Help Desk v/s Service Desk

Well! Knowing about the difference between a Help Desk and a Service Desk? Or It is just been a matter of semantics which had a wider effect on our Organizations Strategy and Approach?  

You would be amazed to know about this fact that, these particular terms have a lot of points of view and interpretations. According to my personal perspective, it is a bit of both the facts mentioned above. So moving ahead with this fact, I would be writing over this post, reflecting few of their similarities and differences, helping you to determine which one you should opt for your organization suiting to your needs best…

I too have a question over this that, Why do these two terms keep on getting tossed now and then? That’s because of the diversity in the nature of the Organizations nowadays… keeping in mind about their users and the kind of services they provide. As, I am addressing the professionals of IT background, who might have been in this field for 20 or 20+ years and they would have encountered with such words. IT Infrastructure Library is been circumvented to the people of organizations, thus the terminologies are been widely used and are been adopted by several which has led to the increment of the expectations among end user’s as the social web and mobile devices have become a trend…

Now, coming over the distinction between the two terms… Help Desk & Service Desk, it is pretty clear on the basis of what an organization interprets followed by the guidelines of ITIL. Backing this statement, I would also be very eminent about this fact that there is no such hard or fast rule that makes these organization obliged for the use of these terms to the best of its practice. As it completely depends on the standards of a particular organization which may include its level IT complexities in meeting the deadlines of the business and the needs of the customers.

Well, now the time has come to flash off the light over the definition of these two terms… stating over with some good examples to make it really easy for you folks to understand it pretty well!

 Help Desk:

It is typically been focused on the end users sudden incidents, needs and technical issues they might be facing thus, helping them sort those smoothly. Basically, it is a minute part of a Service Desk that coordinates in the enhancement of Client Services provided by a particular organization. Thus, the ultimate goal of the Help Desk is to solve out the issues faced by the end users and respond to them as soon as possible.

Listing down the few traits of the Help Desk as below:

• It is a SPOC for an IT Support
• Uses a tracking solution for incoming incidents
• It automates the functioning of the routers, E-Mail notifications, and ticket tracking
• Base for the Problem Management and Incident Management
• Collaborates with other IT Services Management Processes
• Few of the functioning’s are been reinforced by the specialty group outside of the Help Desk system
• Providing with the Level 1 and Level 2 Support thus, passing over the ownership of the incident if escalation is required
• Providing the procedure for escalation and problem resolution
• Management of the Knowledge Base
• Permitting the option for the end users of Self-Service
• Adhering to Service Level Agreements

Service Desk:

Talking about the Service Desk of an organization, it is been the broader for organizational strategies and approaches. This desk is been involved in focusing on the resolving down the problems being faced by the organization’s end user or clients for the enhanced version of the business. As per the definition mentioned in ITIL, it is a SPOC for Users and the Services. Typically, Service Desk involves in the management of the incidents and Service Requests, and also be in contact with the End Users. Thus, it takes over the charge of the entire sector for improving the IT and Business Processes across the organization, searching for an opportunity for all IT processes making it functional efficiently…

Stating few of the traits of Service Desk:

• End-to-End integration of other IT Service Management processes
• It acts as a SPOC for all applications/business processes and IT areas
• Committing on few of the operations like integrating with, providing input to and disseminating information from Change Management, Configuration Management, Release Management and Problem Management
• Helping out with the organizational complaints with Service Level Management agreements
• Providing the facilities like Service Catalogs or Self-Service
• Integrating with CMDB, Asset Discovery, and Asset Management

Well, now I hope that all the conflicts that were there regarding these two words might have washed-off!!!

It was great discussing these terminologies which are been used frequently in organizations.

Cheers!