The Service Desk
Introduction and Objectives
Increasingly often customers require a high quality, efficient support service 24 hours a day, regardless of their geographical location.
In order for the business to be able to develop properly it is essential that customers and users perceive themselves to be receiving a rapid and customised service that helps them by:
- Resolving service interruptions rapidly.
- Raising service requests.
- Reporting on compliance with the SLAs.
- Being the first port of call for sales information.
The point of contact with the customer may take various forms, depending on the breadth and depth of the services offered:
- Call Centre: The aim is to manage a high volume of calls and redirect users (except in trivial cases) to other levels of support and/or sales.
- The Help Desk: Its main objective is to provide a first line of supporting resolving service interruptions as quickly as possible.
- The Service Desk: This is customers' and users' interface with the whole range of IT services offered by the organisation focusing on business processes. Apart from offering the services mentioned above, it provides customers, users and the IT organisation itself additional services such as:
- Supervising maintenance and service level contracts.
- Channeling customers' Service Requests.
- Software licence management.
- Centralising all the processes associated with IT management.
The main benefits of implementing an effective Service Desk include:
- Reducing costs by ensuring efficient allocation of resources.
- Better customer care, leading to greater satisfaction and loyalty.
- Opening up new business opportunities.
- Centralising of processes improving communication and information management.
- Proactive service support.
