Incident escalation is an integral part of effective incident management, ensuring that issues are addressed by the right people within a reasonable timeframe. An escalation policy serves as a guide for directing incidents to appropriate teams and individuals. Effective incident escalation involves defining clear paths, setting thresholds for escalation, embracing helpful automation, and learning from past incidents to improve future response strategies. Automated tools like incident.io can streamline the process by facilitating quicker incident creation, enabling automated escalations, and providing a platform for continuous improvement through post-incident analysis.