one. It would be extremely nice if there was a way to contact someone like yourself who has so generously offered to help us via a phone call that works for Microsoft and can truly get it sorted out.
I have seen in the forums where it stated that you could buy Premier Support, but when I inquired about this, we didn't have enough spend to qualify. I think we're at $35,000 and we need to be at $55,000 a year. I found this site https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-for-business-support-options from this one https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4341255 but neither really explains how to get additional escalated support. Do you have any suggestions?
Thank you again for your willingness to help!Ryan
- VasilMichevMay 16, 2019MVP
RussellRead once again I want to express my thanks for your involvement in the MTC and this thread. I know for a fact how frustrating the support experience can be and simply having a person like you available to review a ticket (even though you are not directly responsible) is immensely helpful.