Operational and support services for IT demands are an essential part of the functioning of any business. Today, we will learn a little more about the service desk and how it can help you, or your company, make a difference in the market.

ITSM x ITIL x Service Desk

Before talking about service desk, it is important to remember two important concepts: ITSM and ITIL:

  • ITSM (Information Technology Service Management) or IT service management is the set of strategies, processes and activities used to design, plan, deliver and control the entire life cycle of IT services. ITSM does not just cover processes, but software resources and their integrations, necessary to carry out activities more efficiently, aligned with customer needs, aiming to guarantee the services provided, which largely depends on well-founded strategic planning;
  • ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is the framework for operationalizing ITSM most used today.
  • Conforme veremos a seguir, service desk é uma parte importante da gestão de serviços de TI (ITSM), podendo ser implementado de acordo com as boas práticas do ITIL.

What is a service desk?

The purpose of the service desk practice is to capture demands for resolving incidents and service requests. It should also be the service provider’s point of entry and single point of contact with all users. ITIL Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition, AXELOS, 2019.

In other words, a service desk is the main point of engagement between an IT organization and its internal users or customers for problem solving and service delivery.

By relying on a service center, the company is able to manage incidents (service interruptions), service requests (routine service-related tasks), in addition to being able to handle communications with users. Thus, it is able to clearly inform interruptions and planned changes to services, aiming to optimize them.

What is your main objective?

The main objective of the service desk is to ensure that users receive appropriate help in a timely manner.

Therefore, to achieve this objective, it can be presented in two ways, let’s see:

Local Service (on-site)

It occurs when the service team is able to solve problems locally, traveling to the user’s workstation or the department involved to solve the problem.

Some companies may prefer to rely on their own internal teams or choose to hire service providers to carry out this task on-site. If you choose to outsource the service, the contracted company is generally located in the same establishment as the client. This way, he can provide a more agile, exclusive and higher quality service.

Virtual Service (remote)

In some cases, depending on the company’s location or with a view to reducing operational costs, users may be instructed to contact service desk analysts through an electronic request known as a call or ticket.

Upon receiving this request, the analyst handles the request, being able to get in touch to answer questions via telephone, audio or video conference or even perform remote access to the client’s machine (with the client’s authorization), to carry out diagnoses or implement changes in settings. This is only possible through remote access technologies, which allow screen sharing directly from the user’s terminal or via a server on the network.

Service access levels and appropriate security protocols must be established in advance in order to prevent unauthorized access by hackers through social engineering strategies.

Some services can also be performed automatically. Self-service and IT process automation are increasingly common, providing faster and more efficient responses at a lower cost. For example, imagine that you need access to a certain application. After creating this request, it can automatically generate the approval request from your manager and after approval, access release, without the need for manual processes (which can often cause additional problems).

It is worth remembering that in many cases, companies have both local teams (or those that travel to the client) and remote teams, which deal with different types of issues or demands.

Service Desk x Help Desk

The service desk can be seen as an evolution of the help desk. While the help desk basically works as technical support by resolving simpler technical issues and answering questions, the service desk acts a layer above.

According to the most accepted definitions, the help desk focuses on resolving incidents, break-fixing and dealing with doubts. This is called the first level of support, which resolves simpler demands and directs more complex requests to the second, more specialized level.

The service desk, in addition to responding to incidents, is also responsible for service requests, incident management, knowledge base and process monitoring.

However, the concepts are often confused. It is common for companies to also use other names to designate the same thing. Therefore, don’t be surprised if a help desk functions as a service desk and vice versa, or the service desk is simply called support.

What does the service desk provide?

As we have already seen, the implementation of a service desk provides a differentiated layer in providing solutions to users. However, what other benefits does it present? Let’s see next.

Qualified support

By relying on specialized analysts, support deliveries are much more in-depth and the service offered is not just problem solving, but user awareness and education.

Constant communication with the user

By having more qualified information about certain operations, users feel more confident. Thus, a curious movement occurs: they start requesting support not only to solve problems, but also to anticipate them or to be able to use advanced features of the tools they are using.

Productivity increase

By reducing the learning curve for mastering certain tools, users become much more productive and mature in conducting processes.

Standardization of responses and solutions

This domain implies the standardization of the processes used through the creation of a Q&A (Questions & Answers) capable of serving both new and senior users.

Monitoring and establishing KPIs

Through the standardization of processes, it is possible to create KPIs (key performance indicators) to monitor the entire technological infrastructure, quality and costs of services and user satisfaction.

Process improvement and proactive support

By monitoring the indicators, the team can identify areas for improvement and take proactive actions. For example, by analyzing incidents, common causes can be discovered and the team can act to resolve it. It is increasingly common to use artificial intelligence and IoT (internet of things) to identify patterns and act even before the problem occurs. The most advanced software for Customer Service and ITSM has several features that can help a lot in this regard.

Conclusion

Therefore, knowing a little more about the service desk can help you and your company gain powerful insights into improvements that can be implemented in the processes of delivering solutions to your users. And if you want to know more information about how to stand out in the technological world, subscribe to our newsletter.