Delivered but never opened: when a push escalates to a phone call

transcript

A security alert reaches your phone. Delivered. Job done? You never open it. So what should the platform do now?

You know fallback. A delivery fails, so you try another channel. Escalation is its cousin. The message arrived. Nobody opened it. So you move to a more intrusive channel.

The push goes out. Its escalation checks are booked right away, on the same scheduler. At 5 minutes, still unopened? An SMS, with the escalation version of the template. At the 15 minute check, still no response? Your phone rings. A voice call.

But here's the catch. You opened it at minute 3. Do you still get the SMS? No. The check asks one question first. Has it been read? It has. So nothing happens. No SMS, no call. That's what stops escalation spamming someone who already responded.

And the ladder depends on the type. A security alert climbs in minutes. A payment confirmation is gentler. Unopened after an hour, it goes by email.

Fallback reacts to a failed delivery. Escalation reacts to silence. Because delivered isn't the same as seen.

Full breakdown in the lecture.