Let’s begin with the most broadly used explanations of service desks and help desks, together with some tips and examples on how to select what’s ideal for your company.
What is a help desk?
The IT help desk is more of a tactical strategy, with the main goal of assisting to hastily resolve the immediate needs and technical incidents and issues of the end-users. In nature, the helpdesk software UK is reactive but is expected to be speedy and efficient. The IT help desk can be distinct from or part of a bigger service desk operation that improves the organisation’s overall customer service.
Main traits attributes of the help desk include:
Automated ticket tracking, email notifications, and routing
Acts as a single point of contact for all IT support needs
Providing standard incident and service request management
Utilising a tracking solution for all incidents reported
Limited integration with other ITSM practices like knowledge management and configuration management
Some applications/areas maintained by forte groups outside the help desk
Showing standard self-service choices for end-users
Offering Levels one and two support and pass incident ownership if culpability is required
Who might choose a help desk? A toolset made for a help desk is likely to offer support for service request and incident management and standard change enablement functionality. For small companies with minimal dependency on IT, this is a cost-effective and sensible alternative.
I work together with less complex companies to enhance their IT service management capabilities and, virtually with no exception, the majority of organisations I have seen are barely scratching the surface when it comes to using the capabilities of the toolset they’ve bought and implemented. These organisations could have saved a lot of money and reaped the same benefits from a simple help desk option – having a full-blown service management system isn’t for everybody.
What is a service desk?
The IT service desk has a typically wider function that’s more strategic and cross-organisational. A service desk focuses on the broader needs of the business and context instead of being focused on solving the needs of the end-user as a help desk does.
The service desk’s ITIL definition is the only point of contact between the users and the service provider. Generally, a service desk manages service requests and incidents and deals with communication with the users. The service desk has got a help desk section, but its overall objective is being proactive in enhancing business and IT processes across the company. The best service desks are continually searching for opportunities to govern all IT processes, including the help desk, more effectively.
The main attributes of the service desk include:
Acts as a single point of contact for all business processes, applications, and IT areas
Fully incorporating with other ITSM processes
Communicating and integrating with the configuration management database (CMDB)
Tracing amenability with service level agreements (SLAs)
Offering a self-service function for service and incident requests, with an integrated service catalogue
A mature company with intricate IT systems, amalgamations with third-party vendors and a reliance on their IT infrastructure will, almost definitely, require an ITSM resolution with an assimilated service desk functionility.
Best practices for picking the right tools
If you visit different groups on LinkedIn and other forums, you’ll find several heated debates on this topic. These conversations usually distinguish the kind of software that you might utilise to simplify work done on your desk. In my point of view, here are the best ways of selecting the ideal help/service desk tools for your company.