In these fast times, it is a must for businesses in the technological services industry organizations to implement best practices for a service desk to address IT-related issues. This service enables customers, clients or business partners, and even employees, to direct their questions to an expert who can address their concerns.
The service desk could be organized in-house, but that could take away from the organization’s focus on mission-critical activities. A good option is to outsource a service desk to an external service provider that has years of solid experience and expertise of seasoned professionals.
What is the Service Desk?
In the IT environment, a service desk refers to the support for various IT-related products and offerings. It is a strategic function of the company’s IT team that is tasked to deliver end-to-end solutions, especially in enterprises with a massive customer support operation.
The service desk is part of a systematic IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework that helps nurture customer relations, manage risks and build a stable and organized IT environment for the company.
As the main point of contact for all IT-related concerns, the service desk connects the customers, business partners, and employees to ensure that the smooth flow of operations, and that any issue that arises is promptly addressed. It is used to manage client- and internal-related IT functions such as network and system operations, and as well as database and security management.
While the end goal remains to be customer satisfaction, a service desk also responds to internal incidents such as network loss to avoid downtime.
Service Desk and Help Desk
‘Service desk’ and ‘help desk’ are terms typically interchanged. However, these are two different entities when taken in the context of IT. A service desk is essential in the management of overall IT functionalities and implements a cross-organizational perspective. A help desk, on the other hand, is focused on answering customer needs and could be just a one component of the service desk.
It might be confusing, the important thing to note is that the service desk is created as a part of a comprehensive IT services delivery and support ecosystem rather than just focusing on one core function.
Lastly, a service desk provides proactive solutions, while a help desk is mainly reactive and dependent on the client query.
Best Service Desk Practices
An effective service desk can do wonders for any business. Since it can handle both service requests and incident reports, the service desk needs to apply the best practices to integrate business processes, solve issues promptly, and offer a wide selection of service capabilities.
Automating Processes
End-users sometimes complain about their service requests taking too long to be completed. Most of these requests are repetitive and routine and would take up much time and effort to solve unless the service desk implements automation in such services.
Automation is a key component in the IT environment today. Reducing the burden on the IT team involves automating several processes of lesser importance. It effectively hastens the workflow by completing repetitive requests promptly, allowing the IT department to focus more on core business processes that have a bigger strategic value.
Establishing a Knowledge Base
An effective service desk should be able to provide a self-service resolution to the least complex and urgent queries through a robust knowledge base. It includes frequently asked questions (FAQ), articles and comprehensive technical documentation that the support staff can easily retrieve to assist special requests or queries.
A knowledge base helps keep an accessible record of every important documentation relating to the company’s services. It also helps deliver consistent support and improve customer satisfaction.
Developing an Efficient Onboarding Process
Customers want their solutions fast and easy, and a valuable service desk can deliver just that. An important part of the service is ensuring that all data necessary to complete the request are obtained, such as the client account and needs assessment, to guarantee that specific solutions are provided to them.
A service desk ticketing system can help improve the onboarding process. It aids in categorizing requests and managing transaction volume, which is very useful, especially for businesses that receive several hundred queries addressed to different departments.
Real-time Reporting
Reports are made to track important metrics like ticket volume, support staff response time, and more. It also helps measure customer satisfaction, which can be used as a basis for any improvements in the service that a company needs to undertake.
Reporting functionality can measure the service desk efficiency and determine whether specific goals are satisfactorily met.
All Your Support Needs from One Provider
A service desk goes beyond the limitations of technical support to provide end-to-end solutions for clients. At NST, we ensure that the IT-related service requests and incidents are properly tackled and resolved in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner. Send us a message today to know how we can help you.