What is a reputation crisis escalation framework?

A useful escalation framework lives on one page and is reviewed twice a year with the senior team. The triggers are specific events that automatically move the response up a tier: a story in a tier-one outlet, an AI engine narrative shift detected by AIQ, a regulator inquiry, a coordinated social campaign, a board member receiving direct outreach. The tiers define who is on the call, what authorities they have, what tools get activated, and how fast. Each tier has a named owner (CCO at tier one, CEO at tier two, board chair at tier three is a common pattern), explicit decision rights, and a service-level commitment for response speed. The framework is most useful before a crisis – the time spent writing it down once is recovered many times over in the speed and clarity it produces under pressure.