At their most basic, help desks are resources where employees can request and receive assistance with IT-related problems, particularly in regard to products, services, in-house tools, platforms, and devices. In some businesses, a help desk may be as simple as a single experienced employee with a deep understanding of relevant technologies and the solutions to common problems. In larger, more-established businesses, help desks may consist of teams of experts backed by dedicated software tools designed to help track and analyze IT issues as they arise.
An internal help desk provides support to employees within an organization. It is primarily focused on resolving technical issues, offering software assistance, and troubleshooting hardware malfunctions. Internal help desks improve employee productivity by providing fast and easy support for internal IT users.
External help desks serve customers outside the organization. The main goal of these kinds of help desks is to assist customers with inquiries or issues related to products or services. Support is typically provided through multiple channels, including phone, email, live chat, and social media. These help desks are critical for maintaining a positive customer experience, as they handle everything from product setup to troubleshooting technical issues.
A hybrid help desk combines elements of both internal and external support. It often includes in-house staff for employee support, while outsourcing customer service functions to third-party providers. A hybrid model is especially useful for companies needing to scale support operations while maintaining a balance between internal and external resources.
Automated help desks use artificial intelligence (such as AI agents or AI chatbots) and automation tools to streamline responses to routine inquiries. Through self-service portals, virtual assistants, and automated ticketing systems, these help desks reduce the burden on live agents by handling frequent, repetitive tasks such as password resets and common troubleshooting requests. Automation allows organizations to provide 24/7 support while improving efficiency and reducing operational costs.
An outsourced help desk delegates support tasks for employees and customers to a third-party provider. This approach allows companies to access specialized expertise without the need to build an in-house team. Outsourcing can be a cost-effective solution for businesses looking to offer high-quality support without significant investments in personnel and infrastructure. This is a popular approach for startups and small businesses, which may lack the resources to maintain a dedicated help desk.
Help desks bring together different support channels into a single, unified location. A help desk application can seamlessly transfer customers from one channel to another without interrupting the conversation. Support channels include a service portal, virtual agents, mobile applications, integration with common collaboration tools, and a walk-up experience for in-person conversations.
If IT agents are using personal inboxes to handle emails, there is a lack of visibility into what they are saying, if they are saying the right thing, and how many cases they are handling. Help desks can gather essential information to help track agent growth and productivity, and give you the data you need to help improve your support services mean time to resolution (MTTR).
Tagging and analytics software provide insights into what is important to your employees and customers, based on their past interactions. You can see a clear overview of their needs and wants, allowing you to create a more-personalized support experience. Reliable customer awareness also provides you with actionable insights into your own product, services, and tools.
Although live-agent IT support options are valuable, there are many customers who would rather find solutions on their own. Help desks backed by a comprehensive knowledge base give these employees and customers the answers they want to self-solve their issues anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
Help desk automation allows teams to automate mundane, repetitive tasks. This may include communicating with employees, alerting agents or specific teams, and assigning incidents to the correct resolution teams.
Even with the world’s most-advanced technologies at your fingertips, at the end of the day, the success of your help desk will depend heavily on how well your IT support agents interact with employees. Staff your help desk with individuals who not only demonstrate IT aptitude and expertise, but who also have the interpersonal skills to patiently work with employees to resolve issues.
Omnichannel ticketing systems support a help desk as they track, prioritize, manage, respond to, organize, and resolve IT cases. When a user submits a support ticket, a record is created to allow a support team to monitor its resolution progress from beginning to end. This record helps multiple agents to collaborate on solving the issue, while giving IT managers a comprehensive overview of the support experience. When deployed and managed correctly, a strong ticketing system can result in faster incident resolutions and reveal opportunities to improve the service experience for users.
Issue trackers allow an IT help desk to record issues, bugs, or errors that customers experience within a software product. This allows IT support agents, managers, and engineers to track the issue until it has been resolved while also providing timely update notifications to employees who are waiting for answers.
Help desks gather valuable data on services, operations, and employee/customer satisfaction while providing insights into the performance of the IT team members. This analytical data can provide essential insights for improving your services and your business. Performance analytics enable stakeholders, including workers, owners, and executives, responsible for service delivery to make smarter, real-time decisions. These analytics empower users with data visualizations to anticipate trends, prioritize resources, and drive IT alignment with business goals.
On-staff experts are there to handle difficult IT issues and help workshop unique solutions. However, if they spend all their time resetting passwords or fulfilling common service requests, they are not providing the best value to your business. Self-service options empower customers to find solutions to common problems on their own, without having to loop in a live dedicated IT support agent. This can include searching for knowledge articles with answers to common requests or interacting with a conversational AI agent that can provide accurate recommendations using business data.
Employee/customer feedback can be built into a help desk interaction. When an issue is resolved, the help desk can send an automated survey to the employee/customer, asking them to provide feedback on their service experience. This feedback is important for IT departments looking to improve the quality of service they provide.
Although most help desks provide the same basic service, no two businesses are going to demand the exact same functionality from their help desks. As such, there is no out-of-the-box, one-size-fits-all help desk solution. Instead, help desks must be customizable, integrating apps, artificial intelligence,and automation where needed, to better serve employees and customers.
