For a layman, the terms help desk and service desk may seem similar, however, there is some difference between them. While service desk is responsible for providing ‘complete service as per request of the customer’, help desk is all about fixing a particular ‘issue’ (incident). Help desk was created to be IT-centric and service desk was formulated to be IT service-centric. This difference may lead you to believe that service desk is more important, however, in actuality, it is not the case. Both have their own place in the IT industry and prioritizing one over another would be foolish. This is why; underestimating the role of help desk support services is a mistake that you should never make.

How Help Desk Works?

Help desk acts as a point of contact between a customer and a company. A help desk commonly utilizes software like issue tracking systems and employ bug trackers for classifying customer problems into different brackets. The tracking system used by help desks ensure that end-user problems are categorized in a way that it becomes easier to respond to issues.

A help desk system utilizes a ticketing system. This system allows for the creation of tickets by customers, which are later addressed by the help desk team. Depending on the severity of the issues (tickets), they are escalated to the appropriate department for correct and timely resolution. The help desk system is essential for automating issue resolution process. It also helps in centralizing the information, which can be easily accessed by the help desk team at any time. Generally, the queries in a help desk support services are sent by e-mails; however, some time certain web-based platforms are also utilized by companies.

Why Help Desk is Important?

There are many advantages of help desk, which make it an automatic choice for a number of companies. Below are some of its benefits:

1. Help desks make multi-tasking simpler – If you address each single issue individually, it takes a lot of time. However, the ticketing system employed by help desks aggregates the issues and categorizes them according to their priority. Hence, it becomes simpler to identify common issues and provide a single solution that solves all problems. The delivery of solution (in the form of email) can be done in one go, saving time and effort.
2. Tracking of employees – As a help desk system tracks all the metrics, it makes it easier for a manager to view employees’ performance. If a manager views that a particular issue is better resolved by a certain employee, he can send similar tickets to that employee for quicker and better resolution. This can help in boosting the overall performance of a help desk team.
3. Helps in setting expectations of the customers – As help desk system is an integrated system, it allows for setting up of allocations and due dates with regards to the delivery of resolution. This helps in providing the customer a time frame, in which, his request will be resolved. Customers are always kept informed about their query (via timely email alerts), which helps in building up the trust level.

Role of Chat Support in Help Desk

Nowadays, help desks are automated systems that provide an efficient way to manage customer queries and complaints. They work well in resolving queries and keep the customers satisfied. However, if you feel that you are getting too many tickets for the simplest of problems, it is best to integrate live chat service into your help desk operations. This way you can solve simple queries through one or two responses, which will help you in cutting down the number of tickets. In case, you do not have infrastructure for housing a chat support team, it is best to outsource back office support services.