What is an IT Service Desk?

Information and network technologies are firmly anchored in a company’s modern production and management processes. Without information technology, no information flows, no business processes, and no operations. There are hardly any companies that can do without IT or network communication when performing their tasks. Failures or malfunctions of operating components such as software, hardware, and networks represent a serious problem. Such problems must not only be identified, analyzed, and remedied in good time, but must also be noticed in the future and avoided as far as possible.

Many companies have their own complex IT infrastructure, the continuous, reliable, and unbroken operation of which is a prerequisite for employees to be able to perform their tasks on IT workstations and for the company to perform its basic functions.

Maintaining a normal working condition of the IT and network infrastructure, including software and hardware components, is one of the core functions of a company. The IT department needs tools and personnel to analyze fault statistics, monitor the functions of IT services, and identify and eliminate faults in a good time.
 

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Definition of Service Desk

An IT service desk is both a service and an IT-based information system for the technical support of users and the solution of computer, hardware, software, or network problems.

The customer inquiries, error or fault reports received from the service desk by telephone, e-mail, or company portal are registered as tickets in the information system and either answered immediately if an immediate solution is possible, or, in more complex cases, assigned to a responsible Service Desk employee responsible for solving such problems in the respective service area for further processing.
 

Tasks

As part of incident management, service desk systems offer:

• A contact person for establishing contact, registering support inquiries, and support
• Standard methods for optimal assignment of tasks of an opened ticket to a service desk employee
• Control over work progress, progress, status, time and resources
• Prioritization of inquiries depending on their type, criticality and impact on operations
• Escalation of critical incidents and notification of the responsible administrators
• Analysis and storage of the information about the fault in the central knowledge database, so that specialists can either avoid similar problems in the future or solve them quickly
• Automated reporting on the opened and closed tickets, the current status of the support requests, the measures taken, and the resources that were required to process and resolve the respective problem

 

Examples of tasks

The most common tasks are processing and resolving incidents. An incident is a deviation that exceeds the permissible level of normal performance. Incidents include malfunctions, for example, system/network malfunctions, and failures that lead to the interruption of important functions and turn out to be serious obstacles to IT operations.

Requests routed to the service desk include request or configuration-related service requests to support applications and system functions, as well as requests for a system change, such as the installation of new hardware or software.
 

Features and Benefits

With the help of a service desk, the relationship between customers, and users on the one hand, and the IT service provider on the other is formalized and automated. The expected service level (e.g. response time to inquiries, response time for executing inquiries, type, and quality of the implemented solutions) is compared with the services actually provided. This information can be used to optimize support costs and to balance the size of the IT department with the volume of tasks and workload.
 

Components

The components of a service desk system include the following modules:

• Ticket system (for registering new tickets)
• Knowledge database (with processed problems and provided solutions)
• Workflow (task tracking and monitoring, notifications)
• SLA control (Service Level Agreement)
• Administration (consideration of working hours, checking of workload and the quality of work, assignment and configuration of rights)
• Reporting and statistics

Some service desk tools offer API integration functions for bundling the functions of the service desk with other administration tools, web services, and intranet portals.
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Change processes

The information obtained is used for error analysis and for taking the necessary corrective measures. The service desk can identify the need for change in incoming inquiries and thus point out bottlenecks and weak points in the IT infrastructure. You can thus perform a general check of the IT equipment and obtain information about whether the company has the necessary IT equipment that is sufficient to solve the tasks and meets the requirements for service quality.
 

Benefits

• The customer receives a quick professional solution to their technical problem after contacting the support team.
• The support team focuses on important tasks that lead to the solution of the customer’s problem. The service desk system contains all functions for processing inquiries and provides all useful information.
• The interaction with customers (workflow) is reduced, optimized, and automated. The system contains a large number of templates and functions, sorts requests/tickets according to their priority, and sends notifications to service desk employees and customers.
• Detailed work reports and statistics reflect the effectiveness of the implemented solutions and the resources used for them. This makes it possible to automatically measure and compare performance and identify the most productive employees.

Differences between Service Desk and Help Desk?

The help desk/call center is referred to as the general term of the IT customer support and care service. The service desk is a company-wide, cross-functional IT infrastructure service. It aims at IT service management and deals with the organization, administration, operation, and security of various IT services.

The main task of the service desk is to maintain and secure the stability and quality of the IT infrastructure, IT services, and company networks. Although the functions of the help desk and service desk are largely interchangeable, a help desk designed for user assistance only provides a subset of the tasks that a service desk does.
 

Conclusion

The service desk is an efficient method for solving current IT-relevant technical problems and supports employees who are confronted with such problems. As an IT infrastructure service of the company, the service desk is set up on the basis of a service desk system and enables you to identify problem areas in the IT infrastructure, eliminate IT malfunctions and failures in good time, and improve the effectiveness of IT, and evaluate the effectiveness of the IT department and IT solutions.

Using an automated service desk system simplifies the workflow, integrates the relevant components, ensures timely execution of tasks, and provides management with the ability to monitor service performance and control the work. For a manager, the service desk is the best way to assess whether the stability and quality of the IT infrastructure are in order, how satisfied the customers are with the IT solutions, and what still needs to be improved.
 

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