ITIL Service Desk Overview
To achieve their IT service support and associated business objectives many organisations have adopted the Service Desk approach. This provides a central point of contact for handling customer and user issues along with others related to IT service provision.
Customers and users call the Service Desk when an Incident occurs or when they have a query or issue. The Service Desk provides a single contact point for Customers and Users and is there to log, track and manage any issues that are brought to its attention. It will normally use software or Service Management Tools to support its activities, as a paper-based approach is usually impractical in all but the smallest of organisations. It will typically provide first level IT service support and accurate management reports on various aspects of IT service provision (including Incident and Problem Management statistics).
The Service Desk will provide immediate feedback for severe and business critical Incidents, or daily, weekly monthly feedback as required. The Incident, Problem and ITIL Change Management lifecycles can also be co-ordinated or driven through the front line of the Service Desk.
Anyone in the organisation should be able to log an Incident at any time. The first impressions of Customers, Users and management of the service provided by the Service Desk could include:
Clearly improves the quality of the IT service provision
Effective in resolving queries, Incidents and Problems
A point of human contact that is seen as knowledgeable and capable
Provides timely responses to queries, Incidents and Problems as defined in SLAs
Provides reliable information that improves staff confidence and reduces conflicts
Gives the impression that the business is making the best use of its IT Services
It is essential to have the ability to log the Incidents in a central database or integrated Service Management Tool as this reduces duplication of effort and provides the ability to easily track and update events. This provides an audit trail speeds resolution and updates to Customers and Users. Management Information and reporting are also critical outputs from the tool. This enables factual based decisions to be made by Senior Management regarding the improvement of Service provision.
Some of the key objectives for a successful Service Desk are:
Service is focused on customers and users
Information is held centrally
Information is used for auditing and reporting
Generating statistics to assist reporting and planning
Reducing the number of calls through analysis and training
Service seen as being cost-effective
Faster incident resolution
Improved skill levels supporting IT services
Improved IT services and better resilience
Information available to allow preventive measures to be developed