When it comes to IT ticketing and workflow, some teams use the terms ‘help desk’ and ‘service desk’ interchangeably. However, there are important differences between these two forms of technical support.
These differences mostly stem from the terms’ origins. The service desk is a more recently introduced concept. It focuses heavily on the rising need for excellent customer service. The help desk, by contrast, has been around for as long as there have been internal IT problems to resolve.
To help you decide which one is right for your organization, we’ll dig a little deeper into the functions of each option.
What is a Help Desk?
A help desk, also called a HelpDesk or IT help desk, typically focuses on incident management and problem resolution. The help desk team isn’t necessarily antisocial. However, it is often more invested in solving problems quickly rather than providing friendly service to end-users. Many modern help desks in fact don’t interact with customers. Instead, they focus only on supporting internal IT needs. The help desk tracks incidents, solves problems, performs routing, and generally manages IT ticket workflow. It often is limited to Level 1 & 2 support in enterprise companies with the ability to manage service levels.
Help desks handle incidents, which are unplanned interruptions to, or reduced quality of, IT service. This includes things like computers not booting up, trouble logging in, or issues with a network connection. A help desk can provide a quick fix to resolve these issues. When it comes to service requests, such as user requests for information or advice, IT help desks usually don’t have the capacity to meet customer demands. Yet, organizations can’t solely focus on minimizing employee downtime. To ensure positive customer experiences, they must make it easy for users to report issues and provide great customer service while resolving them. This calls for a service desk.
What is a Service Desk?
Sometimes called ServiceDesk, this support focuses more heavily on providing high-quality care when handling service requests. A service desk communicates directly with end-users such as customers and can also resolve internal incidents. The service desk handles service delivery by walking users through onboarding or provisioning access to software like Office 365, for example. A service desk considers the big picture and the user experience of technical support. It may provide self-service options like articles explaining how to perform certain functions. Some service desk teams even manage online communities and forums where users ask questions and report incidents. The service desk likely uses a help desk to close tickets and perform service request management. It also does much more. The team works proactively across an organization to improve IT management. If an opportunity to increase technical efficiency arises, you can trust the service desk to pursue it. Ultimately, a service desk is more powerful than a help desk and more valuable for organizations with a growing customer base.
What About ITSM and ITIL?
While learning about help desks and service desks, you may have come across the terms ‘ITSM’ and ‘ITIL’. ITSM stands for IT Service Management.
This concept goes beyond even the service desk. ITSM includes everything IT in an organization and the planning and development of new IT services.
ITIL stands for IT Infrastructure Library.
The ITIL describes a detailed framework for IT service best practices. It acts as an industry standard in IT, guides organizations in their pursuit to deliver quality services, and increases user satisfaction. Interested individuals can seek ITIL certification through qualified providers.
Especially large organizations like enterprise companies may require robust ITSM to manage their complex needs. They may also seek ITIL-certified individuals to include on their IT team.
Do You Need a Service Desk or Help Desk?
For a new organization, a Help Desk meets internal IT needs. However, as a company grows, it will need a Service Desk. IT is becoming a business enabler that does far more than just resolving technical issues. This is especially true with the increased need to support users who are working remotely. Dependence on integration to third-party tools has also increased. Management teams recognize that it’s more important than ever to enhance the user experience and improve the quality of services with the help of a service desk. If you’re dealing with rapidly growing demand on IT, a service desk is likely the best option. Identifying a solution helps you build ITSM that enables organization-wide efficiency and increases user satisfaction. A solution that helps you get started quickly and easily make changes or improvements as needed lets you implement best practices without costing an arm and a leg.
Find the Best Service Desk For Your Organization
There are many service desk options available on the market today. However, you don’t want to pay for a system with features that don’t meet your needs. To identify the strongest solutions, here are some key things you’ll want to look for in a modern service desk: Automation. Ticketing, workflow, the service catalog, and more can be automated with bots to enhance service delivery and ease demand on your team.
Management. Be sure your solution manages everything: incidents, assets, problems, changes, contracts, and purchases.
Compatibility. Ideal service desks are accessible and usable across devices, including tablets and mobile phones for easily tagging and scanning assets.
Security. Check to make sure your service desk provider is compliant with IT security and other requirements.
Visibility. Robust solutions offer dashboards, reporting, real-time data, and business intelligence you can use to help make better decisions for your company.
Versatility. Service desk technology should be able to handle individual accounts as well as make bulk updates and changes when needed, like auto-resolving related requests.
Integrations. Does your organization already use warranty check software and other third-party solutions? A service desk that integrates with them means smoother implementation.
ITIL Practices. A service desk that uses best practices can be trusted.
ITSM Capability. This especially goes for large or growing companies.
Whether your organization is small or large, we have the right Help Desk/ Service Desk with advanced capabilities that can grow with your organization . BOSSDesk is a highly-ranked integrated ITIL service solution noted for its ease of use and customizability. With U.S.-based support and affordable pricing, organizations can meet all their Help desk, Service desk, and ITSM needs in one place.