What Is The Proper Name For Desktop Support Services

What is a assistance desk-bound?

A assist desk-bound is the individual, grouping, organizational office or external service that an Information technology user calls to go aid with a problem. A aid desk tin can be every bit uncomplicated as a concrete desk-bound where a support person takes calls. Information technology besides can be a global arrangement that accepts support requests submitted online or in person from around the world. The help desk-bound function is often outsourced to back up specialists.

Typically, the term refers to centralized help provided to users within an enterprise. A related term is call eye, a place that customers call to place orders, rails shipments, become help with products and and so forth.

Some common names for a help desk-bound are the following:

estimator back up centre
IT response center
customer support centre
Information technology solutions middle
resource centre
information center
technical back up centre

About organizations of any size provide an Information technology help desk to support their employees and other internal users of computers, software and networks. These internal help desks mostly provide Information technology support for all It hardware, software and networking products in utilise in the organization.

Technology vendors also provide help desk support to their customer base of operations through customer back up help desks. These services are an of import function of technology vendors' client satisfaction efforts. They are oftentimes integrated with client human relationship direction, or CRM, systems.

diagram of the help desk event management process — Help desk-bound workflow for event management when using aid desk software

What does a help desk do?

In its simplest form, a help desk consists of a phone number and i person who can solve customer problems in real fourth dimension. This arroyo does not scale well, and so more than mature help desks incorporate back up teams of customer back up professionals who perform some or all the following functions:

Help request acceptance. Assist desk teams handle requests in real time that customers or other authorized users submit past email, telephone or messaging apps.
Ticket creation. Staff utilise assistance desk software to create help desk tickets that track client support When an initial telephone call tin't exist resolved immediately, help desk staff use the ticketing system to make sure customer requests are resolved in a timely fashion.
Ticket management . Either a person or software routes help tickets to the correct help desk-bound Help desk-bound ticketing software is designed to ensure that service requests are routed to the right service teams.
Response. Staff respond to client questions submitted in help desk tickets and resolve bug.
Escalation. When the customer support professional can't resolve a request, the side by side step is to route the ticket to another team member or escalate it to a adjacent tier level. Escalation of a ticket should only occur subsequently initially responding service desk staffers exhaust their own resources for solving a customer problem.

The assistance desk-bound tier system enables rapid escalation of more complex issues, while also resolving simpler tickets faster.
Knowledge base. Aid desk staff apply a help desk noesis base to discover whether a client outcome has already been identified and, if so, what the resolution was. Staff should exist able to add and update content in the knowledge base equally they uncover novel customer requests.

In larger companies, a help desk may consist of a customer service team. This is a grouping of experts that uses help desk-bound software to track the status of problems. They also use other special software to clarify problems and monitor issues such as the status of a company's telecommunication network.

Help desk-bound software is also used to rails client satisfaction and customer feel (CX).

Why are help desks of import?

Technology vendors' aid desks are critical for customer satisfaction. Many vendors view the help desk as the primary betoken of contact for end users. The quality of customer interaction can determine how satisfied the customer is.

Help desks that provide internal technical back up are critical for organizational effectiveness. A good assistance desk-bound tin can boost productivity by resolving bones issues quickly, while escalating unusual and unique issues to the team or individual best qualified to resolve them.

Some functions of a good help desk are the following:

Centralized support channels. Skilful aid desks provide an entering aqueduct for support requests. They often accept a centralized gateway for back up through a aid desk hotline or website and keep assistance desk-bound workflows transparent for users.
Prioritization of response to client bug. Practiced help desks optimize response fourth dimension. They do this by monitoring central metrics, such equally how fast help desk staff respond to new tickets and how quickly tickets are resolved.
Identification of product bug. Properly performance help desks use metrics to track problems that are causing a lot of calls for help.
Customer interaction. A aid desk may be the principal style customers interact with a technology vendor. The all-time help desks provide a communication channel between the arrangement and users or customers.

Modern help desks can be expensive to set up and maintain, simply externally facing, customer service help desks are often an important role of an organization's marketing endeavor. Internally facing assistance desks tin also contribute to the arrangement'south bottom line by improving operating efficiency for all employees.