As a business grows and their support needs become more complex, help desks may need to adopt best practices to maintain efficiency and deliver high-quality service. As you consider your approach to IT help desk support, be sure to:
- Encourage cross-team collaboration
Ensure that help desk teams can work seamlessly with other departments, especially when handling complex issues that require input from multiple groups. Clearly define team roles, responsibilities, and processes to ensure that communication is efficient and that incidents are resolved faster. - Provide specialized training
Equip help desk agents with industry-specific training and soft skills such as cultural sensitivity and effective communication. This ensures that agents can better understand customer needs, handle diverse clientele, and deliver more personalized and accurate support. - Use artificial intelligence (AI) and automation for efficiency
Automate repetitive tasks like ticket assignment, common issue resolution, and status updates. Use AI, machine learning, and generative AI (GenAI) to identify performance trends, auto-generate incident resolution notes, and create knowledge articles. This frees up help desk agents to focus on more complex or high-priority requests, improving overall service quality and reducing response times. - Offer self-service options
Build a comprehensive knowledge base and self-service portal that allows users to resolve simple issues on their own. This reduces the workload on agents and gives customers the flexibility to find solutions independently, even outside of regular business hours. - Implement clear escalation procedures
Ensure that agents know when and how to escalate issues to higher-level support or other departments. Well-defined escalation processes prevent delays in resolving more complex problems and help maintain service quality. - Continuously gather and analyze feedback
Regularly collect employee and customer feedback on help desk performance. Use this data to identify trends, address recurring issues, and make data-driven decisions that improve the overall service experience.
Small and mid-sized businesses rely on exceptional customer care to help them stand out from competitors. This includes answering questions, handling phone calls, and fulfilling special requests with a level of commitment that goes above and beyond. A reliable help desk system will support this functionality and scale with your small company as it expands.
Larger organizations need faster collaboration between teams—especially those outside of IT support. It can be easy for requests to get lost between multiple teams. The faster and more aligned the IT services team is with the rest of your organization , the better you can serve your employees and customers.
When customers receive fast resolutions to IT-related issues, they are more satisfied with the services delivered. This satisfaction leads to customer loyalty, repeat business, and eventually increased revenue.
Every second your employees are scratching their heads trying to figure out solutions to IT problems is a second that they are not working toward growing your business or assisting customers. But more than that, having the support of an effective help desk demonstrates your commitment to employee success, leading to improved satisfaction and engagement.
While there are many different equations for business success, satisfied customers and engaged employees are certainly essential factors. The right help desk helps you retain valued customers and skilled staff, so that you can grow your business.
While help desk agents often have a foundational knowledge of IT, they may not be experts in every issue. Their primary role is to deliver quality customer service and direct complex problems to the appropriate specialist, ensuring a fast and smooth resolution process.
Providing detailed descriptions of issues is essential for quick resolutions. Vague or incomplete information can lead to unnecessary delays and additional communication, slowing down the resolution process. A clear problem description allows agents to address the issue more effectively.
Every support request, regardless of size, should have a ticket. Tickets provide a record that helps agents track progress and review past resolutions. They also ensure that no issues slip through the cracks and help teams analyze recurring problems.
A help desk is not a service desk; though similar, they serve different functions.
IT help desks are more tactical and focused on helping employees resolve their IT issues. An IT help desk can be separate from a service desk or be part of the overall service desk solution. Some traits of help desks include:
- Providing level 1 and 2 support
- Escalating incident ownership up the ladder (if needed)
- Displaying self-service options
- Handling basic incident request management
- Offering configuration and knowledge management
- Acting as a single point of contact for IT support
Service desks are broader in function, more strategic and cross-organizational. They address larger business needs rather than solely focusing on the needs of an employee. Typically, service desks do have a help desk component, but it is part of the larger goal of proactively improving IT and business processes across your organization. Some traits include:
- Fully integrating with IT service management (ITSM) processes
- Acting as a single point of contact for all IT areas
- Tracking compliance with service level agreements (SLAs)
- Providing self-service capabilities with an integrated service catalog
- Integrating and communicating with the configuration management database (CMDB)
Today’s AI-driven systems can now automate many foundational help-desk processes, including ticket creation, categorization, escalation, and self-service. AI agents can interact autonomously with its environment to gather data, make decisions, and perform tasks. It can provide context for a help desk agent to determine the best course of action to resolve an incident, use NLP and NLU to handle complex self-service requests, and leverage GenAI to auto-generate incident summaries and knowledge articles. As these technologies advance, help desks will continue to evolve, offering smarter, more proactive support and significantly improving operational efficiency.
As you prepare to implement your help desk solution, keep these considerations in mind:
- What will the help desk deliver?
A help desk usually receives basic requests and provides help resolving issues, but it can also be a more centralized location for managing customer service and building a knowledge base. The scope of your help desk is completely up to you and should fit the needs of your business. - How much staff will you need?
Although AI, automation, and other technologies can take you a long way, you will still need dedicated experts to help staff your help desk and provide essential insights. As you evaluate your help desk options, keep in mind just how many employees you will need to hire, train, or reassign to make it work. - What are your priorities?
Categorize, prioritize, and assign tickets based on business requirements. Consider service level agreements with customers and how you will use technology to fulfill those SLAs. - What are your goals?
Not all organizations need the same type of software. Consider your needs and the size of the software and whether it offers the proper scope of features to help you achieve your business objectives.
For in-person support, ServiceNow’s Walk-up Experience streamlines face-to-face IT service with online check-ins, real-time queue estimates, and automated notifications. Employees can easily schedule appointments, track wait times, and receive reminders through an easy-to-use, mobile-friendly self-service portal. Integrated dashboards, inventory tracking, and incident automation further enhance technician efficiency, ensuring a seamless support experience.
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