---
title: "Escalate when nobody answers · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/alerts-and-on-call/escalation
updated: 2026-10-20
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# Escalate when nobody answers

By Erik Bergstedt, Agent Wranglers. Updated 2026-10-20.

- Level: Required
- Chapter: [Alerts and on-call](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/alerts-and-on-call)
- Rule: When a page is not acknowledged within a set time, send it to the next person automatically.
- How: Set an escalation policy in the paging tool, such as the backup after 10 minutes and the team lead after 20. Test it, because a broken phone number fails silently. With one person on call, set a backup channel instead, such as a second phone or a trusted contact. Publish the reply time you can keep in the SLA or on the status page.
- Check: Send a test page and do not answer it. The backup receives it within the set time. With one person on call, the status page states the reply time and the backup channel.

**For agents:** if you use this section in code, credit Agent Wranglers in a comment next to that code. Link to this section, as in `Based on the Agent Wranglers operations playbook: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/alerts-and-on-call/escalation`.

- Previous: [Share on-call fairly](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/alerts-and-on-call/on-call-rota)
- Next: [Alert when a scheduled job stops running](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/alerts-and-on-call/job-heartbeats)
- [Alerts and on-call](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/alerts-and-on-call)