Types of help desks

While every help desk-bound is dissimilar, virtually fall into ane of the following four categories:

Web or cloud help desks operate entirely online. This enables organizations to distribute their staff and calculating resources and still exist able to answer to customer requests, no affair where they are.
On-premises help desks operate in a physical location.
Enterprise help desks operate in enterprises and other big organizations.
Open source assist desks are ones that either use open source software or are designed to be open and attainable to anyone, equally opposed to help desks with paywalls or other limitations on who can admission them.

To optimize aid desk functions, especially for improved CX, large organizations build out their help desk-bound function in ways that combine these different types of assistance desk-bound. This enables customers to accept admission to help functions over their preferred communication channels.

For case, some enterprises provide deject-based aid desks for global support. At the same fourth dimension, they also comprise on-premises aid centers in branch offices to provide immediate access to expertise, equally well as ordinarily requested hardware and software.

Some assist desks utilize automation to provide free or low-cost cocky-service back up. This type of help desk typically provides a self-service portal through which internal or external customers tin submit requests for mutual support tasks. Incoming requests are entered into the system, and automated ticket routing in the help desk system routes requests to the appropriate destination. Help desk systems often utilize automation for responses to mutual questions and to facilitate workflows and asset management.

Characteristics of a good assist desk

No matter the type of assist desk, the all-time help desk software products share the post-obit characteristics:

back up aid desk management functions;
provide a framework for inbound new tickets at the initial point of contact with the customer;
offering service management tools to monitor and manage allocation and completion of customer requests; and
provide routing capabilities for assigning issues to the team or person best suited to respond to them.

Assistance desks ultimately depend on the people who provide help to customers. While technical knowledge of supported products is important, a lack of knowledge tin easily be supplanted with training and a good knowledge base for the production line.

More than of import qualities for assistance desk staff include the following:

Active listening. Help desk staff communicating with customers or end users do best when they are good listeners, capable of staying tranquility while customers are speaking and asking the right questions.
Empathy. In most cases, customers only use the help desk when they are under the stress of not being able to do their jobs; no thing how trivial the solution, aid desk-bound staff with an empathetic way are nearly effective.
Curiosity. While information technology is not necessary -- or possible -- for a aid desk amanuensis to know everything most all supported products, agents must have a good sense of curiosity well-nigh how their support products work.
Patience. This skill tin can be more than important than production cognition for good CX.

These soft skills are more of import than technical noesis and technical skills. Gaps in knowledge can be easily remedied, but learning social interaction and other soft skills isn't as piece of cake.

List of help desk technician skills — Modernistic help desk technicians need to know more than just the technology they support.

How to choose a help desk platform

Information technology is difficult to imagine a modern help desk being run without software. Using help desk software enables organizations to implement their It service direction (ITSM) processes. ITSM is an important component of any assistance desk and should be based on the ITIL -- originally known every bit the IT Infrastructure Library -- all-time do framework.

Organizations utilize third-political party software designed to back up key help desk features, such as the following:

Ticket management. The key data unit in assistance desk-bound software is the support ticket or problem ticket. Ticket management is a help desk software feature that handles creation, modification and completion of these tickets.
Signal of contact. Good aid desk software can connect customers with the right person who tin resolve their upshot, while too maintaining an open aqueduct for teams.
Knowledge base. Aid desk agents are encouraged to document their tickets. Good help desk software provides a mechanism for creating and accessing this information through a knowledge base.
Automation. Assist desk automation can improve use of human resources, particularly for growing assistance desks where squad functioning is important. Bones tasks can be automatic through a help desk-bound front end that automates the ticket creation process or can be implemented to automate workflows and notifications, as well every bit accommodate staff availability.
Escalation. For most assistance desks, the showtime point of contact for the customer is a generalist support staffer who can answer elementary or basic questions. Help desk software should back up escalation of more complex issues to staffers with expertise in unlike areas.
Dashboards. Assistance desk software should provide dashboards, both for aid desk agents and managers. Dashboards give staff and managers a tool for tracking tickets and assessing operation of individual contributors.

A proficient assistance desk tin be a competitive advantage, but help desks are merely every bit adept as the people working in them. Learn the keys to building an efficient help desk staffing model for your system.

This was last updated in March 2022