Smart escalation overview

How Lumen detects when customers need human help and connects them with your support team.

Smart escalation ensures that customers who need human help get it — without making everyone wait in a queue.

How it works

Lumen intelligently monitors conversations and recognizes when a customer needs human support. When escalation is triggered, Lumen:

Tells the customer it will connect them with a support agent.
Asks for the customer's email address (if not already provided).
Sends an email to your configured escalation address with the full conversation context and order details.
Confirms to the customer that their request has been forwarded.

What's included in the escalation email

Your support team receives:

Customer email — So they can reply directly
Full conversation transcript — Every message exchanged between the customer and Lumen
Order details — Order number, status, tracking info, and any relevant data Lumen found
Context summary — A brief note on the reason for escalation

This gives your team full context to respond without asking the customer to repeat themselves.

Sample escalation email

Here's what a typical escalation email looks like:

Subject: Lumen Escalation — Order #1042 — sarah@example.com

──────────────────────────────────────
ESCALATION REASON: Customer reporting non-delivery
──────────────────────────────────────

CUSTOMER EMAIL: sarah@example.com
(Reply to this email to respond directly to the customer)

ORDER DETAILS:
• Order: #1042
• Status: Delivered (Feb 20, 2026)
• Carrier: USPS
• Tracking: 9400111899223847563

CONVERSATION TRANSCRIPT:

Customer: Where is my order #1042?

Lumen: Your order #1042 shipped on February 18th via USPS and
was marked as delivered on February 20th. Your tracking number
is 9400111899223847563.

Customer: I never received it though. It says delivered but
nothing was at my door.

Lumen: I'm sorry to hear that. Since the carrier shows it as
delivered but you haven't received it, this is something our
support team can help investigate. Would you like me to connect
you with them?

Customer: Yes please

Lumen: I've forwarded your case to our support team with all the
details. They'll reach out to you at sarah@example.com shortly.

──────────────────────────────────────
Sent by Lumen · yourstore.myshopify.com

Availability

Smart escalation is available on paid plans. Each plan includes a generous monthly allocation of escalation emails. You can monitor your usage in the Lumen dashboard under Analytics.

Escalation vs. transfer

Lumen uses asynchronous escalation — it sends an email to your team rather than transferring to a live chat. This works well for stores that don't have live chat agents on standby 24/7.

Your team can respond to the customer via email at their convenience, which aligns with the self-service, different-timezone approach that Lumen is designed for.