What Is A Help Desk ? – Types, Functions, Features, Objectives

Table of Content

• Meaning of Help Desk
• Types of Help Desks
• Features of Help Desk
• Functions of a Help Desk
• Objectives For a Successful Help Desk

In this fast-paced world, both employees and customers expect impeccable support experiences. So organizations, big or small, uphold an IT help desk that works as a single point of contact for the employees. These internal desks provide support and fix all hardware, software, and network-related issues in the organization.

Furthermore, Statistics say 60 percent of customers make a purchase decision on getting a quick resolution to an inquiry. So technology vendors provide help desk support to their customers. It works as a customer satisfaction measure. And most times, companies integrate customer support desks with CRM software.

The term helpdesk refers to a centralized support system in an organization. Its related terms are service desk, customer service center, IT service desk outsourcing, etc. These terms may differ on specific functioning, but the ultimate goal of each is to provide support to the employees and customers.

A help desk can have diverse scopes regarding size and functions. It may be a physical desk with a support person taking calls. On the other hand, many global helpdesk outsourcing companies take online support requests from across the globe.

Help desk outsourcing can benefit companies of all types and sizes, from multinational organizations to small businesses. The outsourcing company can support millions of other businesses on behalf of you or answer customer queries quickly.

The prime benefit of help desks is in reducing downtime in IT services. It especially focuses on user functionality and is liable for delays in solving any technical issues faced by end-users. So any basic functioning help desk must be able to provide technical support to help an end-user continue working.

A successful help desk service team needs the required tools and software. It will help them record, track and manage issues promptly. So before you decide on hiring a help desk support team, let’s go inside.

Organizations customize the help desk functions as per the business requirement. However, in general, we can categorize them as below:

1. Web or Cloud Help Desks

It operates completely online, enabling organizations to respond to customer requests from anywhere, anytime, while the staffs work remotely.

2. Physical Help Desks

It operates in a physical location with a team taking calls from users and providing IT support.

3. Enterprise Help Desks

Large organizations hire both online and physical helpdesks, also known as enterprise helpdesks.

4. Open Source Help Desks

These are open-source software designed to be accessible to anyone who wants to raise an issue.

• Tracking capacity for all incoming events
• Working as a Single Point of Contact while providing IT support
• Offering basic problem management like issue escalation methods
• Having outside specialty staff for higher-degree issues
• Focusing on incidents and issues of end-users
• Cooperative and easy to use
• Managing a database of all recorded incidents and measures taken
• Capability to create monthly, half-yearly and annual reports on the number of issues, response time, and issue resolving time.
• Integrating the parameters into a Service Level Agreement

Most organizations manage customer service by deploying a help desk team. Some also opt for help desk support outsourcing to ensure better customer service. Here is how a help desk works.

• The user can raise a ticket through help desk management software.
• They can also contact the help desk team via phone, email, or live chat to register the complaint/request. The team will create a ticket on behalf of the user.

• The help desk team will get notifications about the ticket via email, push notifications, or SMS.
• A ticket will be assigned automatically or manually to a technician based on the rules set by the management.
• Tickets are assigned based on the required skill set and availability of a technician

• The technician assigned to the ticket will attempt to fix the issue.
• He may interact with the user by mailing answers and updates to the ticket
• He may also ask the user for more information
• In case of a critical issue, the technician may escalate the ticket to another team/agent
• After the issue is solved, the technician reports the user of the same
• The technician then scores the ticket as closed or resolved.
• Depending on the type of the ticket, the entire resolution process may be posted to the knowledge library for future reference.

Now you know the functions of a help desk. So let’s discuss some KPIs for a successful help desk:

Average Resolution Time:

It measures the average time it takes to resolve a user query.

First Contact:

It is the time taken by your help desk team to send a response acknowledging the user’s request.

Cost Per Ticket:

It is a vital help desk metric that measures the average costs involved in fixing an issue.

SLA Compliance Rate:

The SLA compliance rate is the rate of IT issues that are fixed within the decided parameters upon SLA.

Customer Satisfaction:

It is one of the most crucial help desk KPIs. You can measure customer satisfaction by enabling your customers to rate your services. They can provide feedback on their experience during interaction with your help desk.

The significance of the help desk is enormous for your business. It not only resolves IT-related issues but also smoothens the whole business process. An IT help desk help save cost and time by enhancing both employee and customer satisfaction. So you can invest more time in productive work.

How a Help Desk can Help Your Business?

A help desk fixes IT-related issues for end-users. It offers support when an issue occurs in the organization or a customer reaches out to seek assistance.

Does the Help Desk Provide Customer Service?

An internal help desk support team solves IT issues for employees in an organization. They provide support in installing updates or fixing software issues.
On the other hand, the external help desk team focuses on serving customers by providing them with IT-related support.